Why can't Michigan turn it around?

[odinloki1]

I don't think Michigan residents are willing to work for minimum wage yet for labor intensive work. Here in AZ people work for peanuts while the cost of living skyrockets and Michigan residents have yet to sell out. We had a good thing going until the big 3 the federal government and Jim Blanchard and John Engler sold us up the river.

I don't think Granholm has handled her situation well, but I do think she went into office with an impossible situation given the deficit Engler ran up.

[deslok]

Great last couple posts. Now only if people in charge would see this and do something about it. We bought the suburb myth a long time ago and that has not helped things out. Younger folks want to live in vibrant, big areas, not suburbs with working class auto workers. Younger people also need jobs. It's all been said before why don't they get it?

[odinloki1]

Originally Posted by deslok

Great last couple posts. Now only if people in charge would see this and do something about it. We bought the suburb myth a long time ago and that has not helped things out. Younger folks want to live in vibrant, big areas, not suburbs with working class auto workers. Younger people also need jobs. It's all been said before why don't they get it?

I'm young (27) and I have NEVER wanted to live in a big city.

[amatrine]

Well, we will be moving from Arizona to Mi in a couple of months. I agree with the last poster. Here in AZ, the jobs do not compete with the cost of living. My husband will transfer his job out there, and we can finally get out renting here, and buying there.
Not too mention Phoenix is like LA now. Just too big. It does seem the taxes are more out there, but the home prices are lower, and actually comes out better there.

I do not think it is just MI, though it may be harder there, but a lot of jobs are sourced out of country. It gets me so mad , sometimes when I call a business , and get some one in India who can not understand what I am saying. The company I work for, does its best to get it's materials from USA . The boss does not believe in dealing with outsourced sources. I applaud him on that. Since the outsourcing has gotten more abudundant, I can see the loss in business to oversees not just in my industry, but many others . I think the best solution for America is to stop outsourcing. Get the coorperations out of control of the goverment. We have enough people in this country that
we could support our own economy, if we made what we bought. The poeple that are lining their pockets are not going to let go so easily, so a solution has to be made to make them want to let go.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

I like it how everyone is trying to isolate certain factors. What Michigan has is a perfect storm of various factors hitting all at the same time. The model is extremely complex, like explaining what caused World War I.

A revitalized Michigan WILL both have thrown GM/Ford/Chrysler out to sea and have a revitalized Detroit. GM/Ford/Chrysler will not turn around, even though they can and should. Their organizations are in death spirals. The big city is necessary to attract people. City plus suburbs, like Chicago. Again, I'm telling you what a successful Michigan will look like, but not how to get there.

Exactly - there are a ton of factors all interplaying with each other that is putting Michigan into the state that it is now.

It's also a bit too simple to state that "lots of other states and cities" suffer from the same problems. For example, while there is an epidemic of real estate foreclosures in both the San Francisco Bay Area and metro Detroit right now, you have to look at the root causes. In California, real estate prices were rising sky high a couple of years ago due to limited supply, so people over-extended themselves with variable interest or highly leveraged loans. While it is certainly a bad situation there, the population in the Bay Area is still growing at a fast pace, supply is still relatively low, and incomes are still rising. For the Detroit area, on the other hand, the main reason why people were overextending themselves was that there was a disproportionate number of layoffs leading to lower incomes and a stagnant-to-negative growth in population (in the entire metro area, not just the city). As a result, incomes are falling and housing supply is high. So, what area is more likely going to rebound when the real estate market stabilizes?

That's just one piece. The successful metro areas are the ones that benefit from free trade (NYC, Chicago, SF, etc.) as opposed to being hindered by it. So, there is no longer a question of whether free trade is good or bad - it doesn't matter, because it's here and either people need to adapt or suffer the consequences. Heavily unionized areas aren't attractive to new investment by businesses when they have an alternative of non-unionized areas. As M Type X alluded to, a vibrant urban environment is the best way to attract a young and educated workforce, but you also need quality public schools in order to keep them in the area when they start families. Cheap real estate alone can't attract people - there's plenty of cheap real estate in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina with a lot more job growth and better weather, so there has to be more offered to lure people back to Michigan.

I wish I were smart enough to put together a solution, but the fact is that the problems in the Michigan economy aren't just tied to one single issue or even a handful of predominant issues. It's a result of a myriad of issues both large and small that all need to be addressed. Just as the problem is the result of all of these problems being intertwined, a turnaround can only happen when the solutions all work together.

I'm a big believer in the concept of critical mass. Plenty of cities can build a shiny new stadium or some trendy lofts, but what causes a true transformation is when all of those things combine together where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - that is, the city or state ITSELF is the prime attraction, not the list of things that are within them. Unfortunately, there's no magic plan for that to happen.

[GRRAZO]

Its not just MI, pretty much the whole rustbelt, there are a few exceptions but in Mi it is magnified by the dependence on the auto industry, the labor unions, and too many educated and skilled people who find them selves out of a job or a better offer in a warmer place.