The Detroit News Regional Hub Blog

Majoring in Michigan entreprenership

3/2/2010 4:15:38 PM

Small businesses employ half of the private workforce and generate about 70 percent of the country's new jobs each year. But about 40 percent of native Michigan college graduates are now leaving the state to find work.

Windsor: Detroit's Best Friend

3/1/2010 2:00:54 PM

Detroit and Canada don’t just share a border; we also share a love of hockey that runs deep. Detroit and Windsor are connected at the hip, so to speak.

The USA beat Canada in men’s hockey last night at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. My allegiances were torn before the game began. Do I root for my country, that I love, or do I support Mike Babcock and Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings?

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Global Detroit: Tapping the Economic Potential of Immigrants

1/29/2010 10:02:28 AM

Did you know that one in three tech start-ups in the last decade in Michigan were started by an immigrant?

Today, when one mentions immigrants and immigration we think of the political hot button issues that everyone wants to avoid. The reality is that immigrants and foreign-born Americans are often an untapped economic resource.

The New Economy Initiative (NEI), in partnership with the Skillman Foundation and the Detroit Regional Chamber, is investing in Global Detroit to study the economic opportunities and strategies that we should employ in southeast Michigan to fully realize the economic potential of our immigrant population. The study is being led by former State Representative Steve Tobocman.

Read The Rest Of The Post on The NEI Blog

Right-sizing Detroit brings opportunities for a slimmer, trimmer, healthier city

1/26/2010 9:47:29 AM

From its beginning, Detroit has harnessed bold innovation to prosper. In 1701, Detroit was founded as a French settlement and offered free land to attract families. Within 60 years it had grown to be the largest city between Montreal and New Orleans. In 1805 the city was completely destroyed by fire, but an ambitious new street plan laid the groundwork for the explosive growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1914, Henry Ford introduced the $5-a-day wage, which drew legions of new workers to Detroit and established a new global standard of living for the working class.

Read More at Model D>

Social Innovation Challenge

12/22/2009 11:50:57 AM

We need to do a better job at supporting social innovation in the form of providing seed money for ideas from social entrepreneurs who may not be connected to an established nonprofit group. What is needed is a program such as the one started by the Draper Richards Foundation which provides social entrepreneurs who have an innovative idea that addresses a social need by awarding them a fellowship of $100,000 a year for three years, along with business assistance. Congress recently approved $50 million for a Social Innovation Fund to provide matching funding for projects and programs and given Detroit's dire situation we need all the innovation we can muster, making the D a prime candidate for the fund. The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan should step up to the plate and initiate a program modeled after the Draper Richards Fellowship and start accepting proposals to find innovative ideas from visionary individuals worthy of support. I came across an interesting statement on why foundations should take risks by Sean Stannard-Stockton, a principal and director of Tactical Philanthropy at Ensemble Capital Management and author of the blog Tactical Philanthropy; paraphrasing the sentiment of Jim Canales of the Irvine Foundation: "Jim’s point is that failure goes hand in hand with taking risks and if philanthropy never fails it means no risk is being taken and if no risk is being taken then the chance to produce high levels of social impact are off the table." I believe one of the reasons why we are in our present predicament is because the region has been dominated by the machine mentality the auto industry gave birth to and a failure to nurture creative entrepreneurship. We need to embrace a more organic method of generating ideas to make our way back to prosperity. Paul Horton is a Social Entrepreneur. living in Detroit. He can be contacted by email at creativecomnet@artlover.com

A New Model for Transportation in Detroit

12/15/2009 6:04:16 AM

The auto companies helped revolutionize how we get around, how we live and commute, how we develop our land and infrastructure, and how we access the market.
They also influenced our attitudes about other forms of transportation like transit, and they influenced some of Michigan's laws when it comes to transportation funding.
The lack of a fixed guideway transit system (and when I say fixed, I mean permanent, right-of-way rail, not buses) has contributed to Detroit's sprawling, one story development dominated, auto dependent society. The negative results of this are evident today - abandoned strip malls in the suburbs, abandoned parcels all over Detroit, crumbling roads, lack of walkable areas, disconnected zoning patterns (which Michigan's home-rule laws influenced as well), and flat property values.
Of course other things played a role in how our region developed, but our narrow focus on auto-dependent society has contributed to regional fragmentation, waste of our land and destruction of our environment, social disconnect, and even waste of our personal time to spend growing as humans.
While I continue to drive to work on a daily basis (I promise to use transit once I get an iPhone) younger generations do desire options in how they get around. I've lived in Chicago and DC, and while I still had a car for non work-related activities, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed walking to the transit station, taking the train into the city, walking to my office building, then taking the train home. The experience of living in these areas has definitely shaped my views of the world and Detroit.
The people of Metro Detroit deserve a transit option. While I can't blame anyone for needing to drive to access their job, I feel bad that some folks commute up to two hours a day or more in their car. That's time you can't do business. That's time you can't read something for fulfillment. That's time away from your friends and family.
Think about the benefits of being on transit, doing business on your Blackberry or iPhone, or reading a book or newspaper, or (and I know this can disturb others) talking to others on the phone without the risk of causing an accident on the road.
Some leaders in Michigan argue that we do not have the density for transit, and that the cost of building transit is high. They are right that we do not have the density because we are so sprawled out, and yes, the upfront capital costs of transit are very high. But think about the subways in places like Chicago where the existence of transit helped drive density, higher property values. These cities also enjoy a constant turnover of young people locating and remaining in the region. And as for the cost of transit, think about how much we spend on roads and the current condition of those roads.
But so what? What can Metro Detroit do internally and from a business standpoint to be a part of a new revolution for transportation, transit, and economic development? Here are some ideas.
Components of a New Transportation Model

1. Build a fixed, right of way, transit system in Metro Detroit. Put the bankrupt auto companies to work in engineering a new technology, deploy it on some corridor, and give the private sector some ownership in its operation and management. This is one step in transforming the auto companies into transportation companies. Fixed guideway transit corridors represent the spine of the transportation system. We could even build these corridors alongside interstates in some cases.
2. Transit stations need to fulfill the following functions: a) Park and ride for car riders b) Transit hubs for hybrid and alternative fuel buses (charging stations included) c) Encourage denser, transit-oriented development with retail, services, and housing within close proximity of the transit station.
3. The user of the system either drives or walks to the transit station or they take a shuttle to the transit station. They take the transit to their transit stop near their place of business, shopping, etc. Now, let's say the user's place of business is still a mile away from the transit station. Using their cell phone, the user "pages" the transit bus or some other service to pick them up and get them to their final destination. The smart technology in the phone could tell the user where their shuttle might be. The same model applies for the trip home.
4. Transit shuttles will be owned and operated by private entities including businesses near the transit station. The State of Michigan could provide a tax break (perhaps through the Michigan Business Tax) to companies and organizations that own and operate a shuttle for their employees or contract with another shuttle service in partnership with other companies in their immediate vicinity. The employer gets the piece of mind of helping their workers get to work each day. This model should also drive sales of hybrid and alternative fuel shuttle buses, built in America by our auto companies.
5. Information technology and smart phones are crucial to this model. Information must be provided in real time, and phones should be used to pay for transit service and parking. Citizens who utilize this service might be provided additional incentives for saving energy and reducing emissions from operating in a more efficient model.
6. Government leaders in Metro Detroit have to drive this model by working cooperatively with the auto companies to encourage its implementation. That means finding a revenue stream to help build a transit system. However, the revenue stream is a trick issue because state law limits certain types of taxation and additional property taxes are not politically feasible. Either way, we must come up with a way to match federal dollars for transportation.
7. Government leaders would also have to find a way to reconcile land uses, perhaps through regional zoning ordinances. Our sporadic planning has never been efficient, so we must find a way to engage our leaders toward a common planning vision.
8. We need some type of regional governance, accountable to the people, to drive this model. At the same time, we need to make sure that our transit system is run like a business and should not be exclusively dependent on tax dollars to operate. This requires an efficient, revenue-driven operating model for the transit system, and incentives for private business to plug into the model.
Why drive the new Model? While the automobile will continue to dominate the hearts and minds of Detroiters, we must recognize auto dependency is not sustainable from energy, environmental or fiscal standpoint. Furthermore, without transit we will continue to lose our college graduates to cities where owning a car isn’t necessary to access jobs and the market.
We have an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate a new model here in Detroit, and sell the model to the rest of America. I've taken a few road trips in my life, and I will always want to own a car to get where I want to go, but we have to think differently here in Michigan if we are going to create a connected and accessible economy.

Geoff Young is an Executive Project Manager with Wayne County. He earned his Masters in Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan in 2007 and was recognized in Crain’s Detroit Business “20 in their 20s" for his work on the Detroit Region Aerotropolis effort.

Michigan Can Mend Its Broken Promise

12/2/2009 9:33:33 AM

Unfortunately, an important promise to Michigan's college students has been broken, but we hope only temporarily. The Michigan Promise Scholarship, which provides up to $4,000 for eligible students at the state's public universities, was eliminated under the budget recently signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. This broken promise affects some 96,000 undergraduates and their families.??The governor has stressed the importance of the Michigan Promise Scholarship and has committed to restoring it through targeted enhancement of revenues. We applaud her efforts and those of members of the Legislature who support its restoration.??Michigan's government has long acknowledged the need for more skilled college graduates to stimulate the state's economy. The "promise" in the Michigan Promise Scholarship implied two things: that the state made a commitment to its young citizens and that the promise of a better future for Michigan absolutely depends on an increasingly well prepared work force.??In 2004, Granholm created the Cherry Commission on Higher Education and Economic Growth, which was charged with doubling the number of Michigan college graduates over 10 years and with ensuring that Michigan's system of higher education gave our young people the skills needed to succeed in the 21st Century. Eliminating the Promise Scholarship moves Michigan in the opposite, and wrong, direction.??In Michigan, state revenues are down 35% since 2000, and our public universities have suffered accordingly. Over the past decade, Michigan ranks a dismal 49th among all states in growth for support of higher education.??Because of this disinvestment, Michigan's universities have been forced to increase tuition in an attempt to preserve the quality of their academic programs. Unfortunately, such increases will continue until state policymakers reinvest in Michigan's future through stable higher education and K-12 appropriations.??At Wayne State we have tempered the effect of tuition increases by increased financial aid through private gifts and the reallocation of institutional funds for need-based scholarships.??Even before the Promise Scholarship was eliminated, we took action to diminish the barrier that financial need might pose to students. This year, for example, we doubled the amount of need-based aid available to most students and established a program through which alumni or their spouses who recently have lost their jobs receive tuition discounts. Over the past few years we have reduced our operating expenses by more than $50 million.??But reductions and reallocations cannot continue indefinitely without damaging our system of higher education. Michigan already ranks 37th in the country in the percent of population with baccalaureate degrees, and penalizing our universities will do nothing to improve that depressing statistic.??Unfortunately, Promise Scholarship funds have proven a tempting target for legislators seeking ways to reduce state spending over the short term. But the idea that Michigan's budget crisis can be resolved only by slashing spending is extremely shortsighted.??Calling for cuts, no matter how painful, may be more politically expedient than proposing revenue enhancements, but cutting programs and services will continue to erode the very economy that generates the revenues that fund essential services and our future economic growth. Already we're playing with our children's future -- and having reached that extreme, what can we eliminate next???While it's true that revenue enhancements might increase the financial burden on some of our citizens, using new funds to support the Michigan Promise Scholarship would ensure our young people a jump start on useful, relevant careers and have a positive effect on Michigan's economy.??Most important, it also would encourage our young talent to stay in Michigan rather than move to states that have wisely invested in the future through higher education.??Jay Noren is president of Wayne State University

Optimism About the Future of Michigan’s Economy

12/1/2009 5:43:26 PM

As hard as it is to believe, there is considerable optimism about the future of Michigan’s economy in some places, including some influential people who can actually do something about it. Some of them met at Crain’s Future of Michigan event last week in Troy. While acknowledging that times are tough now, they found that there is already some good news, and there are reasons to be optimistic.

One of the key points was made by Altair Engineering CEO Jim Scapa, who said that “there is opportunity out of crisis.” Having two of the Big 3 automakers file for bankruptcy in the past year, 15% unemployment and annual budget disasters certainly qualifies as a crisis. It is true that a crisis can be one of the best motivators for change (see: Emanuel, Rahm). There will be new ideas that are embraced and have a better shot at being implemented now than before.

The auto industry will continue to be a key player for years to come, but diversification of the economy is critical and new industries will be given attention. At the Future of Michigan meeting, participants touted Michigan’s ability to attract new investments in alternative energy (already thought to be the next bubble by some people) and life services. This could turn into a virtuous cycle: as new investments come into the state, it could cause optimism about the future which would create more spending and investment, and so forth.

At an event in October sponsored by Crain’s called the Business over Breakfast Chris Rizik of the Renaissance Venture Capital Fund, expressed optimism because the state’s push for alternative energy has sparked interest from venture capital firms for the first time. Turning Michigan into the Silicon Valley of alternative energy is a worthy goal and would take an enormous effort from the entire state. There is an opportunity in this current crisis and it could lead to prosperity quicker than many people expect.

http://www.examiner.com/x-11206-Detroit-Law-and-Politics-Examiner

The Private Sector Case for Aerotropolis

11/30/2009 5:03:44 PM

In 2007, Wayne County CEO Robert Ficano asked John Rakolta to co-chair the Aerotropolis Task Force, a group of public and private stakeholders dedicated to the idea of economic development around Detroit Metro and Willow Run airports. Having witnessed the power of airport-oriented developments around the world, and recognizing that our airports were under-utilized, he was instantly sold on the idea of advancing the Aerotropolis concept here in Metro Detroit. Follow his blog on The Edge