Lets Grow, Not Shrink, Detroit
Detroit needs a growth agenda. And the rest of us need to support it. There is a clear pattern across the country: the most prosperous states are either rich in energy resources or are anchored by an even more prosperous big metro with a vibrant central city. As I have written previously it’s Detroit that […]
Detroit’s Assets
We spend all of our time bashing the city of Detroit, we forget that it has assets to build from. Three of the most important are Wayne State University, the Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit Medical Center. Tom Walsh in a recent Free Press column calls them Detroit’s new big three. Likely the […]
The New White Flight?
Real interesting article at Yahoo.com about a new Brookings Institution study. Its title: White flight? Suburbs lose young whites to cities. That it’s even possible that whites are moving into, rather than out of, central cities will come as a huge shock to many – particularly here in Michigan. Where far too many of us believe central […]
Is Richard Florida Right?
Thought provoking article in the American Prospect about the work of Richard Florida. It is critical of him on a variety of fronts, but particularly his selling his ideas in speeches and consulting to many small to mid size cities and regions who he now has decided have little or no chance to retain and […]
Michigan Future Schools Jobs
Michigan Future Schools – our high school accelerator – is now hiring its first two professional. You can find details here. More than anything else we are looking for staff that know what is involved in operating a high quality urban high school and also are able to teach/help others do it. We are seeking […]
State Board of Ed Leading
Our politics are characterized by hyper partisanship and an unwillingness to tackle the big issues. So at a time when leadership matters most, we get inaction. There is some good news. The State Board of Education – on a bipartisan basis – is tackling the issue of how do you provide quality teaching and learning […]
The New Face of Economic Growth
Don Grimes and I are working on the latest update of the Michigan’s Transition to a Knowledge-Based Economy report. It will be out in May. It will once again tell the story that Michigan’s decline compared to the nation is the combination of the implosion of our dominant industry – domestic autos – and our […]
Welcoming to All
Good article in the New York Times about how high skill immigrants are major contributors to economic growth. It cites a study they commissioned to look at the role immigrants have played on economic growth since 1990 in the twenty five largest metropolitan areas. Consistent with other research they found that the metros doing the […]
Mississippi Lessons
Why spend so much time on Mississippi? Because Michigan needs to get on a new path. And one of the ways of identifying that path is to look at states that are doing well now and/or positioned to do well in the future. So if per capita income growth rates are a good predictor of […]
Not Mississippi III
In a recent post the Mackinac Center argues that Mississippi should be a model for Michigan because it has a high per capita income growth rate. They specifically cite its performance over the most recent five years (2003-2008). Over that period Mississippi’s per capita income grew 27.7% as compared to 24.5% nationally. I was curious […]