> but these are all, culturally, working class blue collar cities, and there is really nothing wrong with that. But if the blue collar jobs are drying up, ther

> but these are all, culturally, working class blue collar cities, and there is really nothing wrong with that. But if the blue collar jobs are drying up, there absolutely is something wrong with identifying "blue collar" as part of the local culture. There's nothing about working an office job or looking at a computer screen that requires you to drink $5 lattes. Turning up your nose at jobs that don't fit the local blue-collar "culture" isn't going to help any sort of recovery. This attitude seems to be part of the dangerous midwest mindset that if you wish hard enough, the manufacturing sector will rebound, and that's simply not realistic. Globalisation exists, and low-skill jobs can be done more cheaply in other countries. If you want a job you might have to take a white-collar one, and if you insist that your city is blue-collar the white collar jobs will go elsewhere (which they have already done, and which is why we keep hearing stories about detroit's decline).