PPI - Radically Pragmatic
  • Donate
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Locations
    • Careers
  • People
  • Projects
  • Our Work
  • Events
  • Donate

Our Work

PPI Metro Playbook – Columbia, SC

  • December 2, 2019
  • Mark Ribbing
Download PDF

Over the final three decades of the 20th century, one of the defining features of American life was the abandonment and deterioration of historic urban centers. In cities large and small, from coast to coast, residents and dollars followed the interstate highways out of the old commercial downtowns and out to the suburbs.

Columbia, S.C., may be an exceptional town in some respects – it is, after all, both a state capital and the home of the University of South Carolina – but even these enviable assets could not save it from the centrifugal forces that were leeching the vitality of Downtown U.S.A. during the Seventies and Eighties. College kids and civil servants weren’t enough to prevent Macy’s and other department stores from either decamping for the ‘burbs or shuttering entirely. Our latest Metro Playbook:

 

Related Work

Op-Ed  |  June 19, 2025

Ainsley for the New York Times: A Progressive Future Depends on National Identity

  • Claire Ainsley
In the News  |  June 13, 2025

Ainsley on ABC Radio National: Lessons for Global Centre-Left Parties from Labor’s Win

  • Claire Ainsley
Op-Ed  |  June 13, 2025

Marshall for The Hill: Factory Jobs Aren’t the Future Working Americans Want

  • Will Marshall
In the News  |  June 12, 2025

Marshall in Politico: ‘It’s a winner for him’: Dems work to turn LA debate from immigration to Trump’s executive powers

  • Will Marshall
In the News  |  June 12, 2025

Ainsley on The Spectator’s Coffee House Shots Podcast: Is Rachel Reeves’s Headroom Shrinking?

  • Claire Ainsley
Op-Ed  |  May 28, 2025

Ryan for Newsweek: Trump Policies Hurt Workers in America’s Heartland. Democrats Have to Say So

  • Tim Ryan
  • Never miss an update:

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
PPI Logo
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Donate
  • Careers
  • © 2025 Progressive Policy Institute. All Rights Reserved.
  • |
  • Privacy Policy
  • |
  • Privacy Settings