Pfizer BioNTech vaccines prepared for dispatch at Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo plant in Kalamazoo.
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
The old factory town of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has become a center for the production of Covid-19 vaccines. It could help turn the economy in the area around after a difficult year.
The highest place this year Bloomberg Brain Drain Index of Population Loss to Top Talents, Kalamazoo, like the rest of the US, has struggled with the raging pandemic. But the city gained hope when Pfizer Inc. ‘s factory in adjacent Portage has recently become a major distribution point for the vaccine. The drug manufacturer and German partner BioNTech SE plans to delivers 200 million doses to the US by July.
Yet the pandemic hit Michigan hard. Salaries were at 4 million in November, a decrease of 9.4% over a year earlier for one of the strongest declines among the states, the Department of Labor. data show. However, the slow return of car plant closures in the spring is now being aided by a slower infection rate.
Meanwhile, places like Kalamazoo are likely to be helped by a pandemic-driven exodus from big cities that draws more families to smaller communities.
“People are looking for less friction in their lives” and the work-from-home trend illustrates that work can be done effectively outside the office, according to Ross DeVol, CEO of Heartland Forward, an institute for urban development.
Kalamazoo also sees economic renaissance in an asset that cannot leave the city: land. Local officials use land banks to obtain abandoned and dilapidated homes and commercial properties to pave the way for growth to return. The strategy is ‘breathing and drawing up long-term plans’, says Kelly Clarke, executive director of the Kalamazoo County Land Bank.
Six of the ten U.S. metropolitan areas that have lost the most brain power in the past four years are in the industrial Midwest, according to the index. The top five to Kalamazoo are Decatur, Illinois; Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Lima, Ohio and Elmira, New York.
The brain drain index tracks the losses of talented workers during the four years to 2019, with advanced degrees, scientific and engineering degrees, and jobs in white-collar industries. It also includes population change and inflation-adjusted salary changes for science, technology, engineering or mathematics – the so-called STEM disciplines.
Separately, the The Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index, which measures business formation and employment and training in STEM, shows that metropolitan areas with the best scores show remarkable traction. The most important places are science-driven Boulder, Colorado, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California.
Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, ranks third. Like many university towns, it attracts and retains businesses in new technology, including a Google campus. The top three achieved the same rankings in 2016.
Rankings for four areas – Santa Fe, New Mexico; Manchester-Nashua, New Hampshire; Columbia, Missouri and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois – fell by double digits.
Click to get the complete dataset for the 2020 Bloomberg Brain Drain Index here.
Click to get the full dataset for the 2020 Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index here.
– Assisted by Alexandre Tanzi