-Tax the endowments of large universities heavily, and offer exemptions for schools that open up satellite campuses in areas with below average median incomes (An MIT branch in Flint, a Stanford campus in Buffalo, ect.)
I was a bit confused by this at first, but I think ultimately SJoyce's point was that there are few, if any, good jobs coming to locals, elite schools with sizable endowments like these are not moving there to begin accepting members of poorer communities en masse and that the high-income individuals brought in for the intellectual positions will not spend any free time in the local community but will locate into an established, wealthy part of the city, commute and leave with very limited benefits for the intended beneficiaries from this policy. I think the benefits of this type of arrangement would be chiefly that students already going there do tend to have some attachment to the local community and take pride in serving it in many ways as time permits, but ultimately, these people are likely taking on debt as is and do not have incomes so there is only so much they could add to the actual economy beyond 'doing good'. So in sum, capital spending will have serious limits for exclusionary reasons and in urban metros, the vast amount of consumption will not take place in the community.
Is that a misreading of Douthat's argument? Chicago would be one of those choice metro areas that's racing ahead of the rest. His argument seems to apply more to stagnant mid size metros than poor parts of prosperous cities.
It's a lot harder to not spend your money in Jacksonville or Buffalo than a particular part of a major city.
