Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines ready for shipment to the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo plant in Kalamazoo.
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
The old factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has become a center for the manufacture of the Covid-19 vaccine. This can help the area’s economy turn a corner after a few difficult years.
Best ranked this year Bloomberg Brain Drain Index of the loss of the top talent population, Kalamazoo fought just like the rest of the US with the crushing pandemic of jobs. But the city had some hope when the Pfizer Inc. factory. from the adjacent Portage has recently become a key distribution point for the vaccine. The drug manufacturer and German partner BioNTech SE intend to do so deliver 200 million doses in the US by July.
However, the pandemic hit Michigan hard. Wages rose to 4 million in November, down 9.4% from the previous year for one of the sharpest declines between states, the Department of Labor the data show. The slow recovery from the closure of car plants in the spring, however, is now aided by a slowing down the infection rate.
Meanwhile, places like Kalamazoo are likely to be helped by a pandemic-driven exodus from large cities, which is attracting more families to smaller communities.
“People are looking for less friction in their lives,” and the trend at work illustrates that jobs can be done efficiently outside the office, according to Ross DeVol, CEO of Heartland Forward, an urban development institute.
Kalamazoo also sees economic renaissance in an asset that cannot leave the city: land. Local officials are using land banks to buy abandoned and distressed homes and commercial properties to pave the way for a return to growth. The strategy is to “breathe and make long-term plans,” said Kelly Clarke, executive director of Kalamazoo County Land Bank.
Six of the 10 metropolitan areas in the United States that have lost the most brain power in the last four years are in the industrial Midwest, according to the index. Completing the top five after Kalamazoo are Decatur, Illinois; Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Lima, Ohio and Elmira, New York.
The brain drain index tracks the losses of talented workers in the four years to 2019, with advanced degrees, science and engineering, and employment in white-collar industries. It also incorporates inflation-adjusted population changes and wage changes for science, technology, engineering or mathematics – the so-called STEM disciplines.
Separated, The Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index, which measures business formation, employment and STEM education, shows that the best-performing metropolitan areas show remarkable traction. The first places are Boulder, Colorado, scientifically, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California.
Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, ranks third. Like many university towns, it attracts and retains businesses in new technologies, including a Google campus. The top three held the same rankings in 2016.
However, rankings for four areas – Santa Fe, New Mexico; Manchester-Nashua, New Hampshire; Columbia, Missouri and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois – fell by two digits.
To access the full dataset for the Bloomberg Brain Drain Index, click here.
To access the full dataset for the 2020 Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index, click here.
– With the assistance of Alexandre Tanzi