Governor Whitmer's new economic policy agenda states: The construction of this agenda has, as a guiding principle, the idea that a primary goal of state economic policy should be rising household incomes for all Michiganders, especially those who are struggling.…
Conventional wisdom has it that there are two dominant paths to good-paying jobs and careers: STEM occupations and the skilled trades. In our last post we looked at STEM occupations including those classified as a professional trade. In this post…
Conventional wisdom has it that there are two dominant paths to good-paying jobs and careers: STEM occupations and the skilled trades. In this post I want to focus on the proportion of good-paying Michigan jobs that are in STEM. In…
On Tuesday, Bridge published an essay I co-wrote with Ned Staebler, the vice president for economic development at Wayne State University and the president and CEO of TechTown. We hope to inspire an important conversation among those who work in…
The Atlanta BeltLine is explicitly deigned to both improve the quality of life of current city residents and to attract new residents to the city, particularly mobile young professionals. This dual purpose is how placemaking should be done everywhere. The…
The announcement that KIPP will open a K-12 charter school in Detroit is good news for Detroit students. KIPP is the nation’s largest nonprofit charter school network, with more than 110,000 students ranging from preschool to 12th grade in 255…
This post is about what good-paying jobs focused economic development should look like. About what it takes to grow, retain and attract high-wage jobs. It draws lessons Michigan can learn about winning in the 21st Century from our posts on…
Northern Virginia quite literally won economically in the 21st Century when Amazon chose them as the location for one of two HQ2s. Winning what was described by pundits as the Super Bowl of economic development competitions. HQ2 brings to Northern…
One can make a strong argument that Denver is the American region that has understood best the new reality that talent attracts capital. And because it has Denver is one of the regions best positioned to win economically in the…
The pandemic is hardening our two-tier economy. One where those at the top are doing well, but way too many Michiganders are struggling. Low-wage workers have suffered the most since the onset of the pandemic and the forecast is that…