“... there are no job opportunities in the inner cities. “
This goes back to why there are cities in the first place. Cities were located on trade routes. The trade brought a concentration of people who lived off of and supported trade. Synergism led to more industry, which led to more jobs. The more industry, the more people the more industry. But people running cities, politicians, started bleeding (taxing) industry. Then government started regulating industry. Regulation means taxing. Government started supporting wild-eyed political aims like Global Warming, Net Zero and crazy enabling laws like must hire particular groups so they have representation...LGBT++, blacks, etc. The overhead for even having industry became too great in cities. Throw in the politics of unions and things start to look unpleasant. So, industry relocated along the path of least resistance. That is as far away from cities as possible. In some cases, due to anti-business regulations, to other countries. This wasn’t something they wanted to do as coordinating a company across continents isn’t cheap or easy. It’s because governments at all levels made the corporate jungle into a desert.
Back when I was in college New York garbage collectors were already earning more than I’d make per year in my first twenty years. Plus, they had an amazing retirement plan. You can’t have companies return to cities as long as cities are run for the benefit of politicians rather than for the citizens. There are so many entities in the Chicago area that have taxing authority it’s amazing there are any jobs there at all. There are local park authorities with the ability to tax citizens and companies. You’d be crazy to locate a business there. Politically, none of this can end because there are too many people “invested” in the government jobs and retirement. Therefore, the cities must fail before they can be reborn. This is just the way it is and there is not solution until the local, state and federal governments are effectively gone.
> there is not solution until the local, state and federal governments are effectively gone <
You make many good points. Perhaps “effectively gone” is better replaced by “out of the way”.
I actually share your rather pessimistic outlook. If Trump wins in 2024, he can hopefully bring some industry back. But as you noted, city and state governments will continue to block progress with all sorts of regulations and taxes. The road forward will not be easy at all.
Toyota’s production facility in Georgetown, Kentucky covers an area of something like 8 million square feet. I challenge anyone to find a parcel of land anywhere near a major U.S. inner city that could accommodate an operation like that.