Federal Role for Urban Manufacturing?

The Brookings Institution' Metro Policy Program recently published a report on urban manufacturing. You can read the full text here, but the basic recommendations to the federal government are as follows:

• Develop a new narrative about manufacturing and metropolitan economies and use it to inform and guide its policies and programs
• Support small urban manufacturers' role in regional cluster development
• Ensure that small urban manufacturers have the physical assets that they need to thrive

Sounds pretty good to us and consistent with our goal of promoting urban manufacturing through Urban Made. The greater detail calls for federal support for researching regional supply chains, strengthening of workforce policies to help workers get the needed skills, designing export initiatives at the state level, and more. 

We are glad to see organizations like Brookings investigating the role of urban manufacturing in regional economic development and look forward to future research. What are your thoughts on this work?