Competitive manufacturing

Can American manufacturers hold their own against foreign competition in today's global economy? Could U.S. factories lift their productivity and keep innovating well enough to stay strong? The author asks whether newer production technologies and management methods have reached small-town and rural industry, and what government policy could do to strengthen this core sector.

The book takes issue with accepted thinking about economic development. For years, state and local industrial policy concentrated on where companies set up shop rather than on whether they could compete. The author contends that governments should instead help local industries become more competitive, treating the strength of an industry as more important than the appeal of a location. He also holds that grants to upgrade equipment and methods do more good than payments that merely lure a plant to town.

To test these ideas, the study looks at the rural South, the most heavily industrialized rural region in the country. It weighs the strengths and weaknesses of manufacturing as a foundation for regional economic growth.