Cincinnati City Snapshot
Manufacturing—particularly specialized, small-batchproduction—benefits from locating in cities. Firms tap both rich labor markets and dense, sophisticated consumer markets for their finished goods. Firms also benefit from cross-sectorcollaboration with designers, technologists, and scientists, and these collaborations contribute to urban manufacturing’s high value of production. At the same time, cities benefit from manufacturing, and many city and business leaders see this emerging sector as rich with possibility for promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth. But many city decision makers have expressed a need to know more about smaller-scale manufacturers. These innovative businesses, which often combine design, art, and production, frequently do not fall neatly into the data collection categories that government agencies have used for generations to classify manufacturers. Furthermore, the manufacturing data that do exist are often at the metropolitan level, which limits our ability to hone in on the experiences of manufacturers located in the hearts of cities. The result is a lack of understanding by city policymakers of this important sector within their boundaries. Ultimately, urban manufacturers’ impact, potential, and needs are poorly understood.
The Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) conceived the State of Urban Manufacturing (SUM) study as a way to fill this information gap. Results of the study will begin to give policymakers, economic development practitioners, and workforce training providers information they can use to make strategic decisions to support urban manufacturers. Longer term, this information may serve as a foundation to expand understanding across the economic development field. To inform this national research, UMA collected information directly from hundreds of manufacturers—including more than 100 in Cincinnati—on the nature of their businesses and the challenges they face; the research team also spoke with a variety of organizations thatsupport these firms.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and UMA partnered to broaden our understanding of the urban manufacturing sector in Cincinnati (including its entrepreneurs and employees), opportunities to increase interactions between smaller andlarger manufacturers, and actions cities can take to help firms thrive and create jobs. We jointly summarize our findings in this snapshot. UMA has developed similar snapshots for five othercities—Baltimore, Maryland; Detroit, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Portland, Oregon— as well as a national report that will identify promising practices across all six cities that other jurisdictions nationally can employ to help urban manufacturers succeed. Finally, UMA has developed a “manufacturing ecosystem map” for each city to help producers and the organizations that support them match the right resources to businesses’ needs.