Jason Furman's Reviews > Janesville: An American Story

An account of the aftermath of the closing of GM's plant in Janesville Wisconsin told through the stories of a variety of people, including a worker, the head of a training office, a teacher, a local banker, and more. Janesville is well told, moving chronologically to portray many different facets of the community, the different ways that different segments responded, and the few triumphs and some tragedies--one particularly poignant.

Although it is not a policy book, Amy. Goldstein does present her views at various stages, more about what not to do than what to do. She is very negative on community college and training programs, arguing that they train people for jobs that do not exist. The community college view seems more negative than the evidence warrants. The portrayal of the way already strapped states and communities bid for corporations makes your blood boil and wish for a European-style system that would ban this form of mutually inefficient competition. The image of how the social safety net gets devastated by the decline of charitable giving after a place is hit, compounding the problems, is painful--especially for the fact that public policy could easily solve it. But the fundamental problem of how to restore jobs or prepare people for other jobs is one that I still one that does not have a full satisfactory answer.