Going in the wrong direction on research universities
Michigan spent most of the 20th century building a world class system of higher education – both universities and community colleges. That system is now at the top of the list of the assets Michigan has to grow its economy. It is vital to developing the concentration of talent we need to be successful in […]
Massachusetts as the model
Terrific Slate article entitled Don’t Mess with Massachusetts: It may be everyone’s punching bag, but it’s time to face facts: The Bay State is best. You read that right! Massachusetts as the state we should want to be like. How can that be? As Mark Vanhoenacker – the article’s author – writes: Massachusetts, in today’s political […]
Worth reading
Lots of good stuff being written about the themes we are focused on at Michigan Future. Here is a list of recent articles I think are particularly worth reading: A Gap in College Graduates Leaves Some Cities Behind, from the New York Times on a new analysis from Brookings. More evidence that the metropolitan areas […]
Talent trumps taxes again
Fascinating Crain’s Detroit Business article entitled “So why does a business leave northern Michigan for Florida? Sometimes, it’s talent, not taxes.” The story is about a Cadillac digital medical records company – BlueWare – leaving Michigan for Orlando, Florida. The reason? Crain’s writes: “I just couldn’t hire people in northern Michigan,” Harr (company founder Rose […]
The 3.0 agenda: three quotes
For my Wayne State speech I used three quotes to introduce our framework for what state and local policy makers and economic development leaders should focus on if they want to recreate a high prosperity Michigan – a place with a broad middle class. What are the levers that can best position Michigan and its […]
Knowledge-based sectors adding jobs fastest
For my Wayne State presentation we updated data on job growth since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007. From then through March 2012 the country has lost 5.1 million jobs. What we did is divide the economy into three: private sector industries with employees who have high education attainment (those sectors are: wholesale […]
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. […]