Like most Great Lakes cities, Grand Rapids, MI has been busy shedding manufacturing jobs. In fact, the city lost a total of 11,600 manufacturing jobs from 1995 to 2005, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution.
Fortunately, the city also launched a major sewer renovation project during that trying time. The work, when finished, will have invested more than $350 million to modernize the sewer system and generated approximately 16,450 jobs, according to estimates prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers which project 47,000 jobs created for every $1 billion of public speding to improve basic infrastructure like roads and water systems. The overarching goal of the project in Grand Rapids is to separate pipes carrying human sewage from pipes carrying storm water and protect the quality of the Grand River.
Milwaukee lost 29,700 manufacturing jobs from 1995 to 2005, according to Brookings. Cleveland lost 52,700. Detroit lost 87,700. These and other Great Lakes cities need jobs. They also generally have crumbling sewers. Fixing those systems is one way to put people back to work.
In fact, the federal government alone could generate some 350,000 jobs throughout the region if it embraced a 2005 plan to restore the Great Lakes and followed the recommendation to earmark $7.5 billion for repairing outdated sewer systems. State governments could generate tens of thousands more employment opportunities if they chipped in the recommended $6.2 billion in matching funds for the infrastructure overhaul.
Yet, even as they express commitment to reversing the job losses and economic decline in the Midwest, the president, Congressional leaders, and state officials fail to make the restoration plan a top priority. That's principally because they view the plan as an expensive one-dimensional environmental cleanup program. Not as a key piece of the region's 21st century economic development strategy.
