Industrial Evolution

   Jobs go where the workers are.

   Simply put, that's what powered the Industrial Revolution several hundred years ago, and that's what powered the growth and subsequent decay of American cities in the 20th Century.
   As mechanical harvesting devices became available in agriculture, large farming families found themselves with more people than could be usefully employed in farm work. Many of them left the farm and went to cities in search of work. Result: Cities had abundant labor, some of them skilled in operating machinery, and this attracted manufacturers who could utilize machines to increase their production. This is how the Industrial Revolution began in Europe, powered by not only machines, but by an abundant supply of labor as workers left the farms and migrated to cities.
   
   Land, Labor, and Capital, and their associated costs -- rent, wages and interest -- continue to drive business decisions, even as they did in the past. These factors came into play as the textile industry grew in New England in the early 19th Century. Factories were built next to streams and rivers, to take advantage of flowing water to power the mills -- a capital investment. Also, there was a plentiful supply of workers, including immigrants and those pushed off farms as machines increased productivity there.
   Later, as union contracts pushed up labor wage costs, textile firms left New England and moved South, taking advantage of cheaper costs as mills powered by coal-fired boilers made location -- next to streams --- less important. Moreover, moving to the South also put textile mills closer to their supply of cotton, and to coal mines for fuel to power their mills.
   In addition, labor unions had not yet gained a foothold in the South as they became stronger in the North, so wage costs were lower.

   This principle -- of manufacturers setting up or relocating operations in areas where they could minimize cost and maximize profit -- is as true today as it was in the early years of the Industrial Revolution and in 19th Century and early 20th Century America. Manufacturing began in cities because that's where the biggest supply of labor was. But it's also true that workers migrate to areas such as cities because that's where the jobs are.

   The Garment District in Manhattan's New York City was famous for providing jobs to newcomers. Eventually, factory owners began to look for ways to lower labor costs, and they found the answer in other regions and other countries. More workers at lower wages. 

   Time was, Democratic machine politics dominated cities and urban areas in America as workers got together to form unions and negotiate better wages and working conditions from the owners of the factories.
   As transportation improved, the suburbs burgeoned with workers commuting from their picket-fenced houses in the suburbs to their well-paying jobs in the cities.
   Soon, employers followed them, as rents rose and technology advanced. It was cheaper to build a new plant on vacant land, complete with newer, more efficient machines, than to upgrade a manufacturing facility in a crowded city. Plus, workers no longer had to commute.
   Meanwhile, small independent farms were absorbed by corporate agribusiness, with their ability to buy expensive machines to increase productivity and thus reduce labor costs, and -- in areas where labor-intensive crops still needed more workers, they had the political influence to gain exemptions from minimum wage and hour laws. In turn, this sent the more skilled and educated workers to cities and factory jobs, leaving openings for newcomers willing to accept the lower wages.

   All along, of course, there were -- and are -- abuses, as owners try to keep labor costs down and unions out. Factory conditions in cities were sometimes notoriously bad, and often led to disaster. Prominent examples are the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in Manhattan's Garment District in 1911, and the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh last April.

  So it's true that workers go where the jobs are. But it's also true that jobs go where the workers are.

 Which comes first?