Next American City: A global wake up call for Middle America

Change or die.

That's the advice given by Richard Longworth in Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalization, reviewed recently on Next American City.

The book chronicles the rapid change in the Midwest - of rural economies that are becoming increasingly automated and corporate, and of urban economies that have been undergoing a long period of deindustrialization.

According to Longworth, we Midwesterners are our own worst enemies. We cling to mediocrity, crave normalcy and stability, resent outsiders, and resist any challenge to our comfortable world view.

Longworth chooses Chicago as one city that has weathered this kind of thinking, still able to attract the young and the creative, even through periods of job loss.

The suggestion for the rest of us - be less provincial, work regionally, and compete globally.

Yeah, right. Here in Cincinnati, someone from Hyde Park can't even agree with (or relate to) someone from Price Hill.

By the way, where did you go to high school?