From manufacturing belt to rust belt to college country

What has shaped the US urban landscape? Probably, different forces worked at different magnitudes, times, and locations. In this paper we develop a methodology to disaggregate some of the engines of US city growth over time and across space. To understand the results we propose a visualization approach based on what we term storyboards, which create an intuitive and dynamic narrative on the effect of several factors of urban success. This allows us to show that the role of growth engines differs greatly: the rise and decline of manufacturing were very localized; industrial specialization is counterproductive, particularly so in the 1990s; service sectors used to be a consumption amenity, but now serve as a production amenity; and highly educated cities unambiguously and increasingly attract firms in any part of the US. We also note that the arguments for our visualization and its lessons bear implications for visualization in the social sciences beyond this particular example.