Why government agencies should move from DC to the Midwest
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2017
- Midwestern cities need jobs. DC is too crowded. A simple solution.
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Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other former industrial powerhouses in the Midwest are struggling. The industries that have supported those cities have gone away, leaving them overbuilt and underpopulated. Meanwhile, coastal cities like New York and Washington, DC are overcrowded and absurdly expensive. So, why not relocate some well-paying federal jobs from the capitol area to the Midwest? Vox's Matt Yglesias explains how such a plan might work.
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"The CDC...is not really part of national politics."
That aged well.
I mean, to be fair, had this been any other presidency, the CDC wouldn't have been politicized (or at least not to the degree that it is). The CDC being political during this crisis is 100% Trump's fault.
It's not.
45 made it political because he's a fraud and doesn't know what he's doing.
Mr. Political took a pandemic virus out of the hands of the Center of Disease Control therefore politicizing a virus. Go figure.
@@mbbno CDC members recently announced they want racism to be declared a public health crisis.
So...no. that's not all on the president. Clearly they have an agenda
Sabih Shahid is rasism now a political issue? Says alot
France has done something like this, they decentralised their government services from Paris around to more peripheral regions with smaller cities. As a result population in those regions has increased. This works :)
Niall Cheetham I guess cause France is much smaller than America. In France you don't have problems with driving or taking a train to a near-by town/city. In America the cities mentioned are much further apart.
Good! I saw another comment down here saying Canada did the same thing too.
Canada decentralized, and it is big.
I live in France, it makes the people a lot happier too. It also literally forces the government to be apart of the community so better schools, parks, and roads.
Niall Cheetham But has the economy been helped, population has nothing to do with this argument he just went off topic.
is there not a reason they choose to centralize these institutions in the first place?
This is like the last place I thought you would be
Blackholes Productions I must agree
Maybe back in the day where communication and postal wasn't as fast as it is now with emails and fax.
@Blackholes Productions agreed
I’d assume it was for ease of communication, but with contemporary technology that shouldn’t be an issue.
It's a wonderful, reasonable, and thought out idea. So of course it will never happen in this country.
кคקק๏гtєг
It could happen, unless apathetic people like you start actually doing something.
кคקק๏гtєг "Be the change you want to see in the world" I suggest you take that quote to heart
Ike Okereke it’s a terrible idea. I live in northern virginia the whole middle class here survives on those jobs if they move out of the city dc and any surrounding area would be crippled
It does seem to be a very non partisan idea. Both parties want to bring jobs to swing states like Ohio and Michigan.
кคקק๏гtєг at the end republican will say the left will drstroy america and make it communist
‘The center for disease control really dosent have a lot to do with politics’........ahahahaha AHAHAHAHAH
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... so funny
I was about to post that myself. lol Jul 2017...
It shouldn't and it's scary that it does.
Yeah thats terrifying💀💀
Generally speaking it isn't.
I live in a county near DC and we built a one million dollar bus stop that doesn't even keep the rain out xD
xD i looked it up and its an actual thing
why tf is this a thing
ahh rich DC suburbs the best
what could possibly make it 1 million dollars??!
its actually underwhelming
Not a bad idea. The Midwest is full of charming little mid century neighborhoods that should be taken advantage of before they crumble further.
@Zachary Williams the second that’s not a very kind thing to say, now, is it?
@@davidreed9849 But a very necessary problem to be solved nonetheless, for the better interests of everyone.
It is sorta a bad idea Northern Virginia and I assume as well Southern Maryland relies on these jobs and are so important to the area
@Zachary Williams the second Political Compass pfp, opinion discarded
@Zachary Williams the second Doesn't matter, anyone who expresses their views with a political compass hasn't got any worthwhile opinions
i don't know why I'm watching this, i live in Australia ;l
Well Baranby Joyce caught alot of flak for moving a government agency to Armidale. So it's exactly foreign to us and given our housing prices, could be relevant to us.
Canada here loll
Well, good ideas have no border don't they? :p
I live in Australia as well! But we can still learn from this for our own benefit
One of many countries where this exact thing has been proven to be a costly failure. The end result, a massive increase in salaries, most of the employees quitting and a much less effective deparment as a result. It's almost as if any research at all into "hey, I wonder if this has been done before", would have immediately revealed that this doesn't work nearly as well in practice as it does in theory. But then there wouldn't be a video to make....
It be like that sometimes
It's like moving the National Parks Service from Chicago to Pawnee, Indiana...
Pietro Di Meglio yeah, Jerry (later Larry, Terry, and then Barry) Gergich is mayor there
Pietro Di Meglio yep, it's "First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity"
I support this
Matthew Jordan It'll also make Fallout 3 complete fantasy instead of partial fantasy.
No
what about the city of england
England, Arkansas? It's too small, the cost of developing the necessary infrastructure there would be enormous. The point of the video was to move agencies to large cities that already have the infrastructure in place, but aren't fully utilizing it anymore because of population decline.
YoloSwag420 boo
Simon MacLean "England is my city"
+Simon MacLean
Before you laugh too hard, consider that there probably IS a "city of England," somewhere. Or "town of England," at any rate.
YoloSwag420 pointed out the city of england, Arkansas
I love Chicago but it’s said to see hundreds of people leave, we went from 3,600,000 people to 2,800,000
to the suburbs mostly
Yeah no one wants to live in liberal cities
Well if you'd stop blindly voting for profoundly corrupt Democrats you might have a city that people actually want to live in!
John Scanlan if you think this comes down to voting you need a reality check. The system is corrupt it doesnt matter who you put in there. It doesnt work, history has only proved this.
@@TheOneThatFuchs While I have no fantasies that a Republican mayor in Chicago for the first time since 1931 would instantly correct the city's outrageous problems, it would stop making things worse on a daily basis!
Vox: "The CDC is not political"
Trump: *hold my 12 diet cokes*
and my 73 KFC buckets
i somehow this this is gonna gt political
Says more about Trump than the CDC.
Whom are you kidding with the Diet Coke!?
"The CDC gets politicized during a pandemic"
It's always sunny in America.
"the government is something that is under our control"
lol ok mr. fairytale
At least more than the private companies
We could try location-based subsidies instead, like some other countries have done. Nothing controls businesses better than money.
Watch George Carlin's comedy: "We have owners"
It should be under our control.
It would be y’all just don’t apply enough effort or pressure or pay attention enough. Most people only vote for the president ignoring all other elected officials that work for us
It's important to keep in mind that cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati have not lost as many people as it may seem. It looks extreme if you are only looking at the population within city limits, but much of the population has simply moved out to the suburbs. In 2020, Cleveland's MSA (metro statistical) population was 2,088,251 (34th in the nation) and their CSA (combined statistical) population was 3,633,962 (17th in the nation). Cincinnati had an MSA of 2,256,884 (24th in the nation).
That still doesn’t discount their argument. There’s a lot of open space and abandoned factories and infrastructure within the city limits of these rust belt cities
To be fair, while the CITY of Cincinnati may have shrunk, the METRO AREA of Cincinnati has been growing alongside the National growth average.
This is a point a lot of people seem to forget. For example, in Detroit the population dropped by 1.1 million from 1950, but the metro area gained 1 million and the region gained 1.5 million.
Where are these public institutions likely to go: the suburbs of place like Detroit which are doing fine, or the downtown centers that need rejuvenation?
I live in Cincinnati - well, north of 275 to be exact, but I will say this video paints the situation worse than it actually is... We still have over 2 million people in our metro area, and the areas south of the city in KY and north of the city to Dayton are expanding at a rapid rate. In fact, one recent study showed that in about 20 years, they estimate mostly dense population between Dayton and Cincinnati, which could even redefine the metro area to include Dayton. The current combined statistical area, or CSA, does include Dayton - and actually accounts for almost 4 million people. I see 'city' population numbers being spread around, but these numbers are false and do not represent actual 'city' populations. A better factor is the Metro area, but the best is the CSA - since that includes all residents living in an area who still rely on the city in question.
Generally speaking, 'city proper' populations have been going down for a long time. Inner-city housing is either extremely expensive or in a really bad neighborhood. For most people, the suburbs are a better option for them - less expensive, less stressful, more room to build, etc.
That's the case with 95+% of cities. What constitutes as a city can vary depending on who you ask. IMO a metropolitan area is more accurate that a city when talking about the political and economic impacts that area has on itself and the rest of the country. For example, the city of Des Moines, IA has 217,000 people, but the metropolitan Combined Statistical Area has closer to 775,000 - 800,000 people and growing.
Right traffic is horrible going down there most of the day
2.4% Cincinnati Statistical Area growth 2010-2015.
2.4% would be the lowest projected 120/330 2020 census.
2.17 million is essentially declining if OH has 0.7% in the national 4.7%.
I am an indian, but I actually love the Midwest area of the US. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, all beautiful cities. And hearing that their population is declining is sad. They were the main contributers to the American industry and they deserve something better.
They are poorly managed by the same people who have been in power there for decades
I'm from Michigan, and I was just having this same discussion with someone. Well said.
@@Jemz35 truth. That needs to change drastically!
When the sea levels rise, we won't have a choice...
UndoRedo Nincompoop...
hes right though...
UndoRedo Just hire the Dutch, then it can be postponed by at least a century.
ok? what's your point
lets ignore the fact they won't
I lived in Detroit all my life and you learn a lot, I never knew our city was thought to be so "bad" until I got into high school and went out of town, its a great city with great people, homes are cheaper and it's easier to excel for those who try , so don't knock a city you haven't been to cause surprised you will be
You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go to Detroit.
Detroit is not bad it's just divided. All the wealth is in the suburbs.
@@auntmelisa8689 It isn't all that bad
The lazy city employees still hand out gutter tickets to cars from the suburbs and if you have a heart attack the half hour response time of EMS means you're dead.
Aunt Melisa it’s a million dollars come on you could hire security with that money lol
An idea for a video: something I've always wondered is how the "American accent" developed. If the original colonizers were British, how did we evolve from that? How did immigration play a role in how it developed? There may be a very simple answer and I may sound very dumb but if it's as complicated as I've made it out in my head I think that would be a vox-worthy video
Actually, more recent evidence suggests that it might have been the other way around, and "the" British accent (there are actually dozens of distinct accents and dialects all over that tiny island, somehow, but let's presume we're talking about received pronunciation, aka "the BBC accent") evolved from what we'd think of as an American one, more or less.
The British spent hundreds of years trying to sound like whoever's king or queen at the time, so the "proper English accent" used to sound much like American accents do today.
There are multiple British accents. Now imagine multiple immigrants from various countries coming here and learning to speak English. Now factor in which English accent they are initially exposed along with their own innate accent. Now imagine all these people trying to communicate with one another. Eventually children are born and they synthesize a version of it that allows them to speak with multiple groups and it becomes the regional lingua franca. Also keep in mind each immigrant brings in their own loan words, idioms, and grammatical structure. If you ever get a chance look at a map that shows where the majority of each immigrant group settled and it will give you an even clearer picture. Linguists after study learned that African American Vernacular English has a structure more akin to West African grammatical structures with the differences being pronunciations and vocabulary. The reason it persisted is due to social isolation. Children during this time period wouldn't have been allowed to go to school so they would not integrate the speaking habits of their non-Black peers. Basically you learn to sound like the people who interact with you. Most Owners just wanted Slaves for labor or certain other activities so their was no interest in teaching anything more than basic comprehension of the language. Groups that are isolated voluntarily or involuntarily retain their accents and speech patterns much longer because they are not interacting with others. The various accent groups around America were created by this immigration and gained a distinct flavor based off their level of isolation. I hope that helped.
Alex Lavin acualty they accent and dialect evolved from us they changed we didnt accept boston no rodic tone their but technically we still have that original british accent i mean we changed a bit not as drastically as the british but our is a lot closer to 18 century and before british dialect then what modern day england has
Australia is like the dirty South to the British accent
"The government is something we control"
That's a very bold statement
Any counter arguments? I want to know why it has not happened yet. (I'm not murican)
Jari Parial Great Comment. I feel like sometimes Vox just kinda slaps their viewpoint in viewer's faces, dumping their arguments out but not presenting a good counter-argument as to why it has not happened . They should think about adding that in.
they'll probably defend it with something "GOOD OL' PATRIOTISM!!!" (I'm murican)
(I am not murican either) Do you think all those people who allready live and work in DC would be happy to just move out to another city just like that?
I imagine many government employees don't want to move to Detroit, and so are against it.
One reason it has not happened yet(not a counter argument though:( ) is probably cost. The government doesn't see a real need for this unnecessary move that would cost a lot and pile up more trouble for them to handle when they have already quite a lot on their hands. (That's just what I think I'm not Murican too.)
Unless they relocate these workers and their immediate families, it's only going to make them unemployed in a very expensive area.
It must not happen overnight. You can plan the change over 15-20 years, enough people retire, can change to other agencies.
good point...
wouldnt be that difficult. military does it all the time when soldiers pcs to a different base.
Boonies Bound but those people signed away their rights and have no choice.
I'm just saying it wouldn't be difficult as there is already a system like they would need to set it up. a lot of the agencies that are stuck in the dc area require their employees to move to that area anyways so why not just have them move to a more central location in the u.s rather than just one city. idk but I'm pretty sure a lot of gov employees are under some sort of contract though it doesn't require a relocation once the job it attained most will relocated to get said job. in which case one would think it would be financially smart to have these jobs in areas with lower than average economic situations where rent and other things are cheaper and having more people come could help grow the cities. I'm no expert though..
It's easier said than done. This would mean uprooting tens of thousands of civilian employees that would want to keep their job.
Also, you would have to devise a plan as to which specific agencies go to these areas that have regressed and how they fit in with those cities' economic plans
Everything is always easier said than done. Does that mean it is impossible, or that we shouldn't try? Those are problems that can be solved if they put the work in it. And it's not like corporate company HQs haven't relocated successfully. It's been done before, and can be done again
Phanez The Finesse we didn't go to the moon with this attitude
Shooting some people in outer space is a whole lot easier than moving bureaucrats.
Actually, from countries that tried it, they want to quit more than they want to keep their job and move. So you end up with departments paying huge incentives for people to move, and still 90% of them quit rather than move away from friends and their partners employer etc. Basically, it's cheaper to build infrastructure where people want to live. That's why those 'private companies' are moving to those expensive areas. Despite all the additional costs, it's still easier to attract talent. Now if you were to split departments so that new jobs could be in regions / remote, while retaining existing jobs, that might work, provided the jobs don't require in-person collaboration.
South Korea is moving a lot of its government to Sejong City. That's a modern democracy building a secondary capital from scratch. It makes moving a govt agency to Cleveland (already has streets, houses, offices, culture) look downright simple.
“The CDC isn’t really part of national politics.” Well that didn’t age well...
And in about two months it won't be again
@@browhat05 it Probably probably still will it’s not like as if one second when it becomes 2021 all of our problems go away like some kind of dream
Sounds interesting but would have been better if you said possible negatives to it, as well as the challenges.
Yeah, I feel like Vox videos are lacking different angles to a subject.
I dont think the intention on the video was to be a proposal, just an idea. Altho i am bias and would love if DC was less populated, maybe my rent would go down and i could actually park somewhere. ; ___ ;
We should take the White House and push it somewhere else...
Like into the ocean.
Benaiah Uchiha-Senju for now I think it fits nicely in st Petersburg
Belligerent Theo next election, maybe
This is an amazing viewpoint. Thanks for sharing. - A guy from the Midwest who now lives on the East Coast
then Vox should move to Ohio as well
Middle of Arkansas would be funny. Vox could create their own town.
It's ironic how all the news companies cluster into LA yet those same news companies are telling governments to stop clustering things into DC.
You pay attention? To the video?
It’s a private company he’s talking about government
Z Li Vox is private though, agencies should spread to other American cities for employment.
goddamn how the hell do you even edit your videos man?! simply amazing. best edited videos on CZcams.
kushagra gupta not trying to be mean or anything but this is a substantial news-ish organization. I imagine it's not terribly difficult to find decent editors.
kushagra gupta Yeah Vox is a entire news organization. They have teams of editors who do nothing but edit videos and stuff.
He's still right, though. Vox has had excellent editing of each and every one of their videos for years.
Peter Ilisituk They do have excellently edited videos.
Best editing on CZcams is by far Captain Dissalusion. Check it out :)
This won't screw over DC you're right about that. Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware would see the hit of doing this though. You're forgetting most workers in DC live in the surrounding areas.
@Angel S Yeah, but if we had to keep everyone's job stable, then we could never do anything ever because the jobs that support it. And if you had a system to handle unemployment and healthcare for the unemployed, this move could be relatively painless. They could find a new job eventually or move to these areas on subsidised rates, perhaps.(Given that the government benefits from their employment, a subsidy for moving is really quite cheap)
Any and all change will change the balance of jobs. Heck doing nothing will change the balance of jobs. These midwestern cities are already declining. How about their jobs? Are their jobs less important than D.C jobs? How do we compare 400,000 jobs lost in Detroit to 400,000 jobs lost in D.C? If you manage it well (which it is not) there is less to fear for the local man. The DC has other attractions for Virginia, et al. Its all a balancing scale.
Almost all the FEDERAL WORKERS live Outside of the city. THE COLONY OF D.C. Does not get much of the federal mony and STILL has no congressman!!!
@Vinh Vo The vast majority of DC residents don't have government jobs. There are quite a few major companies that are based here and quite a few industries present here that have nothing to do with government.
I live in DC and I love that all of the agencies are here. It makes DC feel like the center and crown of the country compared to NYC, LA, Chicago...
Lol
"The mountains are high and the emperor is far away."
doesn't seem like a bad ide but it needs a lot of investments and that's something I don't see happening in the near future .
ExMythos Don't think that would/should happen. The state of Maryland and Virginia have special interests in this. If jobs were to move from this area (Washington Metropolitan Area) that would devastate the economy of Virginia and Maryland. And they would put up a huge fight and would probably end up winning. Vox, go talk about taking someone else's job away...
ExMythos Now if it was something about the military. They wouldn't hesitate on the investment.
Bupkis But it's not taking away jobs, it's moving jobs. I'm sure Detroit would appreciate those jobs. And cheaper rent and less crowded public transportation in DC? It seems like common people in Maryland and Virginia would be on board with that. Win-win.
What a shame too, considering basically the only good thing Trump promised was infrastructure investments and now that's clearly off the table.
Daian Moi Many people would gain jobs from this but a lot will lose them too . It's a high risk that politicians don't like to take
Your argument about declining city populations misses the true picture. City populations decreased while metropolitan area populations have increased (only Cleveland saw a slight population decrease out of the cities you mentioned). It's why comparing cities by population is often misleading. That being said, I do support this idea with certain agencies.
Andy Ray true. But if you look at my city Milwaukee, our metro area like Cleveland and Detroit is not growing fast like coastal cities
ah, white flight to the suburbs. but yeah this comment looks correct
Yes, but it has still lost total population. You can't argue that.
cityuser Only Cleveland metro has lost population, and it was a modest decline over the past decade. Cities serve more than their city limits
I think it's more important to look at the relative growth of these metro areas compared to the rest of the country, though. Sure, they may be growing a bit, but they are losing prominence due to their inability to keep up.
"midwestern cities" *only lists cities in Ohio and Michigan*
Midwestern cities that have lost industry and people.
Those are close to Washington DC and it’s a low population in those cities
@@charlesbutler9127 because as much as Milwaukee might want or need those jobs, the cities listed desperately need them. I live in Michigan and we made a huge bet on automotive in the Midwest, which has mostly paid out (with reasons why it hasn’t in a lot of places, generally the unions or bad trade policy), for decades the Michigan-Ohio are was a center of innovation and technology, but one day things stopped growing and the factories closed their doors. If you need evidence just google earth your way through the neighborhoods of Detroit or Flint. The government owes us some jobs back, unless you want Clinton to pay us back those Trillions of blue collar paychecks sent to China, South Africa, and Mexico. (Trust me my parents both still work in the industry, although I don’t)
St. Louis should’ve been mentioned in my opinion. City specifically has huge decline in pop and jobs, although we do have some infrastructure in airport, transportation, housing, and culture .
@@gavingranberry9699 good point on St. Louis, a major origin of culture and innovation as late as the 1950s
America's government is already doing this, but on a limited scale. I am a veteran, but now work as a US Army contractor and reservist. Army Materiel Command moved from DC to Huntsville, Alabama a few years ago. US Army Cyber Command is going to be located at Fort Gordon (Augusta, Georgia).
Idea is great, but will take time and money to properly plan, relocate and resume operations (hopefully with some people who chose to move with agency).
After traveling to Virginia and Maryland for the first time this summer, I found myself disheartened with the amount of money flowing into those places, especially when cities in the Midwest have been struggling so much. I think that it's wonderful that somebody from the coast is thinking that the Midwest is worth investing in.
Agreed, particularly considering how Ezra and Co seem to come off as caricatures of coastal elites (I still love their reporting and analysis but sometimes this aspect bothers me).
This is not investment. moving a bunch of government agencies does not grow your economy it is moving tax payers dollars to new takers.
@@MrChickennugget360 It's also increasing efficiency because there is a lower cost of living and lower supporting costs to being there
When doing the population of the Midwestern cities it would be better to use metropolitan area populations, to control for white flight to the suburbs.
OH! but that wouldn't work with their click-bait and propaganda stories! Little do people know, Detroit didn't lose population at all.
Cedric Pie, Detroit had a population of ~1 million in 1995. In 2014, that number was 680 250. Yeah, it lost a lot of population.
No it didn't, Metro Detroit has 6 million people, it lost no population.
Matthew Stidham How do you control white flight? Reinvigorate the city, how do you do that? Bring in more jobs/good city planning. Moving agencies into the cities is just a piece of the puzzle.
He means control in the statistical variable sense not actually controlling people and their behavior.
You know, I haven't heard anyone in the Democratic Primaries suggest moving our agencies across the country. Except Yang.
This is a little bit misleading because it makes it sound like agencies have just one building each. Gov agencies have buildings across the US, but the HQs are usually in the DC area, which I think makes sense.
Plus if an attack or natural disaster were to hit DC the government wouldn't end up crippled since not all the agencies would be located in one place.
Martin the Paranoid Android Execpt the US Gov has a ton of contingency plans for that.
Martin the Paranoid Android as a guy who lives in maryland what natural disaster would occur we rarely rarely get earthquakes the hurricanes we get are always cat 1s we dont have drought like at all we get snow but blizzards are more rare we are in the perfect area for this
*+Martin the Paranoid Android*
That’s what I was thinking.
"but the government is something that's under our control.."
n Quinn as in under the US governent's in 'our' collective control , not private businesses where big moneymakers call the shots.
It's better than Europe where the you are under government control and have to go with every decision made
The same idea has been suggested in Australia with agencies moving out of Canberra to the regions however the areas they are moving to don't have the same infrastructure and this greatly impacts job mobility between departments, a feature of the Canberra public sector.
Interesting insight!!!
I'm from Cleveland and I think this is a great idea. We have three professional sports teams, the largest theater district in the U.S. outside of NYC, and tons of high class shopping and amenities. Not to mention an award winning national park system which starts right downtown along with huge amounts of lakefront and mainland real estate to go around. Traffic is light and the cost of living compared to the quality you get (we have tons of amazing food and some of America's cleanest tap water) is outstanding. Many people seem to wonder why more people don't live here in the first place.
You've sold me on visiting Cleveland.
Detroit shares all of those benefits you've listed. Plus, they aren't too far from eachother
Ian Race Ew no thanks, i like DC. The high housing prices and expensive office spaces keep my job paying top dollar for my work. Plus cleveland probably smells funny.
Johnathan Rouse yea well you probably smell funny too like your mom
Matt Bakeniti Oooooooh. Got ‘em.
One of the things that the EU does actually really good - among others Luxembourg(Court of Justice, Court of Auditors), Frankfurt am Main(European Central Bank), Strasbourg(European Parliament), London(European Medicines Agency, European Bank Agency), Ljubljana(ACER), Warsaw(FrontEx), Heraklion(ENISA) and many more in every member state. Maybe you guys should really take a note.
Scrotie McBoogerball the court of Justice is actually in The Hague (The Netherlands) :)
NASA and the U.S. military already does this to some extent. It's smart politically too. If an agency has it's funding cut, and it's a major employer, the representative for that district is gonna fight that cut.
To be fair that probably has more to do with the fact that every country wanted a piece of the cake. You can't put all the EU institutions in one place without the other countries complaining. And the parliament moving back and forth between brussels and strasbourg is not excactly efficient.
But yeah it has some benefits.
frank Pieters actually the International Court of Justice is in Den Haag ;) That's a different institution, a part of the UN.
KEine Ahnung(It's weird to begin a sentence with keine Ahnung lol) It's not only that, I think many politicians want the EU to stay a bit decentralised. You know, to appease the sovereignty crybabies like the UK for instance(not that it helped lol) but it also gives imo a bit more prestige and political power to the cities and the governments of the respective members.
I can definitely see it becoming a bit looney if more members started joining. Like if Iceland, Serbia and Albania joined, we'd need to invent three new agencies to give them and even crazier we'd have to invent three new scopes of competence for three new commissioners lol.
The "technical" and "scientific" agencies often collaborate with other agencies on projects. For instance, a program that aims to train engineers for a power generation facility clearly falls under the Department of Energy, but if that facility is abroad they will need to coordinate with the State Department to assure diplomatic cooperation. If it's for a military installation, Department of Defense is involved. If it's on US soil, USEPA needs to do environmental impact studies. Using new technology? NSF is probably attending your meetings.
This is why the main offices are located where they are - within proximity of each other such that meetings can be attended. Moving them out has a number of issues, such as overreliance on internet infrastructure to deliver the meeting, as well as security issues with regards to video conferencing. It also creates a much larger defense issue with regards to contingency plans as the military would have to defend a number of locations rather than consolidate.
Moving agency functions out to other places is very common though and it's already been done decades ago. Even though the US Department of Agriculture is based in the DC mall area, there are offices across the country - you can easily be employed at USDA Rural Development which is significantly located in the St. Louis area (and Monsanto HQ is nearby as a result, spurring job creation).
This video means well, but it definitely underlines a lack of understanding of how the various government agencies actually function. Yes, the traffic on the capital beltway is horrendous. Yes, the land prices are exorbitant. But the problem isn't that there's too much demand due to clustering, the issue is that the politics of the region make it very hard to develop properly. To redevelop the beltway, you have to get the cooperation of Maryland, Virginia, and Congress (D.C.).
Let's not lose sight of why we put our governmental functions close together.
Ever heard of the Internet? Telephones? Mail? It's possible to make collaboration work over long distances.
Interesting, relevant fact: 3 of the top 5 highest median household income counties in America are counties in the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) Metropolitan area. Most people that live in these areas are government employees/contractors and are getting paid good, steady income. I know this because I live in the area and I'm a government contractor.
Spreading these jobs elsewhere would help spread the wealth. I think this is a great idea.
Living in Loudoun County there’s also tons of IT, Medical, and Engineers now that Amazons new headquarters is being built in Virginia will only increase the housing prices as well as the number of jobs which will probably increase the median household income but in Maryland and Virginia!
This probably is the best info video from Vox... great work.. thank you..
I live in the D.C area, so NO WAY
Same
Yeah I live in North VA and DC is so important
Maryland check yes they should stay in dc i live in the suborns
Most of the money flowing into DC comes from the Northeast and Pacific Coast.
My concern with this plan is two fold.
1) Moving agencies apart will make the cost of inter-agency work higher (as there would be a higher cost in getting people into the same room). Teleconferences will only work for those who are comfortable with dealing like that which tends to leave older (and more senior) government workers out of the loop. Also there is the simple issue that some things can take days/weeks of teleconferencing which would otherwise take much less time face to face to sort out.
2) That is a lot of people to relocate; some will not want to go so there would be a loss of knowledge and as has been pointed out - the cities agencies would be moving too have been significantly reduced in size (with a large unemployed blue collar workforce that would require significant training to re-skill for white collar jobs).
I think more analysis is required to take into consideration the educational and moving costs and just how much it would impact agency operational efficiency in the medium to long term.
About your second point, I think that the jobs that would be created aren't only white collar and not only for the agency because those would be to the families that already are employed. Of course that some would be employed and would create a new dynamic economy around it. For example, if a pharmacy agency moved to a city more pharmaceutical companies and laboratories would move closer (This is what is happening in Europe, a fight about whose countries will get the agencies from London).
But also, with more population with money, blue collar jobs will also be created, giving new life to cities that are losing pop and economy. With a demographic problem, there will be needed fewer workers.
This is economic policy 101. You don't need big projects, only smart policies with tremendous impact. Not only there will be savings (less expensive cities), but the economic impact would mean more jobs and more collected taxes to the government.
1) Teleconferences have been going on for at least the last two decades, probably more often in the private sector. And if an older official has trouble adjusting, that's why we have in-house tech support.
2) People get transferred all the time in government and private business. This wouldn't be a new or intolerable phenomenon.
This would need to be planned 10-20 years in advance anyway.
323guiltyspark 1) Teleconferences are not a viable option when the meeting needs to occur in a very secure environment. Though we have encrypted teleconferencing for Secret-level programs, once you get into Top Secret and Compartmentalized Information the option of teleconferencing is very risky if not completely invalidated.
2) People don't transfer that often in government. It's known for its stable employment respective to private industry.
I'll also throw out the issue of negotiating the national air carrier. Right now it's United Airlines based in Dulles International. If we spread out the top administrators to cities like Cincinnati, suddenly you only have one hub carrier there - Delta Airlines. If you go to St. Louis, there isn't a single standard hub carrier there, only a big chunk of Southwest Airlines' operations. Unfortunately GS15 admins have to travel a lot, so you really need that contracted national air carrier. The US government gets nice deals in return for only doing business with that single carrier... that advantage will disappear and taxes will have to go up as a result.
323guiltyspark,
1. A lot of government agencies do teleconferences quite frequently. I don't see this as much of an issue. They also aren't talking about moving the security agencies. They are talking about civilian agencies and departments that don't necessarily need to be centralized in DC.
2. I hear what you are saying, but my own experience tells me they will fight this tooth and nail unless the government gives them large incentives to move (as in paying for all their relocation and giving them *all* the best appraised price for their homes, which in today's political climate will never happen) A lot of people resign in these DC agencies before choosing to transfer elsewhere. (This depends on the agency and department. Forest service, military, secret service are much more willing to transfer and move, and that has to do with their work culture, but many of the civilian agencies you will have a much harder time.)
Edit: please note: I think moving these agencies to cities that have existing infrastructure and declining populations would be an interesting idea to explore, if not an outright good one since DC has become congested and home prices in DC are now the third highest in the country. I was just stating I think it's a lot harder than you are imagining to get these people to transfer. Usually, in DC, trying to make someone transfer is used as a tactic to get them to resign because they more often than not won't. They aren't as willing as someone in the private sector or in a non-DC government job.
I had never even considered this before! Thanks Vox for raising the topic 🍻
Great video! Thank you.
I mean, CIA can move into my expansive basement that definitely has running water
One place is the reason D.C. Meyers area is so expensive:
Loudon County (I live in Ashburn)
As a resident of the DC metro area, with multiple family members employed by the federal government, I fully agree with this video. It would actually improve our lives a great deal to be based in a less expensive area.
My hometown of Cleveland could definitely use a bump. So much culture, sports, health care, and infrastructure to offer, but everyone hates the weather and factories.
yeah Cleveland is a great argument for why gentrification isn't such a bad idea...(like believe me i know it is) but when you don't gentrify you get Cleveland...less and less money despite the rich talent, food and culture, beautiful architecture sold away for another parking lot for pennies...
The river isn't on fire anymore, give it a glow up already
As a Michigan resident I think this sounds like a fantastic idea! The Midwest has been gutted by outsourcing of industry. We need something to fill the gap that has been created.
agreed
Wow, this is a well thought out and good idea; which is exactly why it will never happen.
This idea alone will not improve the conditions for these cities. They need new leaders with different ideas than the ones who have running these cities for decades.
@@Jemz35 while a change in leadership could be beneficial, the reason most of these cities have been declining is largely out of their control. Due to globalization and foreign development and stability, moving manufacturing from the US to foreign markets became dominant. The loss of their economic engine has caused these cities to fall from prosperity and people to move to other areas of the country. If the loss of high paying jobs cause their decline, a rise in high paying jobs will bring them back. But how to provide your community with high paying jobs it the question for every politician.
In Germany the agencies are spreaded all over the country. They are trying to build or move more agencies to the former East German states because when it comes to income our country is still divided in East and West.
The intelligent comments for this video actually discussing what might work and what might not oh it makes me so happy!
Leave NOVA alone, they prop up the Virginia economy.
Thank you an intelligent Comment
As someone who lives in the northern Virginia area, I can say that this is a horrible idea and would really hurt us
The problem with this is whether the employees will move with the agency and whether the surrounding area has the talent to supplement the agency.
The presenter's position also ignores the benefits of agency adjacencies.
You really should have discussed potential reasons why these industries left the midwest in the first place. This bit of context would be not only interesting but also essential in the discussion of whether these agencies should move there now
0:05 Um... Those dots are not on Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Detroit... Although Detroit is the closest. And Cleveland is certainly not in Pennsylvania. You have cincy in like, dayton. and Detroit near Toledo, but possibly just floating in Lake Erie some where... Kinda makes you look bad saying "get them out of DC to these places! Wait... where are these places even? Cleveland is east of Pittsburgh right?" ... smh
Also, I get your point, but it's a fairly weak argument. I expected it to go into a lot more detail about how it would be easy and which agencies should be the first to go outward. Furthermore, you posted Playhouse Sq. for Cleveland as an example of overbuilt. Playhouse Square was started in the 70s (when Cleveland was on the decline), and has continually been updated and upgraded since then. Most recently a couple years ago with a multimillion dollar rehabilitation, and it's beautiful. Playhouse Square is doing fine in Cleveland. Same with West Side Market, another photo you chose. Now, there are plenty of areas where Cleveland has more than it needs. You just chose poor examples with a hastily put together video.
I was also confused by this? Cincinnati looks like it's in southern Indiana & Cleveland is where Philly should be?!
Coasties.
Ian Zainea no one cares no one wants to live there
i'm not the only one that was confused why Cincinnati and Cleveland were so far apart
That would mean actually having public transit infrastructure in Detroit, which will never happen due to the lobbying of the car industry
Also Detroit's problem is not being the capital. Most of Michigan's legislature is republican and would never allow public funds to be spend on any infrastructure project on Detroit.
When it makes so much sense so you know the States won’t even glance at this proposition
Most of these agencies work together which is why they are close to each other.
I have always said that about the banks, the "fiscal responsible" set up housekeeping in the most expensive cities in the world and make you pay for it.
Indianapolis is growing pretty fast
The UK did this ages ago. They moved the DVLA (our DMV) to Swansea, a small city in wales. The HMIRC (our IRS) is in Cumbernauld, a large-ish small town near Glasgow. Recently the BBC (which is independent from government) moved all of it's production to Manchester. Things like departments for Health, Driving, Transport are things that Governments have to do anyway and don't need to be in the capital. It's only really the civil service which will object to moving to places like Sheffield or Newcastle.
I think this would be good for St. Louis, Missouri, they used to have the 7Up company and a Ford plant, but these have moved away and they have a lot of poverty in the region. Just like Detroit St. Louis also lost a lot of population, in 1950 the population was 856,796, now it's just 311,404. I think this would really help St. Louis. I mean St. Louis isn't very high in population as it once was but it has the 20th most populous metro area. I think this could bring people in from the suburbs if they did this and help the city build up again.
Honestly, this makes total sense! Why hasn't this happened??
it does not, think about the economy of Virginia and Maryland that will be shut down by removing those high paying jobs
I'm from Detroit and i highly agree. One nuke to DC and everything is gone. So on top of your points in the video, decentralization of the government is safer. It would be less likely for the entire federal government to shut down because of a super hurricane hitting the east coast. We need more jobs, and more people to live in these abandoned homes.
Insightful, thanks
I live in a Midwest city known as St. Louis. It's the 3rd largest city in the US back in 1904 with over a million residents when they hosted the Olympics and World Fair, but now the same piece of area is only home to less than 300,000 people. Now, the only thing that we got on the national news was the Ferguson incident a few years back.
What you often don't hear is that these Midwest cities experienced a high levels of suburban sprawl, where 1.5 million live outside the city but still counted as the metropolitan area. This creates problems where houses in the Ferguson (north suburb) can cost as low as $20,000 but a rich neighborhood (west suburb) is $200,000 because the tax money stay in rich suburbs. Ask a St Louis or Detroit native, they'll tell you the city as a whole is not bad, but it's the poor neighborhoods that always makes into the news that makes the cities sound so bad.
My point is, downtown St Louis can be benefitted from more government agencies jobs, but that that doesn't mean the current problem is going to get fixed.
Bingo
Good luck getting people to leave Maryland.
You don't, moving the job is so people there can get it
So half the people in the dc suburbs will lose there jobs it’s harder to move agencies than that
Yeah and here too art museums, sports teams and theatres as well.
Since we’re using Zoom so much because of the pandemic, we can get people to leave MD.
Great idea.
I didnt understand a thing said in this video, but i now am informed. Thanks
I read, a long time ago when Continental Airlines exited, they had a hub in CLE (airport code for Cleveland, OH). Around the time of the merger with United Airlines the hub was disbanded; I wonder how much that had an effect on Cleveland, OH and the surrounding area.
Ok ok good points now let me counter:
I live in D.C.
I don't want the stuff that makes this place cool to leave.
same
It will lower rent
Keith Hopkins eh, my standard of living is all over the place. I have friends who work at places like Panera bread who have apartments I’d be cool with living in. Also, I’m just saying casual anecdotes and initial feelings so don’t take any of this as how simple I think this is.
but us midwesterners want some interesting stuff
they cant move out of dc as a Washingtonian i know that 75% of people i know are either working for the government or are working for a government contractor losing the government would take away jobs from good people
The video isn't talking about relocating the capital, only a handful of agencies that do not need to be there. If government agencies move out, office space will open up for private companies to move in and, with a little less government money floating around, the cost of living will decrease.
There are government contractors in Just about every state. The video only suggests moving certain agencies that really don't need to be there. Contractors can up and leave the D.C. Area if they wanted because they're private entities.
PatmanFTW It would be impossible to relocate something like the National Institute of Health which isn't even in DC. This video is, excuse me for saying this, fake news.
Except the National Institutes of Health has offices all over the country already. And it is in the Washington metro area, so it is basically in DC.
I live in the area and most people here would hate this. It'll lower the housing market, force people to relocate, and hurt the local economy, to name a few.
Very interesting idea that I never thought of. I feel this idea would be successful
I live near Cleveland and the city beyond the downtown area is CRUMBLING at the seams!!!
Noo I live in D.C. and it's pretty lit here lol
if they did move to the Midwest, move to Detroit, Cleveland, or Cincinnati, not like Chicago, Milwaukee, or St. Paul/Minneapolis because those cities are actually doing something.
Milwaukee needs help still. A ton of manufacturers left the city in the 70s and our city has lost 150,000 people.
Me Me Big Boy but Milwaukee has money and is building infrastructure, and will also probably start signs of growth by 2020-2025
JCannon465 More people are moving to Madison and their metro area. Not into Milwaukee
Milwaukee is doing pretty well in comparison to places like St. Louis or Cleveland.
I vote Detroit. Cheap housing, well designed interstate system, and for leisure; short drives to some of the most beautiful lakes in the Country.
We tried this decentralisation plan in Ireland and it was a disaster, we moved government departments to struggling towns and cities but ended up backfiring massively as no one wanted to work there, even with the departments.
Dont think you can compare a town or city in Ireland with less than 100 000 ppl with a city such as Cleveland/ Detroit/ Cincinnati with populations in access of 300 000 and massive (and in fact growing suburbs).
I honestly wish I could like this video multiple times
I'm a libertarian and I see no problem with this. Decentralization is a good thing
This is being done to expand Bureaucracy. don't fall for their tricks. Why do you think they want to move this to the Rust belt? Washington D.C is over alarmingly Left wing- more Left-wing then California
less than 6% are Republican
www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/blog/13070504/how-many-registered-voters-does-d-c-have
Now they want to push their Leftwing machine to swing states to expand their voting machine.
This is not decentralization- decentralization would be giving states more power not moving government workers to other states. In a democratic election what do you think these Government employees are going to vote? for less government or more?
DC has a lot of Crime... It really couldn't be much worse in Ohio. Detroit would be a horrible idea though
@@MrChickennugget360 Please keep that stuff withon your own conservative circles so er don't have to hear it
Won't this just make the real estate market more expensive in other cities, hitting the poorest the hardest?
hey, that's make sense.
Jimmy Jimmy
"oh, let's never do it then" - US Federal Government
Jimmy Jimmy not if you actually live near D.C. Do you understand how much damage this could do to DC
It could but I think part of that is that Local DMV Govs basically been pretending that people who make less the average wags just don't exists
There's a 2016 MIT study that puts the poverty line at 52000 for a individual in my area and people wounded why metro employees are always grumpy
As someone from Michigan I thought this was very thought provoking.
This is an interesting concept.It had never occurred to me before, but seems like it merits more study
I live in DC. If these move we will lose a lot of money
Okay and so what deal with it you and your local area does not have a right to demand the rest of the country props up your areas economy
dstblj 52 you have no clue what you are talking about if the government would move it would put this country into a depression and millions of highly skilled works out of a job 2 entire states and even of parts of the us completely depend on the government being in dc its not greed its unethical
yes, but why does DC have the right to a disproportional number of good government jobs per capita, i don't frankly care what it does to the city, i would like those jobs move around the country to where they are needed. Besides if you need the job you can follow the job, that happens all the time in the private sector.
Not really, it is va. And md. Who will loose a lot
That sort of misses the point. these areas are already some of the most affluent in the country, so why should tax money go to increasing their affluence. The DC metro area can survive some jobs leaving for areas that desperately need them.
The problem with these cities is more then lack of industry. They have high crime, gangs, bad public schools. So moving jobs to these cities will not necessarily solve the issue. The people moving would move to safe suburban areas. Only making the suburbs more expensive. High paying government employees are not going to move to the hood unless they have too.
Yup. I live in the suburbs of Detroit and it’s VERY nice, excellent schools, high paying jobs, extremely wealthy areas, etc. It’s also just as expensive to buy a home in a nice neighborhood here as most other nice areas of the country. Adding more well paying jobs to the suburbs will make the suburbs grow, which they do NOT need. I could easily commute to my job in the suburbs from the city if I could find an affordable place to live in a safe neighborhood there. Don’t need to move a government agency to make that happen.
Most of what is in DC are headquarters
This is actually an underrated problem in Norway as well, loads of people drive to Oslo just for work, and the urban areas lose population slowly but surely...
I never thought Id live to see the day that Id finally agree with a Vox video, yet here we are...
Where My Ohioans at!
bradwags Michigan is better!!
bradwags Michigan for life
CLE
I live in Cincinnati
bradwags Bad weather represent!
USDA moving to Kansas City got so much flack even though a lot of what it is regulating and research is in the area. Cost of living is very low in KC.
Hey this is what they did in the show Parks and Rec - moved the National Parks branch from DC to Pawnee, IN