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…
David Oshinsky in his book Bellevue quotes Thomas Jefferson's reaction to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, then the nation's capitol: By November the streets were deserted, and more than 10 percent of the city's fifty thousand residents were…
Recently I have been receiving lots of questions about how to improve the economy in northern lower peninsula Michigan. To be honest, we don’t have good answers. Across the country, in rural areas/small towns––except for those with lots of high priced…
A central theme of ours is that economic growth is increasingly being driven by big metropolitan areas anchored by vibrant central cities. These are the places where both knowledge-based companies and college educated adults are concentrating. And the places where…
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…
In my post on ineffective green subsidies I featured a column by Harvard's Edward Glaeser. To me the key take away of that column is his claim that: In the long run, America will be richer than China only by…