The 3.0 agenda: Chicago
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in an interview with NPR laid out the case as well as anyone that vibrant central cities are central to future economic vitality. And that public investments in those central cities is essential to staying competitive. You can read the transcript and/or listen to it here. In the interview, Emanuel said: […]
College educated big metros driving prosperous state economies
Our work at Michigan Future is focused on recreating Michigan as a high prosperity state. A place, once again, with a broad middle class. It is a status we enjoyed for most of the 20th Century, but now have lost. In our research we have found that the states that have high per capita income […]
Detroit parents lead education change
Conventional wisdom both here and across the country is that when it comes to k-12 schooling (and a whole lot more) Detroit is the most ossified place. Resistant to all change. Highly protective of the public school monopoly and unionized workers. Think again! Turns out that Detroit parents, in unprecedented numbers, actively shop for schools […]
Detroit parents as school shoppers
From its inception Michigan Future Schools understood that the schools it invests in need to be good at operations, academics and student recruitment. All three matter. That in addition to financial support, MFS needed to help the schools it invests in build the capacity to be first rate in all three areas.When it came to […]
Going backward faster on higher education
In our 2006 A New Agenda for a New Michigan report we wrote: “As we assess the assets Michigan has to prepare, retain, and attract talent, our higher education system rises to the top of the list. Michigan has spent decades building a world-class system of higher education, both universities and community colleges. They are […]
The 3.0 agenda: Detroit
I want to apply the Friedman and Mandelbaum standard I wrote about in my last post to Detroit. They insightfully assert that “the purpose of the exercise: It is not simply to reduce the deficit but to insure prosperity. Solvency is vital, but it is not enough.” Insuring prosperity, not balancing the budget should be […]
The 3.0 Agenda: Friedman and Mandelbaum
I highly recommend reading That Use to Be Us by Thomas Friedman and Michael Madelbaum. It is a really good overview of what it will take for us as individuals as well as a country to compete in a continuously flattening world driven by globalization and technology. They lay out in compelling – and often […]
Its the bailout!
Michigan’s better than the nation economy for the last year or so is primarily the result of the federal government’s huge bailout of the domestic auto industry. End of story! As I wrote previously it is big government in action and working. While the Republican presidential candidates argued in the state’s primary that Michigan, the […]
The reality of transfer payments
As we explored in a previous post, transfer payments are highest in America’s small towns, not its big metros. The same is true of government employment earnings. And the reverse is true for private sector employment earnings. Each contrary to conventional wisdom, which views small town America as the home of the self reliant, and […]
Attracting talent: Challenge Detroit
More evidence that the business community is way ahead of both the public and policymakers from both parties on the essential role a vibrant city of Detroit must play if the region and state are to be successful economically. The latest terrific private sector initiative is Challenge Detroit from the Collaborative Group. Understanding that attracting […]