Abundance Strategies Should Promote Abundant Jobs in Distressed Places

Authors

Timothy J. Bartik, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment ResearchFollow

Upjohn Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6238-8181

Issue Date

July 2025

Abstract

A prominent recent policy debate is about “abundance policies”: policies to make it easier to build housing or infrastructure, deliver government services more quickly and more efficiently, and expedite the public funding of the most innovative and socially impactful research. In this essay, I argue that abundance advocates often mistakenly ignore or have a negative attitude toward “place-based policies.” These place-based policies would seek to increase employment rates, particularly in good jobs, in two types of distressed places that lack abundant job opportunities: distressed local labor markets and distressed neighborhoods. Both the goals and means of place-based policies fit into the abundance paradigm, which prioritizes economic growth and embracing new things. The goals of place-based policies are to expand the overall economic “pie” in the United States by extending better job opportunities to people who reside in places that currently lack such opportunities. The means of place-based policies requires embracing new industries and new types of jobs in distressed places. This essay gives some specific examples of place-based policies that can improve job opportunities for people in distressed places. These problems in distressed places are not addressed by the usually-emphasized “abundance policies,” such as building more housing in booming places. But including place-based policies in the “abundance perspective” requires acknowledging that most people do have strong ties to the familiar people, landscapes, and institutions of their home place. The ties to the familiar have some tension with the abundance perspective of embracing change. The challenge of place-based policies that build abundance is to preserve what is valuable in a place while sufficiently embracing the new such that the place can renew its competitiveness. But abundance advocates must recognize the abundance that people want includes availability of good jobs where they already live and in communities that they value.

Series

Policy Paper No. 2025-036

DOI

10.17848/pol2025-036

Keywords

abundance policies, distressed labor markets, place-based policies, economic growth

Subject Areas

LABOR MARKET ISSUES; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; Local labor markets; Regional policy and planning; Business and tax incentives; Urban issues; WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT