Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are being prepared for shipment to Kalamazoo’s Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo manufacturing plant.
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images
The former manufacturing city of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has become a hub for Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing. This can help the area’s economy turn the corner after some tough years.
Ranked highest this year Bloomberg Brain Drainage Index: Loss of top-talented population, Kalamazoo has fought just like the rest of the United States with the devastating pandemic. But the city had some hope when the Pfizer Inc. factory, located next to Portage, recently became a key point of vaccine distribution. German drug manufacturer and partner BioNTech SE plans to do so delivered 200 million doses to the US in July.
Still, the pandemic hit Michigan hard. Payrolls stood at 4 million in November, 9.4% less than the previous year due to one of the strongest declines among states, the Department of Labor data show. The slow resurgence of car closures in the spring, now, is being helped by one decreased infection rate.
Meanwhile, places like Kalamazoo are likely to be helped by an exodus driven by a pandemic of large cities that attracts more families to smaller communities.
“People look for less friction in their lives” and the trend of working from home illustrates that jobs can actually be done outside the office, according to Ross DeVol, CEO of Heartland Forward, an institute for urban development.
Kalamazoo also sees an economic renaissance in a good that cannot get out of the city: land. Local officials use land banks to acquire abandoned and distressed houses and commercial properties to pave the way for growth to return. The strategy is to “breathe and invent long-term plans,” said Kelly Clarke, executive director of the Kalamazoo County Land Bank.
Six of the ten U.S. metropolitan areas that have lost the most brain energy in the past four years are in the industrial west center, according to the index. They complete the top five places after Kalamazoo: Decatur, Illinois; Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Lima, Ohio and Elmira, New York.
The brain drain index tracks the losses of talented workers in the four years to 2019, with advanced degrees, science and engineering, and employment in white-collar industries. It also incorporates inflation-adjusted population changes and wage changes for science, technology, engineering, or math, the so-called STEM disciplines.
Separately, the Bloomberg’s brain concentration index, which measures business formation, employment and STEM education, shows that the metropolitan areas that score best show remarkable traction. The top places are Boulder, Colorado, driven by science, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California.
Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, ranks third. Like many college towns, it attracts and retains new technology companies, including a Google campus. The top three finishers maintained the same ranking in 2016.
Still, rankings for four areas: Santa Fe, New Mexico; Manchester-Nashua, New Hampshire; Columbia, Missouri and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, fell in double digits.
To access the full Bloomberg Brain Drain 2020 index dataset, click here.
To access the full dataset of the 2020 Bloomberg Brain Concentration Index, click here.
– With the assistance of Alexandre Tanzi