ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how leaders in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Columbus arrived at the decision to explore alternatives, and discusses the extent to which doing so helped or hindered their region's future prospects. It begins with Cincinnati, a region whose response was to somewhat passively focus on diversification, which ultimately helped it to 'turn the corner'. Cincinnati's regional economy saw significant growth in the production of pork, beer, soap, machine tools, and carriages during the early twentieth century. As was the case in many other Midwestern regions, economic restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s proved extremely challenging for Pittsburgh leaders. Indianapolis, somewhat surprisingly, was a hotspot for automobile production in the early twentieth century. Though that sector would fade to oblivion in the 1930s, it does help to explain the hidden but substantial manufacturing roots of the Indianapolis region. In its early years, the Columbus region was settled largely by German and Irish immigrants.
