Comment of the Week — Immigration and Economic Growth

5Sep2008 Filed under: Comment of the Week, Economic Development, Erie, Manufacturing Author: Peter Panepento

John Morris, a regular GlobalErie commenter, offered some great thoughts on why immigration should be a key part of Erie’s economic development strategy.

This should be one of the top subjects on here.

Countries like Canada, Australia and Singapore are aggressively recruiting high value educated immigrants. This is one of the most crucial weapons in our economic arsenal and we need to use it while people like that still want to come here, invest and start businesses.

Lee Kwan Yew recently pointed out Singapore’s edge on countries like Japan is it’s openness to new immigrants.

I also want to repeat a point I’ve tried to make here before. Immigrants from both inside and outside the country can be very important for urban areas because most of them don’t have the anti urban biases common in the U.S. When a lot of NYC’s white middle class dumped their houses for the suburbs, waves of immigrants happily took them off their hands.

Tags: Cleveland, Erie, Immigration, Manufacturing, Rust Belt, technology

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4 Responses to “Comment of the Week — Immigration and Economic Growth”

Jim Russell
September 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

You take away immigration and most US cities are shrinking, a lot worse than Erie I might add. Brain drain in Pensacola?

http://tinyurl.com/5gxj3j

Yep, you’ll find a brain drain story is just about every US state.
john morris
September 5th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Here’s a good article on Singapore. Trying to find Lee Kwan Yew’s remarks.

http://www.solid-state.com/articles/article_display.html?id=245229
john morris
September 5th, 2008 at 10:27 pm

Here’s a weird story about Austrailia recruiting American workers who might be losing their jobs in the “rust belt”. i found this through Burgh Diaspora,

“AMERICA’S manufacturing slump could be Australia’s gain, as the Queensland government launched a recruitment drive in the US ‘rust belt’ for metal workers, fitters and engineers.
Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Minnesota are suffering from record unemployment as manufacturing plants shut down or lay off hundreds of workers. The exodus of jobs to China has emerged as a major issue in the race for the next US President.
Peter Beattie, Queensland’s Los Angeles-based US trade commissioner, has started running a media campaign seeking skilled workers. The sunny state is particularly looking for boiler makers, welders, diesel fitters and engineers.
The advertisements contrast Queensland’s climate with the freezing conditions found in the northeast of the US during winter. They also focus on the language similarities, family and education, wage structure and worker benefits.”

http://www.metalworker.com.au/Article/US-metal-workers-Australia-wants-you/203624.aspx
James A
September 8th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Meanwhile, one of my wife’s classmates from college - an exchange student from Malaysia, who went on to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar - was unable to get into either the US or the UK due to immigration restrictions. Malaysia’s on the “bad list” since it’s majority Muslim (my friend is ethnic Chinese). She’s currently looking into Canada and Australia instead. Our loss, and their gain.

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Peter Panepento After more than six years working as a journalist in Erie, I'm now the web editor for the Chronicle of Philanthropy in Washington, D.C., and the publisher of GlobalErie.com. I still maintain close ties to Erie - a community that I care about deeply. I hope this Web site can help inspire a better future for Erie.

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