Thanks to a cluster of aircraft manufacturers such as Learjet, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft, the economic focus of Wichita – population 366,000 – is very different from the emphasis on services and consumer demand typical of 21st-century America. According to a study published late last month by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, nearly 28 per cent of the city’s gross metropolitan product is sold abroad. That makes it the most export-oriented in the country, just ahead of Portland, Oregon – noted for its computer and electronics companies – and San Jose in California’s Silicon Valley.
According to Bruce Katz, the study’s author, these areas could be at the vanguard of a fundamental transformation in the US economy – away from consumers and housing towards investment and exports. “I personally think [Wichita] will be the norm in the next 10 to 15 years,” Mr Katz says.
