Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America’s Older Industrial Areas, articulates the perspectives and policy recommendations of dozens of diverse policy experts, government officials, business and thought leaders on a key and vexing question for presidential hopefuls and the US economy: how to revitalize older US industrial areas which aren’t currently well positioned to compete in the global economy.

It finds many older metro areas are still struggling to make the transition from an industrial-based economy to a knowledge-based one. Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore, and scores of other American metropolitan areas suffer from slow employment growth, a diminishing tax base, aging infrastructure, poorly performing schools, falling home values with billions in related subprime losses and concentrated poverty which undermine their ability to build and retain skilled workforces and new growth industries.

Older industrial areas have land, infrastructure, business opportunities, and many leading medical, educational, and research institutions. Redeveloping them is an untapped resource for smart growth, conserving natural resources in undeveloped areas. But it will require changing business and civic cultures to be more entrepreneurial, inclusive, innovative, and capable of leveraging investment, the report says. It recommends new approaches to improving education, building workforces, expanding businesses and introduces key reforms in government economic development programs.