Joined by Florian Ranft, DPZ’s Managing Director, and Nina Hachigian, former US Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), I got to share my own musings on these important topics with the younger fellows. Our discussion was captured in a podcast episode, The Future of Transatlantic Relations: Rules, Rights, and the Rise of the Subnational—Insights from the Industrial Heartlands.

You will want to catch the whole episode, but the key notes I wanted to hit in our discussion—as an American who had just finished a six-month fellowship in Europe, angry and deeply disturbed by our current US Administration’s behavior so antithetical to all that is truly American—include:

• How painful it is, as an American, to witness the damage being done to the world and our own reputation.

• An optimism and determination that we will lift this menace soon and return America to its place of playing a constructive role in the world.

• Realizing, with sadness, that while we may get back some of our historic role and reputation, America has lost for good the trust of allies who looked up to us, our democracy, and politics they sought to emulate.

I advised, particularly our European friends:

• Not to look too hard, nor take too seriously, the idea that there was any kind of coherent strategy behind the current US President’s activities.

• There is no strategy except power-seeking, ring-kissing, and goading Europe and other faux “enemies” of Americans.

• Not to suck up and kowtow to my own country but work together with other freedom- and rights-respecting democracies to strengthen yourselves economically so you can push back against bullying and coercion from all authoritarian nations.

I sought to remind them:

• That—as I recently wrote in Barron’s—the family of democratic nations in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa that want to preserve the open rules-based order: your collective GDP (if you band together) is much larger than the US’s or China’s. You have the heft to stand strong and push back.

• Enhance your economic engagements via allyshoring and coproduction with countries that share your values—including building your own high-tech economy so you aren’t held hostage to our US tech mavens, who want to play in the European market with no regulations on disinformation or abuse.

• This economic strength among the family of democratic nations is needed to continue pushing back against China—not draw closer again—as America turns abusive. China does not respect human rights; it runs a surveillance police state. And on things important to young leaders—such as the great green transformation—China is not serious. They burn massive amounts of coal while subsidizing their electric vehicle industry for export—not because they want a sustainable world but because they want to run into the ground the European, German, and US car industry.

Finally, take heart; democracy not only can hold, but it can also thrive anew. Akin to what just happened in Hungary—the US President’s kleptocracy and destruction of our economy has done in less than two years what it took Viktor Orban fifteen years to accomplish—see the overwhelming majority of people turn on that president and his enablers, eager to run them from office at any opportunity.

In his Davos speech earlier this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described a world in “rupture” and warned that middle powers must cooperate because “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” His argument is not to abandon globalization, but to reshape it: maintaining openness while reducing dependence and protecting democratic resilience. It is also echoed by European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron with his call to push “strategic sovereignty” of the EU.

As I wrote recently in the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, a recent summit in Barcelona, co-hosted by Sánchez and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, advanced a broader progressive response to Trumpism and renewed great-power nationalism. Leaders argued that while globalization created growth, it also deepened inequality, stagnated wages, and left many communities behind. The gathering sought to redefine center-left internationalism after decades in which market-driven globalization failed to deliver for large parts of its traditional base.

This emerging progressive internationalism rests on three ideas: redistributing the gains of globalization through taxation and development investment; reforming global institutions and regulating big tech to strengthen democratic accountability; and reasserting peace, diplomacy, and international law in an increasingly conflict-driven world. The goal is not only fairer economics, but renewed democratic control over global markets, digital platforms, and geopolitics.

With more than 40 countries involved, the movement revives the Cold War-era spirit of North–South dialogue associated with leaders such as Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt and Former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. But unlike earlier versions, today’s progressives see democratic resilience and institutional control as equally central challenges.

Still, tensions remain. European leaders differ on security, Gaza, economic strategy, and relations with the United States. Figures such as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer face the added challenge of redefining national roles after Brexit and amid growing geopolitical fragmentation.

Progressive internationalism offers one path to renew the rules-based order through fairness and multilateralism, while strategic liberalism seeks to preserve openness in a more competitive world. Whether these emerging visions can gain momentum and be united despite their differences may determine the future of the post-Trump global order.

Florian Ranft is a member of the management board at Das Progressive Zentrum, a thinktank based in Berlin.

Orban had been the favorite poster-boy for wannabe authoritarians and anti-democratic nationalists in the US and across Europe. He also acted as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief agent sowing discord within NATO and the European Union—essentially advancing Russia’s and China’s interest in breaking apart the Western democratic alliance.

I had been pleasantly surprised last July—visiting Hungary and meeting with leading pro-democracy policy analyst András Bíró-Nagy—to learn that the fruits of Orban’s kleptocratic state had turned the public overwhelmingly against him, as I noted in Politico-EU at the time. Rampant corruption and self-dealing, alongside sanctions and withholding of resources from the EU due to Orban’s democracy-disabling policies, had over time produced a failing economy and faltering healthcare and education systems.

Despite vigorous efforts by both Putin and the current US Administration to prop up Orban and his Fidesz party’s electoral chances, former Fidesz party member Magyar—now turned reformer—tapped the frustration of the Hungarian citizenry over their wrecked society and rampant corruption.

Magyar’s electoral victory is doubly encouraging because it shows that proactive, risk-taking, local leadership and a mobilized public can successfully reclaim democracy from strongmen. Hungary’s turn back to democracy was aided by a network of pro-democracy local leaders across Europe who had strategized and supported each other in tactics to reclaim their countries. Last summer one of these leaders—Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony—invited residents to take to the streets and stand strong for basic freedoms and rights. As a result, Budapest’s Pride parade—which Orban had tried to cancel—became a giant anti-government rally that helped spark a popular citizen uprising, making it “okay” to oppose the regime.

In addition, Péter Magyar was smart and committed enough to take the case for democracy in person to the very rural areas that were home to Orban’s cultural and nationalist base—tapping Hungarian nationalist pride but channeling it towards positive goals: better living standards, decent government services, and an end to corruption by leaders. This affirmative message stood in stark contrast to the anti-migrant, anti-LGBT, anti-Europe, and anti-Ukraine campaign waged by Orban.

Hungary is but one example of how local leaders such as mayors and city council members—joined by educators, civil society, social entrepreneurs, and business—are proactively organizing against what many had seen as inevitable political polarization, ideological gridlock, and growth of anti-democratic movements. As my Austrian colleague Tamara Ehs—researcher and consultant for democratic innovations to safeguard democracy—so eloquently put it, local leaders who are not content to accept democratic “backsliding” have been engaged in the work of what she calls democratic “front-sliding.”

This shared effort was the topic of our most recent transatlantic Heartlands Transformation Network dialogue, which can be viewed here. In this discussion, partners from key political battlegrounds in the US and Europe joined to compare notes on how local leaders can and are pushing back against anti-democratic and authoritarian leaders, re-engaging and mobilizing their communities in forging healthy democracies.

Central to this work is developing—in our schools, universities, city halls, and other community-meeting grounds—robust civic and democracy education and action networks. As in Hungary, communities can be rallied to support and develop compelling positive solutions to the economic and social challenges of our times—so different from the scapegoating and blame-gaming offered by anti-democratic, repressive, illiberal governments and political leaders.

Sharing the varied models and approaches by which communities can be renewed and democracy sustained is at the core of the work of our Heartlands Transformation Network. For more ongoing information including updates on our international events and activities you can sign up to join the Network here.

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PBP is an economic development approach that rests on a tailored set of prescriptions, devised by local and regional stakeholders, that are designed to encourage the identification and mobilization of growth potential. PBP focuses on:

• the distinctive attributes and potential of place-building knowledge of the region;

• value creation and the local capture of value, which necessitates the acquisition of specific information about the region, typically held in the private sector;

• engagement with local institutions and people, with the goal of building active networks, creating a shared vision of the region’s potential, and developing the capacity for action;

• governance with an emphasis on a technocratic (i.e., apolitical) approach;

• garnering resources both within and outside the region to support these activities.

The Changing Context for Place-based Policymakers

Changes in the Global Economy

The most significant changes in the global economy involve what is widely described as the fragmentation of world trade, in which regional blocks (and not the entire world) become the organizing framework for trade in goods, services, and even capital. Within this broader context of deglobalization, there are two developments that merit attention. The first is the rise of protectionism (see Figure 1).

The second development is supply-chain restructuring. Private sector efforts to reorganize critical supply chains—for semiconductors, green technology, rare earth minerals, and pharmaceuticals, for example—increased dramatically with the onset of the pandemic (see Figure 2).

In some cases, supply chain restructuring has been directly assisted by national policies designed to encourage “home shoring” (renationalizing supply chains) or “ally-shoring” (reforging supply chains among partners).

Beneath these seismic changes in the global economy, there are forces at work on grounds that merit attention. The combination of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) appear to be generating the most significant technological upheaval in the economy since the 19th century (see Figure 3).

The resulting transformation of the labor market could lead to bifurcation: growing opportunities for high-skilled and trainable labor accompanied by swiftly declining prospects for low- and middle-skilled labor. This in turn brings with it the potential for significant but uneven growth—i.e., a worsening of the great inversion.

Changes in the Political Landscape

In recent years, we have witnessed the return of interventionism in advanced post-industrial democracies. Nations are much less content to leave economic outcomes to market forces, and instead resort to protectionism and industrial policy as vehicles for restoring lost manufacturing jobs or for shielding sectors deemed critical for long-term national competitiveness. A different political dynamic has taken hold on the ground. One can point to a more polarized political environment, in which divisive cultural issues such as immigration, crime, gender equality, and climate change skepticism have come to characterize common everyday political discourse in many places. These cultural grievances have been expertly fanned and amplified by right-wing populist parties; in distressed areas within the transatlantic space, this has led to a common political phenomenon, dubbed “the revenge of the places that don’t matter.”

Contextual Changes and the Implications for Place-based Policymaking

Given this changing context, there might be reason for cautious optimism about the future of place-based policy, especially if regionalization and protectionism generate opportunities for “home shoring.” However, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the policymaking environment generally presents many more challenges than opportunities.

First, the changing context threatens to create a practically impenetrable economic landscape for regional actors in the typical distressed region: How to climb the ladder of global value chains if the destination is in upheaval, or in some cases disappearing? Add to this the looming disruptions brought on by AI, and it is easy to see how place-based policymakers, engaged in knowledge- and information-intensive activities, will be pushed to their limits.

Second, the political environment for place-based policymaking has grown inhospitable. At the national level, the focus on strategic rivalry and national competitiveness means that national policies intended to support place-based policymaking at the grass roots level could take a back seat. Meanwhile, at the regional level in many countries, political polarization threatens one of the core elements of the place-based policymaking process: the building of functional, cooperative, and consensual networks.

What is to be done?

In these challenging times, five priorities are within the grasp of place-based policymakers.

Knowledge-building

The first priority is to focus efforts on building a knowledge base on the region. Now more than ever, local stakeholders must have the requisite “in house” expertise at their disposal. The initial focal point should be on properly equipping local government, since public sector actors are uniquely positioned to provide the long-term leadership essential to place-based policy initiatives. This will mean hiring personnel who understand the local economy and its evolving position within the broader national and international economy.

Establishing local networks of expertise

Assembling the information necessary to answer the above questions requires tapping into experience and expertise held by local people and organizations—business, labor, civil society groups—committed to the future of the regional economy. Universities can be particularly important participants in PBP networks and major contributors not only to acquiring a local knowledge base but to the end goal of economic renewal itself. Local actors also should seek to link their PBP network beyond the region, to existing networks of practitioners, academics, and others who track PBP activities and have become important players in the exchange of best practice, both within countries and internationally.

Focusing on quality of life and local pride

Place-based policymakers should pay more attention to policies that seek to improve the quality of life in places—by improving local infrastructure and services, access to healthcare and education, and leveraging natural or cultural assets.

Building capacity

In the present circumstances, it is absolutely critical that local and regional authorities develop the necessary administrative capacity to access policy benefits from higher levels of government. Overall, this will require investment in personnel and administrative infrastructure, and in some circumstances may call for an explicitly regional approach, so that these investment outlays can be shared or pooled with nearby places.

Getting political

The final priority involves taking action that place-based policymakers might consider risky. Specifically, they must build political support for their otherwise technocratic place-based policymaking efforts. Certainly, an apolitical, technocratic approach is recommended because the goal is to build a far-reaching, functional, and consensual network capable of working for the entire region. However, the downside of a purely technocratic approach is that it leaves PBP vulnerable to the vagaries of party politics. In the US and Europe, voters in distressed areas that have benefited from national place-based policy initiatives have not only not rewarded the parties-in-government that implemented these policies, but they have broken decisively for challenger parties that subsequently deemphasize or even dismantle the programs in question.

Despite the risks of seeking to hitch PBP to party politics, there is potential for place-based policymakers to insert their issue into the electoral space safely and effectively. Connecting apolitical PBP efforts on the ground to vote-seeking politicians operating at the highest level of the polity—but in a way that does not fall afoul of polarization—must be the objective.

Local and regional actors should seek to turn PBP into a valence issue—i.e., one that is broadly supported by all the major parties competing for power in the political system. If PBP can be converted into a valence issue, it would stand a better chance of escaping the dangers of polarization, and as a result would become more durable and resilient. Turning PBP into a valence issue would mean that political parties begin competing over the best way to promote place-based policy formulated at the ground level, not over whether it exists in the first place.

Establishing PBP as a matter of consensus among the major political parties would involve a multi-pronged strategy, one that would include local outreach to party representatives and elected officials in the various distressed areas as well as national-level consultations with multiple sets of party officials. Local stakeholders would have even stronger incentives to create an inclusive PBP initiative, one that is open not just to other “local elites” but ordinary citizens as well. This will strengthen the social support base for PBP and also allow party officials from across the political spectrum to witness the engagement of the citizenry in efforts to restructure the regional economy. If party officials from across the political spectrum can experience for themselves the positive buy-in from ordinary citizens-cum-voters in PBP activities, they will be more inclined to support such initiatives—increasing the chances that PBP becomes a valence issue in the region.

This article is based upon a paper published by the UK’s Productivity Institute. You can find the full text of the paper here.

For more than sixty years the giant digging machines of Germany’s energy giant RWE had been steadily advancing across the countryside of North Rhine-Westphalia, devouring villages as they carved out the vast Garzweiler open-pit lignite mine. The slow mechanical march had already erased communities such as Reisdorf in 1963, Königshoven in 1983, Otzenrath in 2006, Immerath in 2022, and Lützerath in 2023. Sixteen villages in total were relocated, their houses demolished and their histories forever truncated for the short-sighted and environmentally destructive harvesting of brown coal.

In the heart of the Rhineland, where centuries-old villages once stood amid rolling fields, a quiet erasure unfolded. Homes, churches, and entire communities vanished under the banner of energy security and industrial necessity. Residents were compensated and relocated, but what disappeared could never truly be replaced—the intricate social fabric woven across generations.

Yet by the time I arrived, something unexpected had happened. After decades of protests—environmental activists living in tree houses in the nearby Hambach Forest, villagers refusing to sell their homes, farmers hosting gatherings and demonstrations in their barns—the advance of the mine had stalled. Germany’s political climate had shifted. The country had begun embracing a transition away from lignite coal toward renewable energy, and villages such as Keyenberg were suddenly granted a reprieve.

But it was a reprieve that came too late for many. Eleven communities had already vanished underground. Families who had lived side-by-side for centuries were scattered into newly built neighborhoods in distant towns—houses modern and comfortable, but severed from the fields, neighbors, and rhythms that once defined their lives.

Standing there, the scene felt strangely familiar to me. Before traveling to Germany, I had served as mayor of a small American city in Appalachian Ohio—Athens, nestled along the coal country and industrial corridors of the Ohio River Valley. My own community had long lived through the same cycle of economic and cultural upheaval that these German villages were now experiencing. For generations, towns across the region were built around coal mines, steel mills, and manufacturing plants. When those industries declined, communities were left searching for a new identity. As mayor, I worked with regional leaders to move past the nostalgia of the old boom-town economy and toward a different future—investing in clean energy initiatives, supporting sustainable economic development, and helping communities imagine prosperity beyond coal. The goal was not to erase the past but to build on it, transforming former industrial regions into places where renewable energy, education, and innovation could drive new growth.

Yet just as communities began charting that path, the political winds in the United States shifted violently after the 2024 presidential election. The climate and energy policies of the new administration disrupted years of progress toward a stable transition. International climate commitments were abandoned. Environmental regulations were dismantled. Fossil fuel development was aggressively promoted while renewable initiatives were sidelined.

The result was a political whiplash felt deeply in places such as the Ohio River Valley. One year, federal programs encouraged clean-energy investment and economic diversification; the next year, political rhetoric promised the return of coal’s golden age—a promise many knew was economically unrealistic but emotionally powerful in communities shaped by that legacy. And now, with the resurgence of that same political vision in national leadership, the uncertainty has returned once again. Communities trying to rebuild their economies are left wondering which future to believe.

The farmers I met in Keyenberg understood that uncertainty well. One family, among the last still living in the village, had once resigned themselves to the inevitability of relocation. As a final symbolic act of defiance, they had installed solar panels on their farm buildings—even though Germany’s strict historic-preservation rules normally prohibited such changes to traditional farmsteads. They believed their village would soon disappear anyway; the solar panels were their quiet protest.

Instead, the political momentum in Germany suddenly shifted toward a rapid energy transition. The farm—and the village—was spared. Or so it seemed. Global events quickly complicated that certainty. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Germany to rethink its dependence on imported energy. Suddenly, questions arose about whether coal might still be needed to sustain Europe’s industrial economy in the short term. The future of villages such as Keyenberg again felt uncertain.

The same instability now defines American climate policy as well. Each shift in presidential leadership swings the country dramatically between environmental commitment and fossil-fuel revival. Long-term planning becomes nearly impossible when national priorities change every four years. But the consequences of these swings extend beyond energy policy. They ripple outward into democratic institutions and international alliances. Under the current administration, many observers argued that the erosion of environmental protections was accompanied by something deeper: a weakening of democratic norms themselves. Executive authority expanded at the expense of institutional checks. Independent agencies faced political pressure. Dissenting voices, including scientists and environmental advocates, were marginalized or dismissed.

At the same time, longstanding relationships with democratic allies were strained. Diplomatic tensions surfaced with countries that had long been close partners of the US—nations such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Spain. International climate cooperation fractured as the US withdrew from agreements that much of the world viewed as essential to addressing the climate crisis.

These fractures were not merely symbolic. Climate diplomacy has become one of the defining arenas of global cooperation in the twenty-first century. When the US retreats from that cooperation, it weakens the collective ability of democratic nations to address shared challenges. The consequences are visible not only in international negotiations but also in the lives of communities such as those in the Rhineland or the Ohio Valley. The displacement of villages for coal mines in Germany represents a physical erosion of place and heritage. The political instability surrounding climate policy in the US reflects a different kind of erosion—one affecting democratic institutions, public trust, and global partnerships. Both forms of erosion stem from the same underlying struggle: how societies manage the transition away from fossil fuels while protecting communities, democratic values, and international cooperation.

Yet amid these tensions, resistance and renewal continue to emerge. In Germany, activists and local residents fought for decades to defend villages such as Lützerath and Keyenberg, transforming them into symbols of the broader struggle against fossil-fuel dependency. Their persistence helped shift national policy toward renewable energy and forced a global conversation about the costs of coal.

In the US, a new generation of environmental advocates—students, scientists, local leaders, and grassroots organizations—has stepped forward to demand climate action and democratic accountability. Youth-led lawsuits, community energy projects, and regional clean-economy initiatives continue to push forward even when national politics falter.

During my visit to Keyenberg, I saw glimpses of that hopeful future. Despite years of uncertainty, the village was already imagining a new chapter. Plans were underway to host a major European arts and garden festival in the coming decades—an event expected to bring thousands of visitors to the village’s narrow streets and farm courtyards.

We ate lunch in a refurbished barn and chicken coop that had been transformed into a community gathering space. Residents who remained in the village sat beside newcomers drawn to the area’s emerging story. Farmers who had moved away returned to share meals and conversations. They were doing something quietly remarkable. Instead of allowing the narrative of their community to end with coal, they were writing a new one—built around culture, sustainability, and cooperation.

The lessons of Keyenberg reach far beyond the Rhineland. They remind us that the real cost of energy policy is measured not only in megawatts or economic output, but in communities, histories, and democratic institutions. When progress is defined solely by short-term economic gain, both landscapes and political systems can be sacrificed in the process. The buried villages of Germany and the contested politics of climate policy in the US are different stories, but they are deeply connected.

Both ask the same question: What kind of future are we willing to build—and what are we willing to lose in the process? The answer will shape not only our energy systems, but the resilience of our communities, the strength of our democracies, and the partnerships between nations that must work together to face the challenges ahead.

Steve Patterson is Mayor of Athens, Ohio, and serves as the Immediate Past President of the National League of Cities.

Local political leaders such as mayors—joined by civil society, social entrepreneurs, and business—play a crucial role in building and sustaining democratic attitudes, traditions, and processes. In response to growing political paralysis, ideological gridlock, and anti-democratic movements at the national levels, mayors have formed networks to support each other’s efforts—and to keep moving on important agendas from inclusive economic development to public health, to climate change mitigation and migration, among others. These leaders are also leading the charge on organizing effective responses to abusive pre-emption efforts by repressive, illiberal governments.

The most recent example is Minneapolis, Minnesota, in which the mayor—joined by the governor and thousands of civic minded citizens—forced the Trump Administration’s law- and norm-breaking, anti-immigrant shock troops (ICE) to beat a retreat. The best-known examples in Europe are the four so-called Visegrád capital cities, namely Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw, as researchers Aron Buzogány and Tobias Spöri point out in their study on democratic resilience through urban resistance. Set in an increasingly illiberal national context, the citizens of these capitals have elected progressive mayors that challenge national democratic backsliding locally by stressing environmental awareness, tolerance towards alternative lifestyles, as well as open governance and responsiveness. Moreover, they share similar visions of civic participation, characterized by involving citizens in urban planning and public spending.

It is important to note that these mayors and city administrations are not on their own, but form alliances. They engage in city diplomacy, learn from each other, and by doing so practice and roll out a Democracy Playbook countering the Authoritarian Playbook anti-democratic politicians such as Donald Trump or Victor Orbán and other populist leaders are acting out.

One of these alliances is the European Capital of Democracy (ECoD) initiative founded in 2019. Each year, a new capital of democracy is designated—the Portuguese city of Cascais holding the title in 2026—acting as a stage for innovations and best practice examples on strengthening democracy and heading the network. Engaging in such alliances prevents local leaders from falling prey to autocrats that often use what Michael Mann called the ‘Serengeti strategy’: By targeting individuals (such as mayors) enormous pressure is applied to one person (and the city they govern). But it is much harder to single out someone who is backed by others.

The advantage of being part of a network was proven in Budapest during the spring of 2025: In March the Hungarian Parliament had voted in favor of a bill which banned holding or attending assemblies that violate the law on the protection of children, thereby forbidding the promotion or display of homosexuality. Based on this new law, the Budapest Pride parade was banned. In response, the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony, organized the parade as a municipal event. He argued that a city event was not covered by the law on freedom of assembly. Although the Minister of Justice warned Karácsony that he would face a year of imprisonment, he still organized the parade, backed by other European city mayors and citizens—who stood together in support. First, Karácsony was invited to Vienna where he gave a speech at the Vienna Pride saying, “If Pride can be banned in an EU member state, then no EU citizen is safe.” This was the starting point for a remarkable act of city diplomacy that called upon Europe-shared norms.

In the end, participants from thirty countries and around 70 members of the European Parliament attended the Budapest parade in show of pan-city and pan-European solidarity. The parade then became Hungary’s largest anti-government demonstration in years. Although the Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against Karácsony with the aim of imposing a fine, it is most probably thanks to European solidarity and the enormous pressure by city diplomatic efforts that he is not facing either imprisonment or trial.

Such brave acts of countering illiberal practices are part of a growing arm of democracy preserving political science research. “Democratic resilience” has emerged as a central new concept. Studies identify party system characteristics, courts, civil society, and political culture as factors that might strengthen resilience and aid societies in withstanding authoritarian tendencies. While most analyzed factors are located on the national level, there is increasing evidence that the subnational level can play a role in preventing democratic backsliding to occur or effectively oppose it when it threatens.

Starting from the ancient Greek polis and proto-democratic structures of medieval city states to modern cities as hotbeds of mass democracy, cities have always played a central role in the history of democracy because they harbor institutions and organizations that support democratic governance such as media and civil society. This facilitates debates even in authoritarian states, where cities can become “pressure cookers,” as Robert Anthony and Edward Crenshaw put it. The perspective of subnational diplomacy becomes crucial when studying democratic resistance: Mayors, city officials, administrators are actors in their own right and have agency and political clout. Moreover, it is exactly this level of governance that has received too little attention to date when it comes to defending the values of the European Union.

Most interesting in this context is Christophe Hillion’s and his colleagues’ concept of “democratic frontsliding,” analyzing what they call “restorative disobedience” in the European Union. They do not stop at looking for markers of democratic resilience but focus on the day after—how to restore liberal democracy when faced with competitive authoritarianism. Democratic frontsliding means reversing backsliding by restoring a prior liberal democratic regime, describing the piecemeal restoration of democratic institutions and practices during or after a period of democratic erosion. This concept can be practiced especially in the municipal context, as cities are often democratic enclaves in illiberal, authoritarian nation-states. They are not only strongholds, but the rest of the country can rely upon their experience.

A powerful avenue for action is what many students of democracy are calling “restorative disobedience”—like the one carried out in Budapest: Actions that have a legal mandate, are proportionate, and demonstrably designed to propel democratic frontsliding. The legal mandate is not based on national law but explicitly referring to the European Union and its fundamental values of Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), including democracy and the rule of law. These attributes are not only seen as prerequisites for membership but to be jointly maintained by member states and EU institutions, a mandate backed by the European Court of Justice’s caselaw on the duty of non-regression.

The new Democracy Playbook is in the making. It is written by brave cities embracing democratic innovations and city diplomacy as a way to contrast the national governments’ illiberal authoritarianism. Networks such as the ECoD offer a platform to foster alliances.

Tamara Ehs is a researcher and consultant for democratic innovations safeguarding democracy in Austria, Germany, and at the EU level. Currently, she is advising the Baden-Württemberg state government and the European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA), among others, and acts as country expert for the Varieties of Democracy Report. She is on the ECoD’s advisory board and is an associate fellow with the Academy of International Affairs - NRW.

Yet in the face of these challenges, democracy and decency rise to spurn and negate these threats. The brave citizens of Minneapolis, some paying the ultimate price, inspire a nation to reject the un-American government-thug violence vivid in our streets. Here in America free speech reigns (watch any late-night TV host!) and free elections loom—opening wide democratic avenues for reversal and change. Abroad, Europe unites and stands strong, on behalf of Ukraine, on behalf of national sovereignty, and in executing giant free-trade deals with Latin and South American countries and India—extending and strengthening the open, free, rules-based international order. Global markets chime in as well, reacting negatively to new US tariff and territorial threats—spurring a hasty retreat.

Meanwhile our shared work to bring new economic opportunity, security, optimism, continued freedom of expression, and aspiration continues across national boundaries—unabated.

Recently I was privileged to share a podium at Sinclair Community College addressing community leaders in Dayton, Ohio, with journalist and author James Fallows, joined by his wife, the writer and researcher Deborah Fallows. Dayton is one of the iconic Midwest industrial heartland “invention” centers where great industries that powered the US in the 20th century were born, and a vast middle class grew and thrived. Then came the industrial economy reckoning of recent decades, where so many anchor employers in communities such as Dayton moved through a dramatic restructuring—shedding jobs, livelihoods, and often the community’s very soul in the process.

My job in Dayton was to share the inspiring examples and lessons learned from our Heartlands Transformation Network around the paths to new prosperity and rebooted pride being found by many communities across our democracies—communities just like Dayton riding the economic rollercoaster of rise, to fall, to spotty-but-purposeful growth and renewal.

James and Deb Fallows—who themselves found inspiration for Americans chronicling the upbeat and forward-pitching spirit animating positive change at the local level across the country in their book and web-series Our Towns—took that inspiration directly into the current geopolitical moment. Citing Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at January’s Davos World Economic Forum at which he exhorted the world’s “Middle Powers”—the UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, Australia, and similar nations of the world—to band together in finding economic and political strength to maintain freedom, democracy, and a rights-respecting order vis-à-vis domineering authoritarians. James Fallows then drew the analogy from the work of “Middle Power” nations to the work of the cities and communities whose fate and future steer the direction of the US and other democracies. These domestic “Middle Powers” are the Daytons, the Dortmunds (Germany), the Charlerois (Belgium), and the Sheffields (UK)—heartland communities working together, learning from each other, and building renewed strength through collaboration and growing interdependence! This is exactly the work we have been advancing in our Heartlands Transformation Network and Initiative.

Don’t underestimate your own “middle power” to steer your community, your local and state elected officials, your friends and neighbors, toward the light. My younger brother lives in Minneapolis and it is inspiring to see what families such as his can accomplish by carrying candles in the vigil at the neighborhood park, or as white people driving their non-Caucasian friends and neighbors to school, the grocery store, or the bank.

That’s the America I know and love.

This is why it is so important and encouraging to see emerge from the work of our Heartlands Transformation Network an engaged, informed, and inspired cohort of next-generation leaders from the US, Germany, and other democracies. These young leaders are coming together to define and help build a desired shared future that rejects polarization and tearing things down, but rather focuses on enhancing economic opportunity and continues to tackle global challenges such as climate change—while empowering citizens, re-stitching democracies, and adding new bands to the fabric of our international quilt of connectivity.

This inspiration is what you will find in the just-released recommendations from the Industrial Heartlands Fellows—twelve young leaders and change-makers from the US and Germany—who have travelled, worked, and learned together across the industrial heartlands of America and Europe. These young leaders offer actionable recommendations for economic and democratic renewal from a younger generation’s perspective.

Their insights and ideas are central because they come not from policy planners in Washington, Brussels, or Berlin, but from young residents of their respective countries’ industrial heartlands—defining what they need to see in order to stay or to move into “left-behind regions.” These perspectives are not only relevant—they are essential. Whether young people choose to stay, leave, or return to a region shapes its economic future, political culture, and social fabric. Their decisions are driven not just by job opportunities, but by a deeper calculus: is this a place where I can build a meaningful life? Can I find dignity in work, belonging in community, and power in participation?

The Industrial Heartlands Fellows’ recommendations detail how governments on both sides of the Atlantic can reconnect with the working class, curb populism, and create regions where young people don’t flee, but invest in communities they call home. Following three years of transatlantic dialogue, these young leaders shaped and now share two important new Industrial Heartlands policy papers offering pragmatic, place-based recommendations for strengthening both economic renewal and democratic resilience:

• Renewal Amidst Turmoil: Industrial Heartlands between Rearmament, Recarbonisation and Realignment—Lessons from Germany and the US. Recommendations on how the heartlands can navigate Europe’s military build-up, fossil fuel dependencies, and political realignment through defense investments as regional anchors, sustained green transition commitments, and transatlantic community networks.

• Democracy Closest to Home: Principles for Local Leadership in Industrial Heartlands. A roadmap for mayors, civic leaders, and local institutions to counter democratic erosion by meeting communities where they are—with honest dialogue, investment in fundamental infrastructure, and meaningful progress on everyday priorities.

As we are witnessing US and European transatlantic regression at an unprecedented scale and are facing mounting structural economic pressures, these papers offer a different path forward: one that leverages existing strengths rather than chasing an erratic agenda, and one that invests in the assets that heartland communities already possess. An agenda that exposes and builds on what is an already vibrant ecosystem of cities, regions, unions, businesses, and civic leadership across the Atlantic is engaged in pragmatic economic and civic cooperation—sustaining transatlantic relations through subnational partnerships that deliver real economic opportunity for heartland communities. Please listen to the voices of our transatlantic, brighter future, and share broadly with your networks.

One of the many paths that has been successfully trod to new economic growth and community regeneration is that of building and leveraging the heritage and cultural assets of older industrial communities and heartland regions. Reanimating former industrial and historic districts, infrastructures, and buildings for new uses in the society and economy of today. Celebrating and educating new generations about the communities’ unique histories, cultures, and contributions to the nation. Bringing current residents together and attracting newcomers through arts, heritage, cultural events, activities, and spaces. All have been fulcrums for renewing economies as well as reestablishing community pride in place.

Toward this end, in the summer of 2025 we convened leaders and economic change-makers from the US, UK, and Europe to learn about and discuss ways historical industrial communities that have experienced economic restructuring, job loss, and decline are managing a rebirth—in part, building on unique assets and attributes of their industrial heritage, arts, and culture.

This transatlantic conversation was a robust exchange around the approaches, tactics, strategies, insights, and lessons learned from leaders in similarly situated communities in the US, UK, and across Europe. Discussants included:

• Jurgen Hein, Managing Director of the Research Alliance Ruhr, a cooperation of the three universities in the Ruhr area of Germany’s state of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW)—Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the University of Duisburg-Essen.

• Jane Robinson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Place at the University of Newcastle in Newcastle upon Tyne, a city in the North East region of England in the UK.

• Pascal Anselmi, leader of the “Capacity Building” team for the Chemnitz (Germany) Capital of Culture 2025 effort.

• George Moroz, Former/Ret. Senior Advisor to the President of The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan—one of the USA’s premier educational and heritage venues.

• Facilitated by: Ben Speggen, Vice President of The Jefferson Education Society, a nonprofit think tank in Erie, Pennsylvania, USA.

At the core, this discussion and the specific community cases represented suggest that the most potent purpose of elevating a community’s heritage is not about preserving the past but enabling the future—giving communities practical foundations for imagining and building what comes next. The young people swimming at the former steel complex of the Zollverein in Germany’s Ruhr; children inventing solutions to today’s practical problems and seeding a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators at The Henry Ford in Detroit; volunteers planting trees and rehabbing abandoned structures in the hollowed remains of the former East German chemical city of Chemnitz; new audiences met by the towering art installation, the “Angel of the North,” and symbol of community identity in Newcastle, UK. These are not primarily learning history lessons. They’re experiencing pride, possibility, and belonging. They’re discovering that their places matter, their contributions count, and their futures remain open. This may be heritage’s deepest purpose: not preserving the past but empowering residents to celebrate it and build on it a better future.

You can find the full report of this conversation around the practical strategies and particular insights whereby community leaders in industrial capitals of Germany, UK and the US have honored the past to build new brighter futures in Building on Heritage and Culture: A Path for Community Regeneration, a report from the Heartland Transformation Network and the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College.

If governments do not act, these regions risk becoming truly disconnected from national prosperity. However, effective public policy solutions exist that lead to regional revitalization. Revitalization is imperative for national cohesion—reducing the anti-democratic populism that threatens to tear Western nations apart—and to provide long-term and sustainable economic growth. Students in the Regions Matter program at Gettysburg College spent a semester researching and examining how these communities can be brought back into the fold and close regional divides. Attracting and retaining young people is critical for regional renewal. When young people depart in droves, regions don’t just lose population: they lose future leaders and future families. They lose entrepreneurs and cultural spirit. Any meaningful revitalization strategy must make regions more attractive to young people and encourage them not to leave in the first place. Reversing these trends needs more than just a guiding hand, and it will not happen by letting the invisible hand of the market work on its own. It requires long-term and focused government assistance that prioritizes dignity and opportunity guided by a region’s identity and history.

As policymakers and communities confront the challenges of regional economic decline, one group is often overlooked in both diagnosis and design: young people—those in the 18-30 age-range just emerging from families of origin through schooling, workforce entry, and careers.

The full paper, from the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College (US) and the Academy for International Affairs - North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), details—from the eyes of young people—what they need to move into “left-behind regions,” and offers policy recommendations for how governments on both sides of the Atlantic can reconnect with the working class, curb populism, and create regions where young people don’t flee, but invest in communities they call home. These perspectives are not only relevant—they are essential. Whether young people choose to stay, leave, or return to a region shapes its economic future, political culture, and social fabric. Their decisions are driven not just by job opportunities, but by a deeper calculus: Is this a place where I can build a meaningful life? Can I find dignity in work, belonging in community, and power in participation?

These students found that answering these questions involves much more than notions that traditionally inform economic development policymaking. They include young people’s pressing desire for dignified and community-rooted work, affordable housing, inclusive governance, cultural connection, and environmental sustainability. Their report provides not a top-down blueprint, but a youth-informed map of values—one that challenges regional leaders to design policies and programs that make young people want to stay, grow, and lead in the places they call home.

The health of regional economies is much more than a matter of balanced GDP statistics—it is a cornerstone of democratic resilience, social cohesion, and generational opportunity. When young people feel they must leave their hometowns to access meaningful work, affordable housing, or a voice in decision-making, it signals a deeper systemic failure. Economically sidelined regions become breeding grounds for disillusionment, political fragmentation, and wasted potential. By contrast, vibrant regional economies that invest in their people—especially their youth—become places of renewal, innovation, and civic strength. In both the US and Europe, closing the gap between thriving and struggling regions is not a side issue—it is central to building a more inclusive and stable future. For young people, what matters most is not just economic security, but dignity: the chance to do meaningful work, live affordably, and participate in public life. Policies that treat youth as long-term stakeholders—rather than short-term beneficiaries—are the ones that work. Whether it’s a municipal fiber network in Chattanooga or social housing incentives in Germany, the lesson is the same: invest in people, root opportunity in place, and make sure young voices are not just heard but centered.

The economic and political challenges facing most advanced democracies including Canada, the UK, Germany, and the rest of Europe are two-fold. The first amidst flatlining productivity, wages, and living standards is to jump-start a more dynamic high-growth and high-tech economy, an agenda flagged as an important priority for Europe by 2024’s Draghi report. This task has become doubly urgent with the current US Administration, undermining global norms and institutions through trade policy and threating to pull the plug on European defense and security commitments. Second is to turn around the weak regional and post-industrial economies that otherwise provide the bedrock for populism. Local economic policies—often considered niche provincial issues—can now be seen as directly linked to the wider rise in populist support. We’re not just in Kansas anymore.

The answers lie in boosting innovation, R&D, local and national economic growth—and the skills, jobs, and living standards that flow from them. It is now an urgent priority to bring nations and regions together to help each other nurture robust, innovation-driven economic systems, and domestic tech industries. There are important lessons to be learned across national boundaries, as regional and national governments look for policies that can work quickly and at scale.

One of the biggest challenges has been the inability of countries outside the US to replicate their dynamic, entrepreneurial innovation ecosystems. Clusters that have continued producing new, game-changing technologies and commercializing start-ups, launching everything from Uber to Amazon to Instagram, are now dominating global markets and service sectors.

At the heart of America’s innovation ecosystem are its universities: both private (MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard) and public (University of California system, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, etc.) alongside thousands of colleges, research institutes, and medical research and teaching hospitals. These are institutions that collectively attract and train the top talent in the world, including computer science, engineering, business, finance, and medicine.

The good news is that the robust innovation ecosystems in the US aren’t just a quirk of America’s crazy, free-booting culture or confined to places such as Silicon Valley—they can and are being created elsewhere. And some of us who have been involved in building out the architecture of US-style innovation flywheels are eager to bring “what works” to partner with our European and international friends. The US recipe includes:

• Robust public and private funding of basic and applied research; expansion of existing and the creation of new research and learning institutions (often built out of next to nothing in heartland regions, such as the Medical Mile in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota).

• The purposeful turning of those universities and research institutions into dynamic engines of innovation, with incentives and support for commercialization—the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University’s purposeful pivot to become agents of economic change turned Pittsburgh from a dying Steel town to a thriving AI, robotics, and software tech hub.

• States such as Michigan and Indiana, and communities such as Green Bay (Wisconsin), and Cincinnati and Columbus (Ohio) have created state and local innovation funds to grow the base of venture and early-stage capital (along with smart investor talent) in regions where this hadn’t been occurring naturally.

• The creation of smart public-private innovation intermediary organizations through programs such as Ohio’s Third Frontier and Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Technology Partners, where seasoned investment managers and successful entrepreneurs can help spot and steer money from the VC and global investor community into promising startups in transitioning regional economies.

• At a national scale in the US, Biden-era investments in science and innovation via the CHIPS and Science Act has sparked new “innovation engines” and “tech hubs”—purposefully seeded away from coastal “superstar” regions.

But the challenge isn’t just to find the right policy formula—the combinations of funding, incentives, regulation, and program design for universities and regional actors to work together in harness. Just as important is persuading universities themselves that this is the right endeavour—when the gravitational pull away from universities’ home regions is often much stronger (e.g., towards international rankings and recruitment and research activities).

This creates a policy dilemma as we consider the best way of creating tech or innovation ecosystems: is it better for governments to simply let universities concentrate on what they do best? Or should they pull harder on regulatory and funding levers so that universities do more of what they want to prioritize?

It may be possible to find a sweet spot somewhere between the two. As Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge University in the UK (and formerly Provost at Princeton University in the US) said when she took up her job in 2023: “I’m convinced that Cambridge cannot be a great global university without being a great national and a great regional university too. Our impact on the world starts at home. I want to learn more about Cambridge’s opportunities and obligations in the East of England and the United Kingdom.”

To state the obvious, a thriving regional innovation ecosystem needs a research-intensive university, but the reverse isn’t always true. If such ecosystems are to fully develop and maximize impact on their surrounding regions, then universities should be full and active partners rather than just bystanders. It is vital that they consciously commit to such strategies.

However, we shouldn’t assume that universities will automatically become the anchor institutions that help tie innovations, discoveries, and new technologies to the economic benefits that regions and nations wish to stimulate. Ensuring they do requires intervention and support from local and national governments, but also conscious and deliberate strategic decisions from the universities themselves.

The arguments for doing so are mounting by the day. As we can see in the US, universities need to do all they can to maintain public trust and support—and often in the face of intensifying culture wars and frequent attacks from populist politicians inside and outside of government. Prioritizing local economic growth, and helping to create the jobs and opportunities that come alongside, provides one route to maintaining such public and political consent. And in each of these situations there are both universities and regional leaders ready to step up and help.

By working together, learning, and helping each other we can strengthen the economies of an international coalition that stands up to the authoritarian axis of China, Russia, and now (sadly—and hopefully temporarily) the United States. Crucially, this work can also help to rebuild struggling regional economies in Europe that otherwise will continue to foment support for populist parties that, as we have seen in the US, have very different ideas about universities and science and their roles in national political and economic debates. Let’s not let this international emergency or these local opportunities go to waste.

This article was published in a longer format by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, in their International Politics and Science Magazine and is informed by this transatlantic discussion convened at the Academy of International Affairs – NRW in October 2025.

Andy Westwood is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Manchester and Policy Director of the Productivity Institute. He is also a board member of Skills England.

John Austin is a Senior Fellow with the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College, Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution and Visiting Fellow at the Academy of International Affairs- NRW