So we’ve all heard the angst and anecdotes of Michigan’s young talent heading to Chicago, the coasts and anywhere else to flee our supposedly dead-end state.
Some of those Millennials have a few corrections to make to that stale story…
Check out the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE), where legions of young, talented workers are banding together and celebrating a common pioneering spirit that leads them to live in the heart of supposedly written off inner cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
Fifty of these pioneers just gathered in Buffalo. Here’s what one of them had to say…
“Sorry California, Colorado, and Arizona, but we no longer like you. For too long, you have taken our young college grads, our sun-seeking retirees, our capital, our income and our jobs… It’s time for this slow bleed to stop. I just returned from a weekend spent with 50 GLUE members in Buffalo. The 20- and 30-somethings in attendance represented every large Great Lakes city — 21 in all. They were small business owners, non-profit leaders, artists, grassroots community organizers and corporate professionals. They were black, white, Hispanic, Native and Asian. They were from both lily-white privileged suburbs and the toughest inner-city neighborhoods. It was a volatile mix, but it worked… From what I witnessed at this weekend’s conference, is that the cities of the Great Lakes are bursting with cadres of young, hyper-motivated individuals, who are both discouraged with what they see in their respective cities and determined do something about it. That’s the funny thing about ‘depressed cities’ — their tough problems give rise to some of the most engaged and creative citizenry in our country.”
