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From what I've read about Grand Rapids, it has a very different history from Detroit because it was run by city leaders involved in the Dutch Christian denomination, and their religious leaders opposed labor unions (because presumably the church was acting as a type of union itself). Very few workers on this side of Michigan apparently were unionized in the days where everyone in Detroit was unionized. Consequently, Grand Rapids remained an attractive location for business and had a highly organized, unified, and motivated set of leaders. (I stand to be corrected but I read that somewhere).
With Phoenix, from what I recall the US military located a major center for repairing aircraft during WW2. Afterwards, due to the concentration of aircraft-skilled workers, private aircraft companies began locating their headquarters in Phoenix. Over time Phoenix emerged as a center for the aerospace industry, which would in turn attract other fields such as finance, all of which apparently helped this area evolve into such a hot location for professional jobs of all sorts.
It does seem like cities often benefit from a single, major company. Atlanta had Coke and Delta, both of which arose from the Vicksburg, Mississippi/ Monroe, Louisiana area (by and large) and moved to Atlanta to be in a larger city.
Nashville seems to be benefiting primarily from the work of Thomas First in starting HCA, which spawned an entire healthcare management industry in Nashville. Charlotte benefited from Hugh McColl who pioneered the merging of banks into mega-banks that made Charlotte the center of the banking industry. Fayetteville, Arkansas took off because of Sam Walton and Walmart.
Greenville, SC took off as a result of Michelin choosing the area due to the density of non-union workers and railroad going directly to the port of Charleston (so that the tires could head directly to Europe, etc). Then BMW chose the area because of Michelin (and for those same reasons). Huntsville, Alabama took off because the military chose them for a chemical weapons plant which later transitioned to working on rockets. Austin seems to have taken off after Michael Dell built his computer company there.
It seems like luck has a fair amount to do with which places have their economies take off.
From what I've read about Grand Rapids, it has a very different history from Detroit because it was run by city leaders involved in the Dutch Christian denomination, and their religious leaders opposed labor unions (because presumably the church was acting as a type of union itself). Very few workers on this side of Michigan apparently were unionized in the days where everyone in Detroit was unionized. Consequently, Grand Rapids remained an attractive location for business and had a highly organized, unified, and motivated set of leaders. (I stand to be corrected but I read that somewhere).
TLDR
This is a fairly good attempt at GR. It is true that the Dutch Reform Church was anti union and pressured its members to resist unionization. Even with the large influx of Dutch immigrants that had Calvinist backgrounds, Grand Rapids still had very large populations of both German and Polish immigrants. From a numbers standpoint Catholicism was(and is) still the largest religion. The result was a labor stalemate, and unions being unable to take a strong foot. Grand Rapids has still lost a significant amount of manufacturing jobs to places with cheaper labor. That is not the reason GR has managed to outperform its rust belt peers 100 years later.
Grand Rapids was never dominated by one industry. Whereas say Flint at its most prosperous(larger and wealthier than GR at one point) only had 2 or 3 major employers. Grand Rapids had several hundred smaller firms, and they weren't dominated by any single industry. Even now in its large manufacturing sector it is smaller to mid size firms making everything from medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, to aerospace and automotive. No one industry dominates it, so if one area goes into a downturn, the diversity buffers the region from too heavy an economic hit.
That alone isn't enough have given Grand Rapids the position its in now. That really goes to the rise of the billionaire. From the 1970's through today Grand Rapids had three prominent business leaders reach multi billionaire status. They focused heavily on turning the city around. In the 1990's they realized the region was starting to fall behind economically. There were several private/public economic partnerships create(as you stated unified and motivated leaders). They were behind the formation of Spectrum Health, now the largest health care provider in Michigan. They started donating heavily to Grand Valley State University which resulted in the large campus downtown. They were instrumental in attracting the headquarters of Michigan State University College of Human Medicine to the city. This along with infrastructure investment made Grand Rapids more attractive. Downtown was cleaned up and heavily invested in. Now you have companies like Perrigo, and Acrisure moving their headquarters in. The economy is almost completely diversified.
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I guess the short way to say is: The reason Grand Rapids over achieves is because it had more billionaires interested in seeing it survive, than several states do in total.
Is Boston considered an independent city? Suffolk County exists on paper only, correct?
No. The only independent cities not in Virginia are St. Louis, Baltimore, and Carson City.
"Of the 41 independent U.S. cities,[3] 38 are in Virginia, whose state constitution makes them a special case. The three independent cities outside Virginia are Baltimore, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada. The most populous of them is Baltimore." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indepe...(United_States)
Suffolk county includes the cities of Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop. The administrative functions of counties in MA went to the state in 99 which would directly influence my reasoning for not including them as an independent city. The lack of regional cooperation in development and economics is what largely holds true independent cities back. Richmond, for example, can't even run it's BRT to short pump or even into Henrico county at all.
No. The only independent cities not in Virginia are St. Louis, Baltimore, and Carson City.
"Of the 41 independent U.S. cities,[3] 38 are in Virginia, whose state constitution makes them a special case. The three independent cities outside Virginia are Baltimore, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada. The most populous of them is Baltimore." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indepe...(United_States)
Suffolk county includes the cities of Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop. The administrative functions of counties in MA went to the state in 99 which would directly influence my reasoning for not including them as an independent city. The lack of regional cooperation in development and economics is what largely holds true independent cities back. Richmond, for example, can't even run it's BRT to short pump or even into Henrico county at all.
Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco also for all intents and purposes are independent as well. They are just coterminous with the counties of the same name. There are possibly a few others.
Agreed. These cities are part of a benchmark that other cities strive for. In no way are “over achieving”. They achieve appropriately.
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