President-elect Joe Biden owes his election victory in large part to voters in Midwestern battleground states. Now he has a unique opportunity to deliver for Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other Midwestern states with a robust infrastructure agenda — a program that can contribute to our nation’s economic recovery, while also being responsive to the unique needs and opportunities of residents of Midwest communities.
This plan of action for what Biden and the new Congress can deliver — working in concert with state and local private and public leaders — is the focus of a new report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs titled, “Rebuilding the Midwest’s Infrastructure: Driving Equitable Economic Recovery in a World Reshaped by COVID-19.”
As we’ve written before, the Midwest has unique infrastructure-related needs and challenges.
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The region is home to some of the nation’s oldest, most battered and, per capita, most expensive to repair infrastructure. It also hosts the greatest concentration of industrial relics, such as brownfields, and the most segregated cities suffering from a legacy of environmental racism, pollution and contamination.
Midwestern communities of color too often lack high-speed internet access and reliable and affordable transportation, which leaves them disconnected from jobs and learning opportunities, a condition made far worse in a new COVID-19-distanced economy.
Similarly, a large share of Midwestern rural reaches and small-town communities remain unplugged from today’s digital economy and the work and educational opportunities it affords.
Biden has pledged a $2 trillion green infrastructure agenda to rebuild the economy, create good jobs and radically transform our nation’s infrastructure to see the country lead the sustainability and clean energy revolutions. It is an infrastructure agenda that puts people to work repairing aging water and sewer systems, roads and highways; modernizes airports and public transportation systems for post-pandemic safety; and builds climate change-resilient infrastructure and extends high-speed internet access to every community.
This program would be particularly potent for the American Midwest, a region with a unique industry profile that made it among the hardest first hit by the pandemic-induced recession. In addition to creating needed good-paying new jobs, infrastructure building can stitch heretofore marginalized Midwestern rural communities and communities of color in our cities into full participation in a changed economy.
While federal infrastructure investment can deliver much to the Midwest, the region also possesses assets that can help it lead the way in realizing the new sustainable infrastructure vision the president-elect has proposed. With top-tier universities, Fortune 500 companies, R&D hubs, abundant fresh water and manufacturing and deployment know how, the Midwest has the technological and human capital, the natural resources, and innovation horsepower to lead the way in the post-pandemic recovery.
These advantages can be leveraged to build the energy and smart-water technologies, the high-speed communications modalities and devices, the automated transportation and production environments and the climate-resilient infrastructures demanded in a post-COVID-19 world. The Midwest’s innovation capacity and well-developed production, supply, and logistics network already place it squarely at the center of pandemic accelerated sectors such as medical device manufacturing and treatments.
COVID-19 also exposed America’s vulnerability to disruptions in global supply chains, and the dangers of reliance on geopolitical competitors for critical supplies like medical equipment or rare earth metals essential to our communications devices. With a new push to reconfigure global supply chains for greater redundancy and adaptability, the Midwest can be at the center of these reconfigured production and supply networks, creating new jobs in America’s Heartland. With an already deeply integrated North American production system, calls to “onshore,” “near-shore,” and “ally-shore” can be an economic boon for the Midwest.
Finally, with many professionals seeing new ability and desires for distanced-work and learning in a COVID-19 changed world, and many Midwestern communities enjoying cost-of-living and quality of life and lifestyle advantages, infrastructure investments that connect these communities to the world are a powerful accelerant of Midwest and national economic rebirth.
If Biden and a new Congress deliver a long overdue (and now urgent) infrastructure agenda focused on sustainability, equity and a clean energy future for the United States, it can both reinvigorate the Midwest and support national economic growth.
John Austin directs the Michigan Economic Center, and is a nonresident senior fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Brookings Institution. Alexander Hitch is a research associate with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
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