CGM Insights

America’s Rust Belt is often defined by deindustrialization, particularly the collapse of steel, but manufacturing remains alive and is shifting toward the bioeconomy. In Hazelwood—a once steel-centered Pittsburgh neighborhood—the BioForge Manufacturing Center, backed by the University of Pittsburgh and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, embodies this transition. In the near term, encouraging small-scale entrepreneurship, including Black-owned businesses, and construction jobs through innovative worker-training programs can drive inclusive growth. Over the long term, BioForge and the broader tech focus of Hazelwood Green Industrial Park offer both opportunities and challenges to ensure that residents benefit from emerging tech jobs.

This policy brief summarizes research on the introduction of local self-government in the 19th-century Russian Empire—a context marked by authoritarian rule, economic underdevelopment, and weak institutions. De- spite these constraints, the study finds that municipal representative institutions significantly improved local fiscal capacity and public service provision. The findings contribute to broader debates on decentralization by demonstrating that self-governance can yield tangible benefits even in adverse settings.