Cincinnati
Porkopolis lost pork crown to Chicago but kept chemistry: pig fat → P&G soap. Eight Fortune 500 HQs, Ohio's largest metro economy at $199B GDP.
Cincinnati exists because pig fat becomes soap. In 1810, Richard Fosdick discovered how to cure pork with rock salt at his slaughterhouse on Deer Creek. By 1850, Cincinnati was America's leading pork-processing center—'Porkopolis,' where steamboats from the Ohio River delivered hogs that left as salt pork, lard, and hides. But the slaughterhouses also produced a byproduct: rendered animal fat. In 1837, two brothers-in-law named William Procter and James Gamble started making candles and soap from that fat. The slaughterhouse waste became Ivory Soap.
Chicago stole the pork crown after the 1869 transcontinental railroad made the Great Plains more accessible. Cincinnati lost its nickname but kept its chemistry. Procter & Gamble evolved from animal byproducts into consumer goods broadly—Tide, Pampers, Gillette—while other local companies grew around retail distribution (Kroger) and financial services (Fifth Third Bancorp). The meatpacking skills sublimated into different products.
Today, eight Fortune 500 companies call Greater Cincinnati home. Kroger ranks #27 with $147.1 billion in revenue and 20,000 local employees. Procter & Gamble ranks #51 with $84 billion in revenue and 12,000 local positions. The metro area's $199 billion GDP makes it Ohio's largest economy—bigger than Cleveland's despite fewer headlines. The population grew 2.25% from 2020-2024. Transportation and warehousing added 16,000 jobs in the past decade.
What distinguishes Cincinnati from other Rust Belt cities is how completely it escaped the industrial monoculture trap. Cleveland built steel; Detroit built cars; Cincinnati built consumer goods expertise that transferred across products. The skills that processed hogs later processed retail logistics. The chemistry that made soap now makes global brands.
By 2026, Cincinnati continues demonstrating that the key variable isn't what you make—it's what you learn making it. Porkopolis is a historical curiosity. Procter & Gamble is a $350 billion market cap company. The pigs are gone; the institutional knowledge remains.