The Real Minnesota Story

High praise for LivingstonDaily.com for a story destroying the claim by a Republican State Senate candidate that Minnesota is a low tax state.  Finally someone in the media is willing to check the facts on all the claims that low tax states have the best economies. As they report, when they asked what state had […]

The Challenges of Adult Training

Kudos to the Lansing State Journal and Detroit News for in depth articles on the performance of Michigan’s adult training system. ( You can find the Journal’s article here and the News’ lead article here.) The News focused on the No Worker Left Behind program and its, at best, mixed results. While the Journal takes […]

The Future of Factory Work

Important article in the New York Times on what is happening to manufacturing employment since the economy started to recover from the Great Recession. It identifies the trends that will likely define factory work going forward. The new reality: (1) Some job growth, but at a fraction of what was lost this decade (six million) […]

Men Declining?

Provocative and important cover story in the current issue of the the Atlantic. It’s entitled The End of Men? Clearly exaggerated, but the main point of the article that men are having a harder time than women making the transition to a far more knowledge-based economy is probably true. The article claims the trend is […]

Michigan Ain’t the Worse

Came back from this year’s Detroit Regional Chamber’s terrific Mackinac Policy Conference with one big take away: next year’s conference should be about what is right with Michigan. Folks are so down on Michigan. The public conversation is that we are the worse in everything. It ain’t true! Two recent articles provide evidence that it […]

Ficano on Transit

Great editorial from Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano for One D on transit. Ficano makes the case that rail transit is a key ingredient metro Detroit needs to retain and attract young professionals. Based in part on a recent charrette of University of Michigan students who were asked “if you could start from scratch, what would […]

Detroit’s Liabilities

In a previous post I wrote how we are so obsessed with what is wrong with Detroit that we forget it has assets to build from. But then comes a terrific Wall Street Journal article on black flight from Detroit and you understand again that all the assets that Detroit has gets trumped by its liabilities. […]

Ann Arbor II

Lot of reaction to my post on Ann Arbor’s anti-density development policies. One theme is Ann Arbor can’t be Madison mainly because they are the state capitol and have the two lakes. No question Madison has some assets that Ann Arbor can not replicate. One can argue it’s why they are a city nearly twice […]

College Success Advisers

Readers know that I am concerned about the low graduation rates that characterized almost all of our universities and colleges. The recent Brookings report on demographic changes across the country from 2000-2008 provides data that should worry all of us. In 2008 the proportion of 25-34 year olds with a four-year degree is less than […]