Government financial incentives and business evolution and maintenance

Even though I believe in non-automobile centric mobility, I pay a fair amount of attention to the Michigan-based auto industry, because I am from Michigan and am a beneficiary of the previous wealth of that industry, which had been pumped into the state university system (U of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University are all excellent universities, few states the size of Michigan have an equivalent array).

But other than the decline of sales of the largest vehicles, as a whole, the auto industry is successful. What aren't successful are the manufacturers based in Michigan. I have been thinking about this in terms of the comparison by AnnaLee Saxenian of the computer technology industries of Rte. 128 in Boston vs. the Silicon Valley. The former were big industries, focused on size and mass production (with a lot of orientation towards the government, the military as a customer), the latter industrial ecology is much more ground up, flexible and innovative.

Similarly with the auto industry, companies like Toyota focused on using resources intensively and constantly improving, while U.S. companies focused more on mass production and marketing as opposed to creating value.

Anyway, looking at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for something else, there is this article about how the Pittsburgh region has many steel-related companies that have managed to grow and change and remain competitive despite the overall failure of the steel industry within the Greater Pittsburgh region. See "Pittsburgh remains prominent in the global steel industry thanks to suppliers who found ways to evolve."

If the innovative culture and adequate business model isn't present, probably all the government incentives in the world won't fix things.