Midwestern Leaders Study Tour 2025

Sheboygan to Charleroi, Coal River Valley to Cottbus – US-German Heartland Change-makers Share Lessons at Today’s Carbon Crossroads

Executive Summary

At a time when the transatlantic relationship is eroding under Trump 2.0, cooperation between US and German regions, cities and communities is of vital importance – particularly if momentum on climate change amelioration is to be maintained across democracies in North America and Europe. Local leaders on both sides of the Atlantic remain committed to actually solving global problems such as climate change, economic inequities, and community resident disengagement and disillusionment. As US Midwest elected officials hailing from coal, steel, and manufacturing communities recently criss-crossed Germany, meeting peers facing similar challenges of helping communities and residents successfully adapt to seismic economic structural change and concomitant cultural dislocation. Important insights were gleaned about the future health of our economies and our democracies.

Subnational Diplomacy in Action

A group of Midwest leaders organized by Michigan’s John Austin, coordinator of the Heartlands Transformation Network and current Visiting Fellow at the Academy of International Affairs-NRW – brought their experiences and open minds and ears to Europe last month. This was part of Das Progressive Zentrum’s  Transatlantic Heartlands Dialogue project. 

Exploring Germany’s industrial heartlands along with Austin were US Midwest elected officials and economic change-and decision-makers Steve Patterson, Anne Mervenne, Kent Smith, Ryan Sorenson, and Martina Guzmán. From deserted villages in the Rhenish mining area, to the heart of the German former coal and steel country in Duisburg and the Ruhr, to Cottbus’ ambitious post-coal transformation path, our delegates met and discussed with local and federal institutions, mayors, innovation hubs, ministries, and civil society actors.

As Athens, Ohio mayor and president of the US National League of Cities Steve Patterson told an international audience at our kickoff event hosted at the Academy of International Affairs in Bonn, Germany: The need and opportunity for strong subnational collaboration and agenda-building is now more important than ever.  

Further discussions with our delegates built out the opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and assistance:  Whether at our Berlin expert roundtable with former US Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy Amb. Nina Hachigian (ret), meeting with MP Katrin Uhlig, sessions with the youth volunteers at Ruhrpott für Europa  – all demonstrated: there are ample subnational channels already in place and ready for expansion. And a huge potential in local actors to reshape transatlantic ties from the ground up.

The delegates saw and forged new opportunities for continued subnational diplomacy working together through emerging networks like Nina Hachigian’s City Hub and Network for Gender Equity (CHANGE) – in the face of US abdication of its leadership role under the current Trump Administration, and German national government uncertainty about climate renewal. 

We spoke with Duisburg deputy mayor Dr. Sebastian Ritter, steelworkers representative Can Y. and Duisburg Business & Innovation GmbH leaders about strategies to bring heavy industry transformation, climate protection and quality employment together while facing geo-economic pressure – further intensified by US tariffs.

The group learned how successful transformation is more than new jobs and what role quality of living and recreational areas play in the city’s future from city developer in  Cottbus Stefan Simonides-Noack. 

Those exchanges showcased how subnational diplomacy is already delivering tangible policy engagement – linking local leaders across borders to drive economic, environmental, and democratic transformation from the ground up.

At the Carbon Crossroads – Which Way Will We Turn?

Our delegates from the US trod familiar terrain among the German coal-mining regions, steel, heavy manufacturing communities that had been the economic powerhouses of former West Germany and the then-GDR East. They all came from regions with similar industrial background: The heart of coal country on the banks of the Big Coal River in West Virginia; Detroit, the iconic capital of autos and the arsenal of democracy; steel and oil centre Cleveland and Sheboygan, Wisconsin – a manufacturing and port city just up the Lake Michigan shoreline from Milwaukee, once the machine tool capital of the world. The challenges facing Rhenish region & Cottbus were familiar – where local leaders were working hard to forge affirmative post-coal futures.   

In the brown coal mining area along the Rhenish mining area in Germany’s West, whose coal and workers had powered the industrial engine that had been Germany’s Ruhr, we visited huge coal pits and deserted villages – evacuated in front of the proposed path for coal mining by energy giant RWE’s. We heard from residents who resisted the pressure to leave and watched their home turning to ghost-villages. Today, the decades-long advance of the giant digging machines clawing coal of colossal pit mines – gobbling up whole German villages in the process – was grinding to a halt. Protesters from around Germany and Europe more than a dozen years ago had joined handfuls of villagers determined to remain in their homes, protesting and trying to halt the mine’s relentless advance.

But it was Europe’s recent years’ embrace of the Green New Deal, and Germany’s national decisions to end lignite coal mining and embrace renewable energy, that had meant a last-minute reprieve for Keyenberg and other villages – too late for others that had already been clawed underground. The families and farmers’ houses in lost villages had been bought up by the energy company, which paid for their moves and new houses, but to nearby cities and villages decoupled from their past, their neighbours, their community.

But now with changes in governments, ever-changing energy policies and whipsawing political dynamics in Germany, Europe, and beyond second guessing the need for the great “green” transformation, would the truce hold?

At the Thyssenkrupp steel plant in Duisburg, we got a close look at the German steel crisis and steels own “carbon crossroads” – with the future of the industry and thousands of jobs in play.  We toured the massive ThyssenKrupp steel company itself, representing the merger of two competing German former Steel titans desperately trying now to compete versus foreign steel. The Duisburg complex is in the vanguard of German and European efforts to make the big move to “green” steel. But talking to management and workers we learned declining demand for automobile steel and the job-reducing technological changes in making the green transition were now bringing the threat of significant layoffs and creating an impasse with the workers union over their own and the giant plant’s future.

Back home in America, Nippon’s Steel’s off again, on again plan to purchase Pittsburgh based US Steel had just gone through now that election winds had subsided. It promised a competitive future for Pittsburgh’s industry icon via modernization, and new investment. Or did it? 

On the other side of Germany, in Cottbus – deep in the former GDR (and today a centre of spiking support for the far right AfD party) – we found a mirror community to the soft-coal mining region of Germany’s west. We stood in front of what the Rhenish mining pits may one day become: The Cottbus Ostsee, a former open-pit lignite mine turned into a vast lake. 

Here mining had been halted, the massive power plant looming in the distance was slated to close, and the giant pit had been filled with diverted river water to make a colossal new man-made lake (also being contemplated in the West with diverted Rhine river water to fill the Rhenish mining areas’ vast pits). But the city’s current plan to remake Cottbus from a coal-mining town to a waterside-lifestyle community was being thwarted by the former pit walls (now waterfronts) constantly crumbling – halting development, at least for now.

It was eerily similar to the situation in coal country in the US: The rounds of extractive industry boom, then bust, then search for a different clean energy future – then whipsawing promises from leaders to “bring back coal” and the past (at least now under the Trump Administration) – that our US Midwest communities leaders and their communities have experienced.

The Germans we visited with, like the farmer Norbert Winzen, who with his extended family were practically the last citizens left in living in (town), were feeling the same carbon and climate change whipsaw. Resigned to their village being subsumed in the pit of the coal-mining and fossil fuel business inertia – they’d managed to ignore the objections of Germany’s famous historic farm-preservation-in-amber bureaucracy, and power up their farm compound with newly installed solar panels in what they thought was a last act of symbolic statement-making and defiance.

Now the farm and the village was spared by the sudden imperative for Germany and Europe to go green – a move seemingly eagerly embraced by the rhetoric on the RWE-energy sponsored placards and explanatory panels placed on the lip of the (still-working) massive Garzweiler open pit mine – to explain what they were seeing for the many visitors and gawkers who came visit this awe-inspiring monument to the carbon economy.

Or was Keyenberg really finally to be spared?  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had forced Germany’s fast retreat from Russian gas and oil. Did Germany and Europe still need some coal and carbon based energy to keep Germany’s manufacturing economy going?

Similarly back home: The head-turning pivot from green, clean energy leadership offered by the now turned out Biden-Harris Administration to “MAGA-red” had turned upside down the future economy-building table we all were playing on in the still struggling and transitioning communities of Middle America.

Now denizens of towns along the Ohio River Valley which several of our Midwest leaders delegation leaders called home were feeling the jerk of the US’ on-again-off-again push towards a carbon free economy – seeing the first Trump Administration abandoning US climate agreements, the Biden Administration and their own local efforts then putting pedal to the metal on “going green”. Leaders like Mayor Patterson had led the charge Now Trump II pulling the plug again and holding up the nostalgic chimera of a return to a fossil-fuel based economic boom-time for his voters.

Both the US and German communities and their leaders were moving through the same cycle of economic and cultural dislocation – local leaders working hard to treat and  build better lives and new opportunities for residents along the coal country and industrial corridors of the US Ohio River Valley, and Germany’s Rhine, Ruhr and Lusatia regions. Supported one day, then undercut by changes in national leadership and prevailing political winds. 

From Alienation to Climate Action

Navigating these “carbon crosscurrents” to create meaningful new economic opportunity for similar regions across our countries is a huge shared challenge, as it involves strong emotions and feelings of identity, alienation and anger – that if not treated now manifests in ethnonationalist resentment driven populist movements.  Understanding, and engaging effectively with resident in regions undergoing seismic changes is aided enormously by the kinds of new insights gathered on the delegation’s trip, opening a window onto the lived experience of community residents, and the lessons in what works – and what does not.

Manufacturing and Coal-country residents of Michigan, Cleveland, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania felt immense pride in their work and contributions to the economic power of their nations. There is tremendous nostalgia in Detroit and Flint, Pittsburgh and the Big Coal River Valley for the time of good-paying jobs and lively communities. There is anger and frustration that those jobs and way of life are diminished– and anger at those outsiders who tell them “you need to change.”

We found much the same feelings – particularly in the East – where residents had gone through such a disorienting economic and cultural seismic change after reunification. Community residents under the GDR, while not appreciating being told what they could do and where they could live by state directive, enjoyed once-secure jobs and were proud of the fact that they were the coal and energy-producing economic powerhouse of the former East. But now with such high hopes for a new life after the Berlin Wall fell and reunification, instead they had experienced disorienting economic and social dislocations. There was investment and a rebuilding, yes, but controlled by West Germany money and directive, leaving residents feeling powerless. Today, there was little faith in the latest big “plan” for economic transformation. As one community leader put it: “In public, the residents will nod and make nice comments about our current economic regeneration plan. But talking themselves, they will say, ‘what a bunch of garbage.’”

At several stops on the road, Athens Mayor Patterson, part of a band of Ohio-River Coal Country Mayors banding together to promote a clean-energy headed Marshall Plan for Middle America, shared stories of some steps toward success working at the local level:  His own work in Athens, Ohio Athens, to engage the community in new ways, in “reimagining” their municipality. “In Athens, we came together […] to reimagine our community – 76 percent of residents voted to pass a ballot initiative to pay for retrofitting the whole community for clean energy and sustainable systems. In so doing, bringing a new and different form of manufacturing back.” Or his fellow Mayor in Huntington, West Virginia, sparking new battery manufacturing, bringing 350 new jobs for people displaced from the coal industry. 

These Mayors are working hard with other leaders in the region to move past the nostalgia for the coal and heavy industry boom town years in so many communities – to chart a course to use new clean energy opportunities for community growth and renewal – Austin had just returned from sharing similar examples from international heartlands transformation work around how similarly-situated older industrial communities chart a new, brighter path in another coal country community – to economic development officials in the abandoned mines and coal camps in Durham and England’s North the historic Red Hills Miners Hall.

There are not one but many paths to new economic opportunities for similarly situated transitioning economic regions. These paths for new prosperity must be locally developed, owned, and operated. It does not work – as we saw in Cottbus, to be “done to” – to have development directed from outside. Success must be built on communities’ identities and whatever local assets each community has to work with: whether it is the making of things, or natural location (such as waterfronts), or reputation as committed to education or innovation; or arts, heritage and culture, or leveraging the formidable economic power of research (learning institutions and universities).

The Way Forward

Our visit left us with some a hopeful notes. The village Keyenberg was already planning its hosting in 2037 of the “Bundesgartenschau” (biennial German federal horticulture show) that would bring 20,000 visitors from across Europe to the streets and farm courtyards of Keyenberg. 

The German Ministry of Economy – despite the new Conservative dominated coalition  government removing the term Climate from its name – was still spending millions of Euros to support the regeneration of coal country regions and to aid the ongoing great green transformation.

The US mayors and delegates in tow noted the fact that the combined GDP of the states and cities in the US committed to maintain a green transformation dwarfed those following the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll back climate policy by 2:1. US leaders on the trip saw new promise in linking arms and sharing ideas with peer leaders at the level below the national government – and continuing to press on with strategies for climate change amelioration and coal and heavy industry region transformation. 

The delegation took inspiration from Dr. Manfred Körber in the Rhenish mining area at the self-organised Café Nr. 5., a new community meeting ground for remaining village residents, newcomers wanting to be part of the village’s future story, as well as farmers that remained but also those who had moved. Providing a space to come together in a refurbished barn and chicken coop, have a meal, find common ground and plot a new brighter shared future for their community.

It was a place, as Körber told the group: For those who had been demonstrators  against the energy company, as well as those who had been accommodators, to come together – to move from a place on the brink of vanishing to a space of co-reation, renewal and hope. 

About the Authors

About the Initiative

The Heartlands Transformation Network is a transatlantic collaborative partnership dedicated towards closing geographic economic divides and reconnecting residents of rural and former industrial heartland communities to economic opportunity. The initiative works to return community pride and optimism about the future, and diminish the appeal of polarizing, resentment-driven, isolationist and ethnonationalist political movements that threaten our democracies.

The initiative, its learning exchanges, convenings, events, study tours, presentations, publications, and other learning products, are conducted with partners including the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College; the Brookings Institution; the Georgetown University BMW Center for German and European Studies; the Jefferson Educational Society; Das Progressive Zentrum; the Ruhrkonferenz of North-Rhine Westphalia; Policy Manchester at the University of Manchester, U.K.; the University Allianz Ruhr; the German Consulate General in Chicago; the European Commission Directorate of Regional and Urban Policy; and the Committee of the Regions of the European Union, among others.

Learn more about the Network and join in its activities here.

With colleagues from the German Council on Foreign Relations, the author John Austin was facilitating an MSC side event of elected officials and leaders representing 20 democracies – all trading notes on how to bring new economic opportunity and optimism to residents of our countries feeling left-behind and ignored.

A Tale of Two Futures – US Industrial Heartlands Fellow Study Tour Fall 2024

Industrial Heartlands Revisited: Building Hope, Jobs, and Trust in the US Midwest

Four weeks before the 2024 US presidential election, our team travelled across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan to revisit the heart of American industry. With the fellows of our Industrial Heartlands project, we explored how communities are navigating the long road from deindustrialisation to renewal — and what these transitions tell us about politics, identity, and the promises of economic justice.

From Pittsburgh’s high-tech revival to Youngstown’s grassroots urban renewal and the entrepreneurial push in Erie, we encountered impressive local efforts – but also deep-seated wounds, unresolved tensions, and the sobering weight of generational loss.

Investing in the Future — But Not Forgetting the Past

In cities like Pittsburgh, transformation is visible. Once a steel-producing giant with suffocating air, it now thrives as a regional high-tech hub, driven by universities, innovation in robotics and medical science, and capital from its industrial past. This success didn’t happen by accident — it’s the product of decades of intentional policy, strategic partnerships, and the refusal to cling to nostalgia.

Yet the scars of deindustrialisation run deep. Psychiatrist Kenneth S. Thompson, a Pittsburgh native, underscored the psychological legacy of economic collapse — “unspoken shame, articulated anger,” and the need for societal acknowledgment. For many in the region, healing begins not just with new jobs, but with the recognition of old sacrifices.

This duality — optimism about the future, pain from the past — is echoed across the region.

Reviving Downtowns — But What About the Neighbourhoods?

Erie’s Downtown Development Corporation (EDDC) has breathed new life into the city centre since 2017, opening lofts, food halls, gyms and the first downtown grocery store in decades. Youngstown, too, has seen its core revitalised, thanks in part to sustained federal investment and institutions like America Makes and the Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI).

But outside the city centres, the story is different. Neighbourhoods are struggling. Streets are dotted with vacant homes, and the exodus of talent continues. The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) is trying to reverse this — street by street, tree by tree, house by house. It’s grassroots, patient, and profoundly local.

“Our work is about stabilising,” one YNDC staff member told us. “We’re putting neighbourhoods back together.”

They’re not alone. In Erie, initiatives like Erie’s Black Wall Street tackle economic exclusion head-on. Founded to build community among Black residents, the organisation now educates on home ownership, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy — filling a gap long left by unfulfilled institutional promises.

The figures are stark: Erie’s white households earn nearly twice as much as Black households. Redlining practices continue to separate the East Side from opportunity. “How can you benefit from something you don’t even know exists?” one local advocate asked. Trust, they said, must be rebuilt — not with empty promises, but with consistent, visible action.

The Economy Is Central — Climate Comes in Later

Across nearly all conversations, one theme dominated: economic survival. Job security, decent wages, and future prospects take precedence. Climate protection? It’s welcome — but only if it translates into employment and lower costs.

In Youngstown, union leaders and incubator heads stressed the need for “sticky jobs” — roles that don’t just arrive with ribbon-cutting ceremonies, but stay, pay well, and allow people to build a life. The Building Trades Union noted that after the 2008 crisis, unemployment in the trades hit 30–35%. “People lost their homes, families, some even their lives,” one representative recalled. They are now focused on diversifying work — building hospitals, schools, even carbon capture infrastructure.

Environmental policies were often met with justified skepticism. Can federal green funding really reach these communities? Will solar and energy-efficient housing be affordable? Or will climate migration simply push prices up without improving lives?

In places like Erie’s Black Wall Street and YNDC, sustainability is slowly entering the conversation — from solar panel incentives in new builds to rethinking land use through local land banks. But the green transformation is only beginning to intersect with these communities’ daily realities.

Education, Equity, and Opportunity

Higher education institutions are evolving too. At Penn State Behrend, students work directly on industrial projects. The Beehive Network, a consortium of five universities, offers free entrepreneurial support, applying for joint funding and helping students connect with real-world opportunities.

Still, most students in the region are “non-traditional” — older, working, or balancing family life. With declining public funding, universities increasingly turn to industry partners, who now shape research and hiring strategies. Across the region, the consensus is clear: education must be practical, applied, and better integrated with economic needs.

That same pragmatism drives local organizing. At Jefferson Educational Society, civic spaces attempt to fill the vacuum of declining party affiliations. “Being non-partisan is an attraction,” one organiser told us. “We want to be a space where people can learn and engage — not just choose a side.”

Power, Politics, and the Struggle for Inclusion

Democratic participation is changing. In traditionally blue cities like Youngstown and Detroit, frustrations simmer. In Detroit, Arab American leaders described a growing sense of disillusionment with both parties — but also a new wave of empowerment through entrepreneurship and civic leadership.

“Faith in the system is declining among the younger generation,” said one Arab American community member. “But more of us than ever are in positions of power. That’s a kind of hope.”

Still, many communities feel sidelined. In Erie, as in Youngstown, residents want to see themselves reflected in the decisions that shape their future — from where housing investments go, to how climate policy is applied, to who gets a seat at the table when funding is allocated.

Conclusion: A Tale of Two Futures

The Industrial Heartlands are at a crossroads. On one hand, there is reinvention — a new economy slowly taking root in labs, incubators, neighbourhood councils and trade schools. On the other, there’s a lingering sense of abandonment, mistrust, and the spectre of past losses.

Cities like Pittsburgh may be islands of progress, but beyond their centres lie vast landscapes still waiting for their share of hope.

What we saw was not despair, but determination. Determination to stay, to rebuild, to be part of something again. Whether federal programs, state strategies, or local leadership will succeed in matching that determination remains to be seen.

On election day, Erie County — like many others in the Midwest — may prove decisive. But for many we spoke to, the question isn’t just who wins, but whether they show up — and whether, finally, someone will keep their word.

Winning Hearts and Minds – Transforming the Industrial Heartlands

Two new policy papers offer valuable insights into (former) industrial regions in the United States. Together with experts, we discussed actionable recommendations for change-makers in German and US industrial heartlands. Here’s what we learned.

What’s next for the green transformation of the economy? Central to this debate are the industrial heartlands of the United States and Germany. This is why a few weeks before the U.S. presidential election of 2024, project fellows of the Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands travelled through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. They gained first-hand insights into the political climate by engaging with local organisations and individuals shaping the future of these regions. 

These dialogues underlined once more: the challenge is not purely economic, it is equally a question of communication, emotions and feelings. Transatlantic learning is key at this moment in time, as Germany stands today where the US was four years ago: at the starting line of a massive infrastructure investment package. Lessons from the so-called Bidenomics underline that fears of decline, the loss of pride and questions of identity have to be addressed for financial investments in the heartlands to pay off politically. 

To address this nexus of economic and democratic renewal, young U.S. and German change-makers have developed two policy papers. They offer concrete proposals to steer investment in people and place, improve local governance and foster innovation. We explored these ideas in an online discussion with politicians, transition experts, and invited guests.

Putting people in the centre of it

The overarching questions: How can the transition to a green economy and society succeed? What lessons can be drawn from the industrial heartlands? And how do we bring everyone on board in times like these? 

While the papers offer clear policy recommendations, the debate around them showed: There is a non-formal dimension that needs to be added. It starts with the way we talk and think about the transformation and extends to deep-rooted cultural narratives that must be acknowledged. As one participant put it: Inject emotions!

Project fellow Whitney Terrill presented the paper People-Centered Industrial Transformation, reflecting insights gathered from five U.S. cities. She noted that the term “just transition” is sometimes viewed as controversial and made clear: it simply means ensuring that everyone – especially working-class communities – has access to the green transformation. One key enabler are trade unions. They help build collective power, connect people, and provide much-needed continuity and stability.

The role of cities in driving the green transformation

Bill Peduto, former mayor of Pittsburgh and member of the project sounding board, shared his insights from the ground in Pennsylvania. He emphasised the crucial role of cities in delivering what will be the greatest industrial revolution in human history. With deep uncertainty about the direction the U.S. will take under Trump, subnational dialogue is more important than ever.

For cities to fully seize the opportunities of the green transformation, they must tailor their strategies to local realities. Collaborating with universities, they can assess which capacities need strengthening and identify where industrial conversion is most viable. The transition is likely to be most successful in regions with a strong industrial past – the industrial heartlands.

On communication, Peduto highlighted a major challenge: green technology is often met with fear. To overcome this, we need to frame the green transition as an opportunity—one that safeguards towns, secures jobs, and ensures a better future for the next generations. Yes, it reduces carbon emissions, but more importantly, it makes communities more resilient and part of a global movement. His advice to change-makers? Engage directly with those who have turned to the far right. Show them how this transition benefits them and their families. Win over hearts and minds.

Unlocking democracy by breaking through structural barriers

At the heart of the industrial heartlands’ transformation lies the power of local leadership. Project fellow Ben Harrington presented the second paper, Unlocking Democracy, which outlines targeted policy recommendations to dismantle structural barriers, enabling communities to take charge of their own future.

He stressed that for regional collaboration to thrive and for economic and social renewal to take root, self-governing communities must be equipped with both legal authority and stable funding. At the same time, to dispel perceptions of government as “the scary G,” the social contract must be reimagined. Investing in place-based infrastructure should send a clear message: economic development and quality of life improvements can go hand in hand.

Calibrated change that improves people’s lives

Thomas Kralinski shared insights from Germany’s industrial heartlands, drawing from his experience as State Secretary at the Saxon State Ministry of Economics, Labour, and Transport. In Eastern Germany, communities have already undergone a profound transformation – the end of the German Democratic Republic. While this experience has brought valuable knowledge, it has also fostered deep insecurity, as people can only endure so many radical changes.

Reflecting on recent election results, it may seem paradoxical that large segments of voters in this region are turning to the far right, despite significant government investment in retraining and social programmes. Kralinski emphasised that to truly win over hearts and minds, financial support alone is not enough. The key question must be: How can we genuinely improve people’s lives?

While material factors matter, culture must be taken far more seriously in shaping policies. Change, when it comes, must be well-calibrated. As project fellow Vera Gohla put it: You can’t just make a plumber code. Skilled trades remain essential, and many people take pride in their craftsmanship. The green and digital transitions require not only new tech talent but also pathways that respect existing skills and mindsets, ensuring that workers find opportunities in industries that align with their experience and aspirations.

Addressing emotional loss in times of change

Kenneth Thompson, a psychiatrist from Pittsburgh who met with the project fellows during their tour, shared valuable insights on how to win over people in times of transformation. He highlighted the tendency to speak of “hearts” without truly addressing the emotional needs that lie beneath. While the golden age of industrial regions may be over, you cannot just tell people: we’re gonna show you the new way, the better way. 

People need space to mourn. The predominant sense of loss has been neglected by the left. And the easiest way not to feel loss is to feel rage. This is what we are seeing in both Germany and the U.S. However, the good news, according to Thompson, is that collective emotional loss can be addressed using cultural tools – and there are already successful examples of how this can be done.

It’s politics, not just policy

When you travel along the A1 motorway in the North East of England, you will encounter a large contemporary sculpture by artist Antony Gormley: The Angel of the North. Completed in 1998, this figure stands 20 metres tall with a wingspan of 54 metres. It is made from weathering steel and ​​was commissioned by the local council to mark the transition of the area from an industrial past, shaped by coal mining, to a modern future. 

The Angel of the North could easily be seen as a mere landmark. But it serves a deeper purpose, Thompson remarked – memorialising the loss of an entire industry. The message is as simple as it is profound: This is who we were. And now, we will become something different.

Back in the online event, there is a sense that the presented policy recommendations are valuable, as they were born from genuine interest in the region and its people the discussions underline that it is not just about policies, but about the politics that constitute the framework in which they are implemented.. Yet, despite the drive to move forward, we must remember the importance of looking back. We must create space to recognise and mourn the losses, honouring the past before shaping a brighter future together.

Communicating this dual message – respecting the past while striving for better times ahead – is crucial. By doing so, we can improve lives, strengthen regions, and instill pride in families. In the end, the reduced carbon footprint will almost seem like a welcome by-product of the transformation – and we will gladly take that.

In October 2024 the project fellows travelled through the American industrial heartlands to get a first-hand impression of the prevailing political climate and to engage with numerous organizations and individuals who are deeply involved in shaping the future of these industrial heartlands.

The meetings provided valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities in these regions, allowing the project fellows to summarize their findings in policy papers that provide actionable recommendations for policymakers and change makers in both the United States and Germany.

This representative survey conducted by Das Progressive Zentrum, in collaboration with the Progressive Policy Institute and Georgetown University’s Center for German and European Studies, provides new insights into public attitudes toward public investments and green transformation agendas in Germany and the U.S.

At the Progressive Governance Summit 2024, we debated and strategised on how to make an impactful contribution to shaping a comprehensive concept of progressive security. In this session, the panellists focused on industrial policy as a means of grappling the challenges in the industrial heartlands within the context of recent geoeconomic shifts.

At the Progressive Governance Summit organised by Das Progressive Zentrum on Friday 21 June, several of our project fellows participated in a panel discussion to debate strategies that empower the industrial heartland regions by creating positive narratives about their future. This roundtable discussion was organised as part of the Transatlantic Dialogue of the Industrial Heartlands project.

Four weeks prior to the US elections and together with the fellows of our Industrial Heartlands project, we toured crucial electoral battlegrounds in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. This synopsis highlights remarkable efforts to revitalise these once thriving centres of industrial manufacturing – and the remaining challenges that we saw.

Author: Kenneth S. Thompson MD, Pittsburgh

Several years ago I got a call from a friend. She was working in a town outside of Pittsburgh, where she was hoping to spark a renewal of its main street. Knowing I was a psychiatrist she called with a specific question: “I know you treat people with depression, but what do you do when the whole town is depressed?” I have been thinking about this ever since. Just a couple of days ago I got another call about another town outside Pittsburgh in the opposite direction. He asked me the same question and added an observation: “The only thing young people want to do here is leave.”

Election Day 2024 is just ahead and it appears much will depend on the actions of Pennsylvanians – especially those residing in our rural and de-industrialized regions. Arlie Hochschild, an acclaimed sociologist, has just published a book about a similar place located in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. The book, titled “Stolen Pride”, follows up on her previous book “Strangers in Their Own Land”. Together they constitute an ongoing effort to understand the deep links between historical developments and the collective emotions underlying political life.

 What’s left is unspoken shame and articulated anger

“Strangers in Their Own Land” examines how people living among the chemical plants of Louisiana felt about and dealt with the ongoing degradation and pollution of the land around them. “Stolen Pride” examines how people in eastern Kentucky are dealing with the collapse of the coal industry and their sense that they and their community have become invisible. It is explicitly focused on the factors driving people from being Democrats to increasingly right-wing Republicanism.

Given the historical, social, and geographic similarities across Appalachia, it is not too great a stretch to consider what Professor Hochschild learned in the context of Pennsylvania. Below see a comparison of key facts about Kentucky Congressional District 5, the focus of “Stolen Pride”, and Pennsylvania Congressional District 14, which includes Fayette, Indiana, Greene and Washington County.

Figure 1: Kentucky Congressional District 5

Distribution	– 76.49% rural[1] – 23.51% urban
Population (2023)	738,681[2]
Median household income	$44,175[3]
Ethnicity	– 93.7% White – 2.6% Two or more races – 1.5% Hispanic – 1.4% Black – 0.4% Asian – 0.3% other

Figure 2: Pennsylvania Congressional District 14

Distribution	99.78% rural ??? 0.22% urban ???
Population (2023)	753,602[1]
Median household income	$63,720
Ethnicity	– 90.4% White – 3.7% Two or more races – 3.3% Black – 1.6% Hispanic – 0.6% Asian – 0.4% other

In addition to the shared population statistics and mountainous terrain is the collective experience of a history of economic decline and subsequent societal dislocation. Communities have deteriorated, taking valued social roles, status, and pride with them in both Kentucky and Pennsylvania, as well as other parts of Appalachia and the “Rust Belt”. What’s left in these left behind places is often unspoken shame and articulated anger that expresses a sense of being mistreated and displaced with a desire for revenge and restoration-taking back what is felt to have been stolen. It is an economy of emotions exchanged between people in reaction to perceptions, not necessarily to facts. It might be called “emotional reality”.

Addressing the reality of painful emotions

It’s on this terrain that I became engaged with Professor Hochschild’s work. I am a psychiatrist who works in de-industrialized, left-behind communities in Pittsburgh and at the policy level in the Commonwealth and the nation. I have been particularly concerned with the epidemic of the „deaths of despair” (drug and alcohol related deaths and suicide) that have devastated the places I have worked and many others like them.

Addressing the reality of painful emotions is difficult. It’s far easier to run from them and to not discuss them – which helps explain the use of substances and alcohol. This is particularly true when shame is involved. It is much easier to display anger than it is to admit fear, loss and shame. No wonder these latter feelings are generally absent from the national conversation, going unacknowledged while they drive the nation’s emotional reality, a powerful current under our raging sea.

Where are the multitude of sacrifices memorialized?

Pennsylvanians have experienced their share of profound losses. Entire industries and the communities they created have become shadows of themselves. People could blame the powerful global forces that have been driving our economy. But our culture of individual responsibility doesn’t see it that way. So these losses are experienced as failures that are both personal and collective. Failure is experienced as deeply shameful. Because of difficulty talking about these feelings, our communities have not worked through mourning our myriad losses – we hardly acknowledge them.

Where are the monuments to those bygone days – other than the now useless rusting ruins? Where are the multitude of sacrifices memorialized? Who remembers that the Mon Valley made the steel that won World War II? Who cares how heroic coal miners were? Who are we? We don’t know and no one else does either. No wonder regional pride is at an ebb. No wonder young people just want to leave.

Somehow, the abuse has to stop

It’s not helpful that those in our society who are doing well are often scornful of the failures and the related emotional reactions. These attitudes both reinforce the shame and, in their lack of empathy, drive further disconnection. They further decrease the likelihood that painful feelings will be discussed and reinforce the idea that we can express anger instead. This locks us in a pattern of arrogant big city elites and ignorant residents of „Pennsyltucky” – unable to grasp each other, looking to our respective leaders to somehow to put the other in their place – „A basket of deplorables” and “Marxist Fascist Communists”. 

This election, built on the fulcrum of these emotions, is revealing what has all the earmarks of a mutually abusive toxic relationship. Each side is hoping to overwhelm the other. What if we don’t? What if we do? What will get us off this high stakes emotional roller coaster? We must find a way. The truth is that we are dependent on each other – we are each other. It’s a fantasy to imagine otherwise. Somehow the abuse has to stop. Somehow we all have to find a way to think again and not allow ourselves to repeat our usual pattern of emotional reactions.

Not giving up on reinvigorating the future, but giving the past its due

I am worried that, in their mutual desire to escape an intolerable sense of shame about the losses they have experienced, large numbers of people will identify with and vote for a candidate who articulates that rage – and nothing else. I understand the desire and the importance of sending a message of anger, but the desire for revenge has left many people extremely vulnerable to the siren call of a manifestly treasonous charlatan and bully who is invested in continuing the abusive relationship for his own gain. It is impossible to imagine that his call, if answered, won’t lead to much regret and even greater shame. Very strong emotions can lead to very poor choices that make things worse, not better.  

At the same time, I hope that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz continue to build on President Biden’s extensive efforts to engage left behind Americans in a new future. I hope they can address the losses, the shame and the anger that have long been neglected and initiate a process of societal mourning – remembering rural and industrial America and the people who made it. This is not to suggest that they give up on reinvigorating the future, but that they give the past its due. It and the people in it deserve to be recognized. They are never going away. We must reconcile with them. That’s what mourning is about-the future is built out of the past.  

As they mourn, the people in these areas need to be reassured that the societal collapse they experienced wasn’t their fault and that it was a terrible mistake to undervalue and ignore them – to shame them. They need to be shown that this time things will be different, that the success of the nation must and will include them as it does everyone else. It must be made clear that, without them, we are not wholly who we are, and we cannot become who we aspire to be. I hope the Democrats continue to throw themselves into this.

The people of America on both sides of this election have many positive attributes that, if

elicited, can overshadow the depression, shame, anger and arrogance described here. I hope this election becomes a path toward healing – one that moves beyond feelings of anger, revenge and arrogance in favor of the better angels of our nature: empathy, reason, compassion, love and hope, in a country where no one feels they have no future in their community.

Time is short. We have a lot of emotional work to do.

About Kenneth S. Thompson

Wahlkampf zwischen grünem Wandel und fossilen Rückschritten – Einblicke aus den Industrial Heartlands

Deutschlands Progressive könnten sich von Harris abgucken, wie man den Populisten Paroli bietet. Es braucht ein mehrheitsfähiges Politikangebot.

Progressive Industrial Policy: An Antidote for Troubled Times

Author: Miguel Costa Matos

These are hard times. People are struggling with the cost of living and, disillusioned with things as they are, they are turning in increasing numbers to the far right. Progressives need to go beyond redistribution. We need a ‘thick industrial policy’, with strategy, cooperation and conditionality to deliver a future-proof economy, resources to sustain the welfare state and green investment and, crucially, opportunity for our generation.

‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ James Carville’s timeless words were key to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential victory, after focusing his campaign on the deepening recession. This was probably the first of a new generation of progressive victories, ranging from Tony Blair in the UK to Wim Kok in the Netherlands and Gerhard Schröder in Germany. Their ‘Third Way’ project brought a different perspective on economic policy, arguing Social Democrats should accept the mechanics of the market and its political hegemony after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At most, we could be capitalists with a conscience, using social policy to redistribute the dividends of growth. But, often, it was our political family who implemented privatisations, labour market and financial market deregulation, as well as strict welfare reforms.

The success of this political movement was short-lived and had its shortcomings. Not only were governments underwhelming in their transformative impact, but crucially, they stopped winning. This happened for three key reasons. Our mission as Socialists is to improve the lot of working people. But, all too often, we took them for granted, leaving low-income voters to either stop voting, or turn to other political outfits. Thomas Picketty has described this poignantly with his concept of a ‘Brahmin Left’. Democracy was not, as Anthony Downs had suggested, an economic function where voter share was maximised as a ‘catch-all party’ teasing centre and centre-right voters. Between the original and the copy, voters preferred the real deal and voted for the right anyway. Last but not least, the 2008 economic crisis came along, putting into question the intellectual and moral authority of the market and its steadfast advocates, both on the left and the right. In W. B. Yeats’ famous image, ‘things fall apart, the centre cannot hold’. With no succeeding policy consensus, the economic crisis has been outlasted by a crisis of political ideas. As Antonio Gramsci noted, a ‘crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ Among these morbid symptoms are the rise of the far-right across much of the Western world and the deepening of neoliberal governance with the socialisation of risk and privatisation of reward.

Presently, we are called upon to be midwives of Gramsci’s ‘new’. Beyond the political importance of winning the battle for ideas and pushing back the radicalisation of the right, we face pressing challenges in climate change, migration, ageing and the digital transition that require investment, on the one hand, and a rewiring of the economy, on the other. Redistribution and palliative measures are not enough. Rather, we need to usher in a new economy that is future-proof, sustainable and delivers for working people. A stronger economy is, of course, capable of achieving more resources for welfare and investment. More importantly, it can sustain better jobs that give our generation not only the freedom to move but the freedom to stay, as proposed by Enrico Letta, who is drafting the High-Level Report on the Future of the Single Market. 

‘What is to be done?’ we often hear, as if decades of ‘laissez-faire socialism’ made us forget how to intervene in the economy. Thankfully, there is hardly a need to reinvent the wheel. The policy instruments are much like those used in the present neoliberal paradigm. We, too, will use tax and financial incentives. We, too, will lower the cost of doing business through reform. Our policies will, however, come with a twist; rather than lowering taxes and wages across the board, we can direct incentives to firms that invest in R&D, decent wages and disadvantaged territories. Rather than reducing dismissal costs by embracing labour market flexibility, we can lower training costs and invest in skills. In short, we can deploy conditionality to ensure that there is socialisation not only of risk but also of rewards. 

Portugal has managed to multiply its annual economic growth tenfold, from an average of 0.2 per cent from 2000 to 2015, when the Socialists came to power, to an average of 2.1 per cent since. The country has outpaced other survivors of Eurocratic austerity not only by restoring confidence in the economy, but by resorting to this toolkit. In 2022, the government signed a pact with trade unions and employers’ confederations to increase wages by 20 per cent over the next four years. Chief among its policies was a 50 per cent tax credit on the costs of wage hikes above 5 per cent. This, however, did not come for free. Of course, the state won by subsiding permanent wage increases for a single year, but, crucially, this incentive only paid out if firms reduced wage disparity and had signed a collective bargaining agreement in the last three years. This agreement has led both to the highest rate of wage growth since the start of the millennium and a boom in collective bargaining.

This, of course, cannot be done without strategy. We are not indifferent to the kinds of industries we are supporting. By upgrading incumbent sectors and developing a comparative advantage in new products, we need to look to where we can compete through high value rather than low cost. This can be achieved both vertically, integrating industries upstream and downstream, and horizontally, in related industries. For instance, Portugal has today expanded from being a ‘simple’ car manufacturer to producing components for most car plants across Europe, hosting the R&D for many of these parts, developing the software that goes into our cars and, even, attracting related industries, such as the flourishing aviation sector.

This does not come without risks, chief among them is the danger we might pick losers rather than winners. The very process of picking is vulnerable to private interests, or at least the perception these might be at play. This can only be counteracted by a ‘thick industrial policy’. Thickness is needed at both ends. Projects ought to involve cooperation between firms within an economic cluster and also with the innovation ecosystem. Governments, too, need to mobilise experts to help choose which projects to support. By broadening the pool of people with stakes in the enterprise, we not only call upon a broader pool of resources to help the project succeed. We also filter out those that are not viable.

Over 30 years on, ‘it’s (still) the economy, stupid’. The economic troubles brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have mobilised an unprecedented level of corporate welfare. Progressives need to think out a strategy and build up policies that can foster sustainable and shared prosperity. Ultimately, this is about much more than growth. It is about offering the working class better living conditions and an alternative to democratic disillusion and far-right protest. It is about reclaiming a future for Social Democracy and our planet.

Miguel Costa Matos is a Member of Parliament in Portugal, the Vice-President of the Socialist Party Parliamentary Group and deputy spokesperson for budget and finance affairs.

© 01.02.2024 | Originally Published in The Progressive Post

Author: Sandra Rath

As part of Das Progressive Zentrum’s “Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands” Project, a group of local decision makers from the US Midwest travelled through Belgium and Germany last November to strengthen transatlantic ties and exchange ideas on a common challenge: Fostering economic revival through climate neutral industries and fortifying liberal democracy in industrial heartland regions. During their visit to Brussels, Charleroi, Saarbrücken, Leipzig and Berlin, our delegation met with experts, civil society leaders and politicians on local and federal levels to learn how they approach issues ranging from trust in democracy and political institutions, transforming production towards climate neutrality, the role of science and innovation as well as financial instruments to fund local initiatives.

Meet the Delegation

The delegation was further accompanied by John Austin, Director of the Michigan Economic Center and Senior Fellow at Brookings Insitute and Wolfgang Mössinger, former German Consul General in Chicago as well as our project team with Florian Ranft, Axel Ruppert and Sandra Rath.

Key Takeaways

1. Local green transition projects must be rooted in the identity of the local population and workers, incorporate their needs and encourage their participation.
2. Local and municipal governments must be equipped with the necessary governance tools and funds to impliment bottom-up policies that foster local identification and ownership, thereby countering right-wing populist narratives.
3. To successfully communicate green transition measures, it is imperative to be sensitive towards “change fatigue” and past experiences of upheaval of the local population, especially in East Germany.
4. To rebuild trust in democratic institutions and decision-making, governments must communicate green transition policies transparently and create spaces for deliberation and participation.
5. Providing a local network to connect research and development (R&D) with businesses is crucial to fostering innovation and directly implementing green technology in the region.

In the final meeting of the day, the delegation learned from Saarland’s Minister of Finance, Jakob von Weizsäcker, about Saarland’s Transformation Fund, a fiscal instrument to allocate government funds to local green transition initiatives, underlining the all-of-government approach to the green transition in the Saarland. The meetings of the day emphasized the power of a united approach to green industrial policy that encompasses workers, company management and the political level.

(Fotos: Corinna Mehl)

In a last meeting of the day, our delegation met with Thomas Kralinksi, State Secretary in the Saxon Ministry of Economy, Labour and Transport and Sounding Board member of the Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands Project. During the conversation, Kralinski spoke about the government’s strategy to attract chips production through the “Silicon Saxony” initiative, thus fosterting the creation of green jobs, and the “Future Sax” platform which aims to connect universities with small and medium sized enterprises around the state. Regarding the rise of right-wing populism in the state, Kralinksi reiterated the fear of change in East Germans rooted in the reunification experience and currently driven by the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, inflation, migration and the war in Ukraine.

(Fotos: Corinna Mehl)

In the afternoon, the delegation attended the official launch of the Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands Project at Das Progressive Zentrum’s Innocracy Conference. They discussed the Project Fellows’ impulse papers and gave feedback and advice on what topics to focus on throughout the course of the fellowship. The day ended with an informal meeting with representatives of the Atlantikbrücke, rounding up a week of week of transatlantic peer learning on industrial heartland regions.

(Fotos: Fabian Melber)

A former mayor of Pittsburgh and a grandson of steelworkers makes the case for environmentally sustainable steel production.

Authors: Florian Ranft, Axel Ruppert, Sandra Rath

There is a growing convergence of interest and effort on both sides of the Atlantic to bridge geographic economic divides and reconnect residents of industrial heartland communities to economic opportunity. Where these communities continue to decline, residents feel disconnected and alienated from a rapidly changing global economy and polity, while polarizing, resentment-driven and populist political movements that undermine our democracies can grow from within. Where economic regeneration has been done successfully, it serves to return community pride and optimism about the future and reduces political discontent. 

In order to share transatlantic experience and promote effective strategies for investment in people living in industrial heartlands, the Conference on Transatlantic Work to Address “Geographies of Discontent” brings together leaders and economic change practitioners from across Europe, the UK and the US.

After a keynote address by Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Senior Advisor and Vice-President, Bertelsmann Foundation and Sounding Board Member of the Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands Project, we will engage in discussions with:

• Peter Berkowitz, Director, European Commission Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy
• Dr. Raphael L’Hoest, German Deputy Director General, Structural and Regional Policy, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action
• Missy Hughes, Secretary & CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
• Bill Peduto, Former Mayor of Pittsburgh, now heading Carnegie Mellon Institute
• Katie Rosenberg, Mayor of Wausau, Wisconsin.

Please note that there is a limited capacity for in-person attendance. We look forward to welcoming you at the convening and discussing the future of industrial heartlands with you.

This conference is organized within the context of a delegation trip of local decisionmakers from the United States to Germany and Europe. The trip’s goal is to engage in a transatlantic exchange on the challenges facing the industrial heartlands in Europe and the United States as well as best practices to tackle them. The delegation trip is organized within the Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands Project.

On 17 November 2023, we held a workshop called “Democracy at the crossroads in the industrial heartlands – transatlantic perspectives for the future of the places that matter” as part of Das Progressive Zentrum’s Innocracy23 conference.

What are solutions for a better, greener and more democratic life in the “places that don’t matter”?

For a generation, people living in the traditional industrial heartlands all over the world have been buffeted by a technological and services revolution, the decline of manufacturing, and the rise of a borderless global digital economy. The result is deepening inequality, ongoing political support for right-wing populists and a hollowing out of the middle class. From the rise of Trumpism to the successes of the AfD, industrial heartlands lie at the crossroads to the future of our democracies. This is why we we’ve hosted an interactive workshop to discuss best practices, political strategies and policy solutions to foster democratic participation, trust and tangible future perspectives for those living in the places that matter. 

The workshop entailed an inspiring exchange with our 12 project fellows of the “Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands” project as well as a delegation of seven decision-makers from the US Midwest. Join us for fresh, transatlantic takes on how to tackle the challenges of a just transformation while rebuilding trust in democracy. 

To combat this decline, Das Progressive Zentrum and its partner organizations from the United States have launched the three-year project “Transatlantic Dialogue on the Industrial Heartlands” with the goal of creating new opportunities in old industrial heartlands of both countries by forging a transatlantic dialogue, exchanging best practices, and developing political strategies  and policy solutions for a better, greener, and more democratic future in the “places that don’t matter.” As part of this project, 12 project fellows from the U.S. and Germany are working on the two thematic blocks “Perspectives for the Future, Respect and Participation” and “Climate, Work and Innovation” to demonstrate through their input how the living standards and opportunities for people in the industrial heartlands can be increased while working towards rebuilding trust in democracy in both countries.

As part of the workshop “Democracy at the crossroads in the industrial heartlands – transatlantic perspectives for the future of the places that matter”, we introduced the Industrial Heartlands project and the 12 project fellows presented their impulse papers as a starting point for their project work. Afterwards, participants exchanged ideas with you in four groups and discuss the topics of “Participation and Democracy”, the “Industrial Transformation”, “Bidenomics and the Green Deal – Local Implementation” and “Countering the Far Right”.