Skip to main content
Past Event

The smartest places on Earth: Why rustbelts are the emerging hotspots of global innovation

Past Event

The smartest places on Earth: Why rustbelts are the emerging hotspots of global innovation

Mark Muro, Antoine van Agtmael, Fred Bakker, Rebecca Bagley, Bob Geolas, and Bruce Katz

Smartest Places book coverThe conventional wisdom in manufacturing has long held that the key to maintaining a competitive edge lies in making things as cheaply as possible, which saw production outsourced to the developing world in pursuit of ever-lower costs. In contradiction to that prevailing wisdom, authors Antoine van Agtmael, a Brookings trustee, and Fred Bakker crisscrossed the globe and found that the economic tide is beginning to shift from its obsession with cheap goods to the production of smart ones.

Their new book, “The Smartest Places on Earth” (PublicAffairs, 2016), examines this changing dynamic and the transformation of “rustbelt” cities, the former industrial centers of the U.S. and Europe, into a “brainbelt” of design and innovation.

On Wednesday, April 6 Centennial Scholar Bruce Katz and the Metropolitan Policy Program hosted an event discussing these emerging hotspots and how cities such as Akron, Albany, Raleigh-Durham, Minneapolis-St.Paul, and Portland in the United States, and Eindhoven, Malmo, Dresden, and Oulu in Europe are seizing the initiative and recovering their economic strength. 

Join the conversation on Twitter at #SmartestPlaces

Agenda

Introduction

Presentation

A

Antoine van Agtmael

Senior Advisor - Garten Rothkopf

Trustee - The Brookings Institution

Co-author - "The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation"

Response Panel

F

Fred Bakker

Co-Author - "The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation"

A

Antoine van Agtmael

Senior Advisor - Garten Rothkopf

Trustee - The Brookings Institution

Co-author - "The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation"

Rebecca Bagley

Vice Chancellor for Economic Partnerships - The University of Pittsburgh

B

Bob Geolas

President and Chief Executive Officer - The Research Triangle Park

Closing Remarks

More Information

To subscribe or manage your subscriptions to our top event topic lists, please visit our event topics page.

Get a weekly events calendar from Brookings