Michigan developed deep new image bruises this month. At times like this, it seems like the opinion leaders and rankings mavens on the coasts believe our state is little more than one large, closed auto factory.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page took its customary and highly partisan monthly swipe, proclaiming the glories of Texas, Arizona and Florida while lambasting all but the rising sun in Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan.
Likewise, the California-based Milken Institute just came out with its 2008 Best Performing Cities rankings, based on job, wage, and technology growth. The Milken report proclaims itself to be an important benchmark for business, labor, and public officials planning “their next moves,” ”an indicator of whether each city is developing a prosperous, competitive economy and stable society,” and guide to the cities with the “lowest risk” for future investment. (Since the report came out in this same month in which all Wall Street bets are off, monetary policy has stopped working, and phrases like “worst since the Great Depression” are far too common, the concept of low risk seems more than a little outdated.)
Anyway, here’s where Milken ranked Michigan cities among the largest 200 metros in the nation:
Grand Rapids — 190th
Ann Arbor — 192nd
Flint — 195th
Lansing-East Lansing — 196th
Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills — 198th
Holland-Grand Haven — 199th
Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn – 200th
The winners in the Milken report are all in the South and West. Provo, Utah gets top billing with 5 percent job growth in 2007 fueled largely by information services. Raliegh, North Carolina comes next, fueled by high-tech research and university spinoffs. Other winners are Austin, Tacoma, Huntsville. Des Moines, with a strong professional services industry, is the highest-ranking Midwest city, at 25th.
The Milken report offers little advice about how low-ranked regions might help themselves, but Michigan futurist Lou Glazer points to Minnesota in comparison to Alabama:
Let’s look at those two states — Alabama and Minnesota — to understand why high prosperity is the right goal. Both states have an unemployment rate — the usual measure of economic success — below the national average. Alabama is at 4.7%, Minnesota at 5.3%. (Michigan leads the nation at 8.5%.)
Alabama’s per capita income is $32,404; its poverty rate is 16.6%, worse than Michigan on both counts. Minnesota has a per capita income of $41,035; its poverty rate is 9.8% — numbers Michigan, at $35,086 and 14% respectively, can only envy.
Why are the two states so different? One key metric tells the story: In Alabama, 21.1% of adults have a four-year degree. In Minnesota, it’s 30.4%. Michigan ranks in between, 34th nationally at 24.5%.
To us, the answer is clear: We want to be a high prosperity state like Minnesota. But many in Michigan argue that the models for success are low prosperity states in the South, like Alabama.
One thing is certain: You can’t get Minnesota’s prosperous economy by adopting Alabama’s policies. There is no evidence anywhere in the country that the keys to high prosperity are low tax, small government policies.
4 Comments
You are asking the wrong question! Michigan should not “emulate”! Michigan must LEAD. We have the location (fresh water great lakes and northern aspect) and the brains at U of M and Michigan State, but we are lacking the cooperation. We MUST to pull together and stop being devisive. We have to have BETTER EDUCATED citizens who can compete against the cheap labor in Mexico and China. The old union-defended, over-paid assembly line jobs for illiterates and druggies are not coming back. We have to work immediately on starting businesses that are SMART and related to preserving our planet in the long term. That’s the only thing that’s going to save us.
I couldn’t agree more. Michigan should emulate Minnesota. It’s a highly educated state with high paying high skill jobs. What they don’t have that Michigan has is a legacy of unions that have permeated their values throughout much of Michigan. Gopher’s are always asking themselves, How can we create a better widget to solve a societal problem. Here in Michigan people are always asking if they should try and live a few more years off of dying corporate carcuses or go straight to government welfare.
The year was about 1966: we lived in northwest Detroit, next door to one of Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh’s campaign managers. I recall a “living room” meeting with our neighbors in our living room — with the incumbent mayor saying something to the follow effect: “We can make Detroit the Scandinavia of the United States”. By this he was drawing energy from Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program. (And also the prosperity Sweden was celebrating since their wealth was not destroyed in World War II.)
Fast forward 42 years: Detroit is not Scandinavia. As proof I submit the following: I have been happily married to a Dutch-Danish national for almost 25 years and haved visited Europe sometimes 2 times a year with our children, and you don’t need to tell me that Detroit is not Scandinavia. We are close followers of political over the decades and have seen both countries struggle with the problems brought on by people moving into these countries in order to get the free, cool social welfare benefits.
I think the Dutch have done a better job than the Danish because, I think, they have a longer political history of dealing with the racial differences of their colonies. (They have also had a 700-year-old middle class, but that is another story). The Dutch simply spread the minorities around the country. As best they could, they were able to persuade the hundreds of towns and villages across their small country (about the size of New Jersey, with 15 million people). They got buy-in from the local burgermeisters to take their “fair share” of minorities (the politically correct way of identifying them was called “asylum-seekers”). They were able to reduce the toxicity of a ghetto-effect. Not to say that Amsterdam does not still have its share of low-income ghettos of illegal aliens who are hostile to everything Dutch except its medical and social benefits, but the problem is reduced. The Danish, because they are a more homogenous population, and not as rich as the Dutch, are still struggling.
So what does this mean for Michigan? At the risk of sounding racist, we have a toxic ghetto-effect in Detroit. The Milken Report “ex-Detroit” (i.e, without Detroit in the data) would read rather differently don’t you think?. I take my family to skate at Campus Martius, and we go to plays at the Fox, and I run the Detroit Marathon, and do a lot of “Detroit” things and I still feel compelled to say this. To ignore the core reason why Michigan has such a bad image world-wide, is to ignore the elephant in the room.
Might I respectfully suggest a pro-active program for helping Detroit families find a better future in the top 100 cities I see in the Milken report? Have the Governor’s office send a contingent of policy-makers to The Netherlands, to harvest ideas and lessons learned. Sometimes, people just need a little financial help to pull up stakes and leave for the greener grass. The criterion for relocation expense reimbursement would have to be crafted very carefully but it could be done. It it would have to be done with respect for the people involved and with respect for the Best Performing Cities. Perhaps the most sincere social benefit of all is to help wonderful Detroit families find a new home elsewhere, where there is hope. By slow degrees, then, over the next few years, with a combination of policy and market-based activity, Detroit — and Michigan — can rise higher up the Milken list.
Funny.
I recall during the 1992 Election, the Republicans lambasting Clinton because he lowered the Arkansas unemployment rate, but they all accused him of putting people to work raising chickens.
Now they all point at Low unemployment states like the example for their Shining Stars of conservative policy results – but they have low wage jobs, high poverty, and low education rates.
sweeeet!
In other words if only we could be like more states with an even WIDER gap between the Haves and HaveNots and then we could be higher on Milken’s list.
Hey work is work right? no benefits and $7/hour. At least we are for sure not going to give out any $800/month welfare payments to some person with kids.
Cuz that way we can save up to hand out another 17 Billion to the energy industry, or 20 billion to Agri-corporations, or now the biggest pie of all, 700 billion to the Family of financial Experts that make oh, pry about 5 to 100 times what most of us make.
Never question Trillions in corporate welfare payments but always question a few hundred bucks a month to unemployed parents. Darn those freeloaders.
Consumer Spending motors our economy at 70-75%. To cut funding, benefits, and cash to consumers in any fashion reduces consumer spending.
When consumers have cash to spend, they get what they need, and the Wealthy still make their money because they own/run the businesses.
So what motivation could anyone have to keep touting a policy of “Hand over as much cash as possible to anyone whose income is over some large amount”…??
Well, quite often when businesses or individuals get extra cash, the claim is they’ll just Randomly hire more people! yaayy!
But in reality, they often pocket it because no business is just going to hire more employees unless they Really really need them and have plenty of sales to back it up.
In fact most places will fire people at a hint of trouble before getting there, and oppositely put their existing employees through painful over-working until they cant take it anymore and then they have to hire someone.
Is our state finally at a crossroads of political, social, and commercial accountability?
Is our Nation there now?