Hanging on to the past: not smart!
Micheline Maynard wrote an insightful article for Atlantic Cities entitled The Midwest’s Big Economic Miscalculation. She writes particularly about Michigan’s continuing belief that the auto industry will once again be the engine of economic good times as it was for most of the 20th Century. But, as she writes, auto factory jobs can never again drive […]
Higher education: luxury or imperative?
Finally we are having the debate we need on higher education funding. For the past decade the state – on a bi-partisan basis – has disinvested in higher education without much debate. As we have argued for years this was a big mistake. In a world driven by globalization and technology, human capital is now […]
The South we should want to learn from
For decades we have been told by much of the organized business community and conservative policy makers and pundits that Michigan needs to move in the direction of the low tax/small government/right to work South to be economically successful. Which, as I have written frequently (for example this previous post), is a recipe for getting […]
More red flags on charter schools
Each time I write about charter schools I feel the need to start with we are a big supporter of charters. Have been since their inception in Michigan more than 15 years ago. Of the high schools we have made grants to in our Michigan Future Schools initiative five of the seven are charter schools. […]
The 3.0 Agenda: the formula
As we have written previously Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum in their terrific new book That Used To Be Us lay out the right goal for economic policy: “the purpose of the exercise: It is not simply to reduce the deficit but to insure prosperity. Solvency is vital, but it is not enough.” Their recipe […]
Attracting Talent: Denver
In his terrific book, Triumph of the City, Edward Glaeser writes: “There is every reason to think that an increasingly prosperous world will continue to place more value on the innovative enjoyments that cities can provide. The bottom-up nature of urban innovation suggests that the best economic development strategy may be to attract smart people and […]
Choosing to be Mississippi again
Brian Dickerson’s Detroit Free Press column “What Rick Snyder wants most of all” column is highly recommended. It raises all the right questions about what direction the Governor wants Michigan to head in. Using the Governor’s proposal for another big business tax cut – this time the personal property tax – as a key indicator […]
Attracting talent: Pittsburgh
Our research clearly indicates that where recent college graduates concentrate you get prosperous economies. And increasingly that concentration is occurring in vibrant central cities. Specifically high density, mixed use, walkable neighborhoods. For the details see our Young Talent in the Great Lakes report. Cities – with the support of their regions and states – across […]
The 3.0 agenda: Chicago
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in an interview with NPR laid out the case as well as anyone that vibrant central cities are central to future economic vitality. And that public investments in those central cities is essential to staying competitive. You can read the transcript and/or listen to it here. In the interview, Emanuel said: […]
College educated big metros driving prosperous state economies
Our work at Michigan Future is focused on recreating Michigan as a high prosperity state. A place, once again, with a broad middle class. It is a status we enjoyed for most of the 20th Century, but now have lost. In our research we have found that the states that have high per capita income […]