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So there are a lot of empty buildings in the U.S., see super scary empty malls, naval yards, what have you, and some are being turned into some awesome places! Rather than let these structures remain empty, some areas have seen them as opportunities for job creation. I was able to go on an economic development focused tour of the Philadelphia Naval Yards at a NEDA Conference this fall, and the multiple ways the buildings were being used and the number of jobs created was astounding. Not only is the Urban Outfitters world 
headquarters there in beautiful brick buildings resembling a college campus, complete with chic cafe, but there is also hard and soft manufacturing with a modern ship building facility and Tasty Baking Company (mother of TastyKake donuts!) 7,500 jobs & 400 more on the way with the entrance of a Greek solar company soon. I can vouch for the awesomeness of this building reuse but if you don't trust me check out the websites below : )
The Navy Yard
Slideshow of Beautiful Urban Outfitters HQ - formerly Navy machine shops & great article on its transformation if you are really interested
I think there's definitely benefits to using existing structures when the costs of rehab are not prohibitively high.
Agree, diagree? I guess we are losing some construction jobs, but lets be real there is still a lot of work to be done with retrofitting/hazardous materials clean up etc...
Oooo and here's how China is going to transform one of their vacant buildings. No big.
Alright, so the report is incredibly long but it has some fascinating findings. The Duke Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness has looked into the value chains of a number of different technologies and found which ones would pump up jobs in the United States the most. I recommend reading the one on Super Soil Systems, a new technology for treating hog waste. Thats right, hog waste. We've got a lot of it, and so do other countries. This could be a seriously good place to gain a competitive advantage if we start employing this technology first.
My other fave is the one on Auxiliary Power Units. Sounds sexy right? APUs can save us tons of gas by letting truckers idle their trucks so they can use the radio, AC etc but not run the engine. Again, we have a lot of trucks and a lot of the parts for APUs are already manufactured in the U.S.
As usual, decide for yourself if these seem like good opportunities but I'm impressed by the comprehensiveness of these reports. They make a strong case for investing in these technologies and give some concrete examples of the success of these technologies in the U.S. already. I say we look at it further, what do you think?
Hog Waste, thats right, Hog Waste
Auxiliary Power Units. Whoah
I'll probably hilight more of these in the future, but I would totally recommend scooting around the website in the meantime.
Check out this idea in Mississippi. The state government is tapping into some of the state's welfare money from last year's stimulus package to directly subsidize jobs at individual businesses for 6 months. Most of the businesses say they plan to keep the new hires even after the 6 months. What do you think? Good idea, bad idea? I think this is an interesting approach to spending the stimulus package and definitely shows innovation. I'll have to check back later to see what happens more long term but in the meantime check it out yourself. The article and badass Times slideshow are attached.
Stimulus Jobs on State's Bill in Mississippi
Badass Slideshow: Voices of a Mississippi Jobs Program
headquarters there in beautiful brick buildings resembling a college campus, complete with chic cafe, but there is also hard and soft manufacturing with a modern ship building facility and Tasty Baking Company (mother of TastyKake donuts!) 7,500 jobs & 400 more on the way with the entrance of a Greek solar company soon. I can vouch for the awesomeness of this building reuse but if you don't trust me check out the websites below : )
