Space, the Suburbs, and Steel

More Americans are moving to the suburbs. Billionaires are leading mini missions to space. How do these two trends align with the need for more steel? Much more than you may think.

Let’s start with the idea that more Americans have been moving away from big cities and migrating to the suburbs in the past year. According to an article from Bloomberg, between March 2020 and February 2021, condensed counties of major U.S. metro areas experienced a net decrease in flow into the city, while suburbs and smaller cities experienced net gains. But don’t call it an urban exodus, according to Bloomberg.

Instead, it’s more like an outward migration of Americans leaving major metro areas for the suburbs of these cities. As pointed out in the Bloomberg article, while the COVID-19 pandemic may not have been the reason for this migration, it could have been the accelerator. Perhaps financial distress or other impacts from the pandemic forced some to make a move now that they originally had planned for the coming years.

Naturally this all has a ripple effect on local economies, from residential to commercial. In the latest episode of In the Now, hosts Tony and Jonathan ponder what it could mean for the future of supply chains given the fact that major manufacturing hubs are typically located near major cities.

“Problems that have been traditionally tied to moving things to rural areas in a cost-effective way could be solved if more people are living scattered than concentrated,” says Tony.

Now let’s layer in the trend of entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos launching into space from rural launch zones. Whereas traditional NASA-led missions to space would take place in Cape Canaveral, these missions are instead launching from areas in rural Texas and New Mexico.

As Tony and Jonathan discuss in the podcast, should these missions become a regular occurrence it could lead to greater demand to build out the local economies in rural areas. If that does indeed occur, that means new homes, new businesses, and new ideas for how to build out the infrastructure.

It could be a call for all builders, fabricators, and others to create the experiences that fuel the new economy in rural America, and perhaps someday even space.

Check out the latest episode of In the Now for more from Tony and Jonathan on this exciting topic.