Policies that had worked for the previous fifty years stop working, causing significant harm instead. A political and cultural crisis arises, and what had been regarded as common sense is discarded. The political elite insists that there is nothing wrong that couldn’t be solved by more of the same.

The Reagan cycle solved the problem of capital shortage bequeathed to it by the Roosevelt cycle by shifting the tax structure. Reducing taxes on the upper, investor class freed up money for investment and also made taking the risk of investing more attractive.

Books like The New Localism by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak offer examples of how cities are creating economic turnarounds by building partnerships between universities, local organizations, industries, and governments in a way that’s deeply optimistic and promising,