What Is To Be Done? Investing Where It Matters.

Something has started. Let's keep it going.

This photo from 1922 shows a worker at Bell Systems doing the advanced-tech manufacturing of that era, testing vacuum tubes while wearing protective dark glasses. Advanced-tech manufacturing is making a comeback in the US. (Colorized photo via Smith Collection/ Gado/Getty Images.)

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I plan to concentrate for a while on innovations, partnerships, experiments, and other steps that could be the basis of locally driven, bottom-up improvement in America’s economic, civic, and environmental welfare. In many ways this is a return to the ‘Our Towns’ work that Deb and I began more than a decade ago.

Today’s post is about three recent developments on this front. They all involve a through-line in American life that has re-emerged as the central axis of electoral politics here and elsewhere. That issue is improving the economic and social opportunities available to people (and places) that have been left-behind by the technological and business changes of the era. Or …