All Blog Entries
Time Magazine recently published a thought provoking cover story on California. Its worth reading, thinking about and debating. Because if its right – as I believe it is – most everything we think drives state economic growth is wrong. The…
Little noticed in yesterday's election was the adoption, by a 55%-45% margin, of a $500 million fund to create more Tier One research universities in Texas. It was supported by both parties - including a very conservative Governor. Their goal…
A couple of recent news articles struck me as representing where the Michigan is now and how we might turn it around. The first is from Brian O'Connor at the Detroit News on how Michigan is in for another decade…
Nice editorial in today's Detroit News about a new high school initiative we are about to launch. We have been calling it a metro Detroit high school accelerator. Its mission is to create over the next eight years thirty five…
The folks at dbusiness gave me a great opportunity to do a long essay on our prescription for improving the Michigan economy. You can read it here. The article went to print before the new 2008 state data came out on both per capita income and college education attainment.
So here are the latest data. The first table is the top ten states in per capita income. The story is the same as in the article: two paths to prosperity. High energy prices for Wyoming and Alaska. And strong knowledge-based employment and earnings, driven by high college attainment for the other eight.
The second table is for the states that lots of folks argue Michigan should be like. Same story in 08 as 07. Michigan would be better off if it were more like Minnesota than Alabama, North Carolina or Indiana.
The revival of Detroit is happening, slowly but surely. The best indicator is the pulse of the so-called "creative class" that are typically the first to re-enter and re-catalyze an urban area. This weekend, I met up with a friend…
A recent comment from Jeffery questioned the value of four-year degrees for all. This is a frequent question I get in my presentations. So I thought it worth doing a blog, rather than just responding to the comment. Since we…
For a moment, set aside the challenging choices and drama unfolding in Lansing. The most hopeful news in the state today came from Detroit. No, I am not talking about the first ever global electric vehicle conference - although…
Lou Glazer moderated a panel on Friday at a Net Impact Conference at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan focused on how we can retool a workforce. The panelists and the student audience were especially interested…
So if the prestigious Milliken/Blanchard panel laid out a framework for state policy makers on tax and spending policies that will help grow the Michigan economy, why have their recommendations been ignored? I think there are three main reasons: 1.…