Antoine van Agtmael and Alfred Bakker discuss their book "The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation"

“Welcome to the new world of manufacturing, where freedom to innovate trumps cheap labor, putting the US and Europe back at the center of the global economy.”--Jessica Einhorn, Former Dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University

The Smartest Places on Earth tells the remarkable story of how rustbelt cities such as Akron and Albany in the United States and Eindhoven in Europe are becoming the unlikely hotspots of global innovation, where sharing brainpower and making things smarter not cheaper is creating a new economy that is turning globalization on its head

Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker counter recent conventional wisdom that the American and northern European economies have lost their initiative in innovation and their competitive edge by focusing on an unexpected and hopeful trend: the emerging sources of economic strength coming from areas once known as rustbelts that had been written off as yesterday’s news.

In these communities, a combination of forces visionary thinkers, local universities, regional government initiatives, start-ups, and big corporations have created brainbelts. Based on trust, a collaborative style of working, and freedom of thinking prevalent in America and Europe, these brainbelts are producing smart products that are transforming industries by integrating IT, sensors, big data, new materials, new discoveries, and automation. From polymers to medical devices, the brainbelts have turned the tide from cheap, outsourced production to making things smart right in our own backyard. The next emerging market may, in fact, be the West.

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Antoine van Agtmael is senior adviser at Garten Rothkopf, a public policy advisory firm in Washington, DC. He was an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center and taught at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Mr. van Agtmael is chairman of the NPR Foundation, a member of the board of NPR, and chairman of its Investment Committee. He is also a trustee of The Brookings Institution and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations

Alfred Bakker, until his recent retirement, was a journalist specializing in monetary and financial affairs with Het Financieele Dagblad, the Financial Times of Holland. In addition to his writing and editing duties he helped develop the company from a newspaper publisher to a multimedia company, developing several websites, a business news radio channel, and a quarterly business magazine, FD Outlook, and established FD Intelligence.