I just don't think it's that simple. A lot of states/regions have tried to make their own silicon valley over the past 15 years for illustration, throwing money and tax incentives at the problem, and results have been mixed. Even SF's attempt to transform itself as an tech industry city has yielded mixed results for its residents and they'd have to be considered a relative success story at a minimum on this front.
There's just too many factors outside the state's control, beyond a lack of political support for those types of investments.
I never said it was. In fact, I repeatedly said that lack of infrastructure and disinvestment in higher education were among the reasons for the lack of economic activity in the rust belt and similar.
That said, without decent infrastructure and a skilled workforce, it's much, much harder to attract new businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs. Other factors (as I noted in both the comments to which you replied) are impactful as well, but I chose to focus on two that are (IMHO, at least) rather important.
Yeah I don't see any alternative. The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on. It's just hard me to necessarily point fingers as you have, I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
> The dream of (re)building your local economy around industries that boomed 100 years ago is a fantasy and the global economy has moved on.
What industries, specifically, are you thinking about?
Because if those industries did not disappear completely but were instead offshored to arbitrage labor, then the global economy has definitely NOT moved on.
Those industries were almost entirely automated years ago.
You aren't going to bring manufacturing back to the US and get jobs on the assembly line like your grandfather had, those jobs simply no longer exist. The few jobs that do exist won't pay enough money for a home with a two-car garage like your grandfather had on the assembly line either, they will pay barely subsistence wages like working in an Amazon warehouse. And American manufactured goods won't be competitive like they were when the US could leverage its industries against a Western world that was still rebuilding after the war. No one is going to want to buy American Ladas, and Americans won't be able to afford them.
> I just see so many factors here. It takes long term vision + some acceptance of failed investment + some sacrifice, all things we currently seem to have no desire/stomach for.
There's just too many factors outside the state's control, beyond a lack of political support for those types of investments.