North Central

The area around the Great Lakes has attracted a lot of attention from biomedical companies and semiconductor manufacturers.

It enjoys a low cost of living (compared to New York or San Francisco) and in some cases already has facilities ready to be repurposed. Several small and medium-sized cities have sought to capitalize on this interest and upscaled abandoned factories into tech hubs and high-tech manufacturing. The area is also gaining recognition as a climate haven – a place where companies don’t need to worry about wildfires or hurricanes forcing production offline. We expect this to drive growth in the market throughout the 2020s, particularly as federal money flows in for infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing projects.

On the other side of the Mississippi River, cities are re-examining their transit options. Highways built during the Eisenhower era are nearing the end of their lifespans, and city councils across the country are debating their impacts. There are proposals in Kansas City and Duluth that would remove parts of the highways that run through downtown and replace them with something more pedestrian-friendly. Minneapolis has gone a step further and invested in “complete neighborhoods” which have all the amenities someone would need within a short walk of one’s home. Several of these cities are also looking at expanding their modest light-rail and streetcar networks, hoping to take advantage of federal money that has been set aside. We expect this to translate into steady growth in these markets over the next few years.

* Other structures include religious buildings, amusement, government communications, and public recreation projects.