If you get a chance this spring, head over to Grand Rapids on a warm weekend and walk around downtown. If feels like a smaller, more livable Chicago. The streets are clean, the restaurants are full, and the night spots are bulging with young professionals.
That’s not by luck or mistake.
Yet Grand Rapids is also not as vibrant as it likely will be in a few more years. The West Michigan Employers Network has launched a Talent Attraction Initiative with lofty goals over the next three years, including:
An initial report by the Talent Attraction Initiative provides compelling evidence for the effort, including:
A survey of 16 major West Michigan companies found SIX HUNDRED AND ONE open positions requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher during the economic doldrums of OCTOBER 2008.
Grand Rapids is steadily building buzz for its growing downtown, its strong sense of regionalism, its diversified economy, its growing medical and education campuses, it’s affordable cost of living, and its proximity to Michigan’s great beaches, forests and rivers. Nearly two years ago, an enlightened Boston Scribe cried out: “Why can’t we be more like Grand Rapids?”
Last night, in a Community Conversation in Kalamazoo, a local leader described that fine city as “the perfect size to get things done.”
The same can basically be said for most of West Michigan. I’m betting that those crowded, over-taxed, and increasingly ornery folks across Lake Michigan will increasingly look to the east for happiness and business expansion. But don’t take my word for it — check out Forbes’ list of the nation’s 10 most miserable cities.
Chicago comes in at 3rd, thanks in large part to it’s nation-leading 10.5 percent sales tax. Chicago’s highways and rail lines are choked. It’s rampant corruption makes it a Falluja for federal prosecutors. It’s government buildings are awash in a pungent entitlement, legacy costs that would choke a horse, and 20th Century patronage no community can afford today.
C’mon Chicagoans and would-be Chicago immigrants from Michigan colleges and universities… Close your wallets… Save some money… Save some sanity… Come homestead and open your businesses in Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids — cities that REALLY work.
One Comment
I’d suggest trying to link up Western Michigan with Chicago through much better intercity trail service rather than bashing the regional capital of the Midwest. Our economic fates are tied together, and the light, tongue-in-cheek attacks on Chicago perpetuate the false thinking that somehow Western Michigan’s prosperity can occur outside of the region’s prosperity. We should be working together, and I’d suggest the best way to do that would be with 8 or 10 daily trains between Grand Rapids and Chicago with a trip of 90 minutes (easily accomplished through modern technology now being built in Spain and running all over Europe). Check out http://www.MidwestHSR.org for some more or read Richard Longworth’s book on the Midwestern economy “Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.”