State of Urban Manufacturing

Background

From the mid-2000’s to mid-2010’s, there was an oft-discussed, though not yet well-measured, increase in small-batch manufacturing. It was perhaps most noticeable in cities as concentrations of products and brands emerged that took advantage of the increased interest in all things “locally made.” But most of the evidence about small-batch manufacturing was anecdotal. So, it’s not surprising that in cities across the country—including practitioners in economic development, community development, workforce development, and real estate development, as well as chambers of commerce, lenders, and neighborhood nonprofits—told us they know remarkably few details about emerging smaller-scale producers and the role they play in their local economies.

Those businesses, which often combine design, art, and production in innovative ways, do not fall neatly into the data collection categories that government has used for generations to classify manufacturers. Economic development officials and other policymakers told us that they were left with a sense that something is happening, though weren’t entirely sure what or how to describe it.

The entrepreneurial spirit of these businesses’ owners and their workers—and the contributions they can make to the local economy—seem to hold promise for cities. However, the exact role and economic potential of these emerging businesses were poorly understood.

Goals & Objectives

The State of Urban Manufacturing process was conceived to help fill this information gap and to give our stakeholders information they could use to make strategic decisions to nurture this entrepreneurial sector.

Our goal was to increase the collective understanding of:

• what the small-batch manufacturing sector looks like in cities

• who its entrepreneurs and employees are

• what can be done to help these firms thrive and grow into larger employers that build wealth in their communities.

In doing this research in each city along the way, we also helped connect organizations to one another that were serving small-batch manufacturers.

Our SUM process had a place-based team in each city, composed of local partners and research institutions, as well as 600 survey respondents and focus group participants.

We surveyed hundreds of manufacturers in six cities. We asked about each business’s size, workforce, and growth trajectory, as well as the challenges and opportunities each faced. We sought to understand and document manufacturers’ day-to-day experiences with greater precision. We also wanted to spur new thinking about how service providers and local officials might better support these firms.

We published the findings for each city to help local stakeholders identify actions that they might take to nurture the small-scale manufacturing sector. We now have a unique data set—one that no one has ever collected before—on firms that are often micro in size, frequently launched in their owners’ homes, struggling to hire their first employee, and challenged by navigating how to expand their market from hyper-local to regional and beyond. While our six-city survey was neither national in scope nor a statistically representative sample of such firms, the data we compiled is a first-ever examination of what the emerging sector of small-scale manufacturing looks like—and what will help to supercharge its growth.

This national report of the State of Urban Manufacturing compiles the themes that repeated across cities and which we envisioned serving as the basis for national-level advocacy and action planning in the future. Indeed, these themes deeply informed our subsequent work from 2019–2025.

The City Snapshots are summaries of our findings in each of our six cities—Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Portland (OR)—led by our research partners. Each City Snapshot highlights the methodology, barriers, opportunities, and areas for action and further research.

The Ecosystem Maps are visualizations created to help producers and the organizations that support them match the right resources to businesses’ needs. While truly only capturing a moment in time, these documents give readers an understanding of the comprehensive nature of manufacturing ecosystems and the diversity of service providers within them.

The Business Case Studies make this work human, showing the wide variety of what makers and manufacturers create today. From bakers to industrial designers, to metal work and automotive, seeing the people behind the data connect us to the true impacts of the sector.

This project was led by Lee Wellington and Katy Stanton (Mechanism).

The National Report was authored by Mark Foggin.

Other contributors included Laura Wolf-Powers, Ph.D., from the City University of New York Hunter College; Tanu Kumar, Adam Friendman, Jenifer Becker at Pratt Center for Community Development; Case Wyse at Pratt Institute’s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative; and Greg Schrock, Ph.D., at Portland State University.

Additional support was provided by Johnny Magdaleno and Ben Wellington.