Editorial: Can Re:Build reimagine manufacturing in Southwestern Pennsylvania?
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Pennsylvania is built on the brute strength of production. For more than 100 years, the region was where people dug coal from the earth, turned ore into metal, baked bricks and fashioned glass. The creations of Pittsburgh and surrounding areas were the things that built the nation.
That was something that brought the people great pride.
But that changed dramatically over the past 50 years. Today, the area is known more for hospitals and banking. Manufacturing is no longer king — and that can lead to an identity crisis.
So when Gov. Josh Shapiro stands in the Pittsburgh Steelers home in Acrisure Stadium and announces 300 full-time manufacturing jobs over three years, it gets attention.
Re:Build Manufacturing will bring an $81 million total investment — including $18.75 million in state grants and loans — to the New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park. It will occupy portions of five buildings with a total of 175,000 square feet when done.
“Re:Build will focus on cutting-edge innovation in growing industries that are key to this region’s economic success, industries like energy, robotics, aerospace and biotech,” Shapiro said. “They’re also going to give workers the skills they need to succeed and compete in the jobs of today and tomorrow, providing workers with the training they need for these high-tech jobs.”
That sounds great. It also sounds familiar.
Like someone in a codependent and dysfunctional relationship, the area can fall for the answers it wants to hear. People with a history of manufacturing crave the familiarity of producing things again. People remember the way those stable factory jobs supported families without student loans.
Allegheny and Westmoreland counties — the whole state for that matter — are peppered with industrial parks built on the bones of factories that closed or fields that were strip-mined. They have all been constructed with an “if you build it, they will come” mentality.
Re:Build seems like that dream come to fruition. If so, that is great.
But what we must focus on is not just the return to what is familiar about manufacturing. We also have to pay attention to what will make it take root this time and spread.
It can’t just be about looking backward to the steel days. Re:Build is promising a forward approach to new technologies and industries. That has to be embraced.
Manufacturing’s greatest demand is workforce. High school and post-secondary institutions are going to need to focus on the needs of the students who are looking to those industries for careers.
And residents are going to have to walk the line between encouraging companies to be good neighbors and bullying them out with a “not in my backyard” refrain.
Can production be the backbone of Southwestern Pennsylvania again? It might not dethrone medicine and money, but manufacturing could definitely reclaim a place beside them. It’s just going to take a lot more than a flashy photo op to get there.