Do people follow jobs or do jobs follow people? Until recently, most government and business leaders thought people follow jobs. They thought low taxes create jobs. But in a report published in April, the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency said taxes per person were the 7th highest in the country in 1999. By 2007, taxes had dropped to 28th highest out of 50 states. So taxes aren’t high. And still, Michigan workers keep leaving. And they’re taking the economy with them.
Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports on something called the prosperity initiative. The message is: make cool cities, watch people come to them and watch them create jobs after that.
What can Michiganders do to help their local economy? Let’s start with this picture. This is Chum’s Corners. Cars, trucks and motorcycles roar by. M37 leads through Garfield Township. You’re driving 55 and your head turns toward boat and RV dealerships, a floor covering store, McDonalds, BP gas. This could be 28th St in Grand Rapids or Gratiot Avenue in Detroit.
“It’s just a main drag and a lot of people view this street.”
J.K. Egloff manages a used car dealership. Next door, a trailer home sales lot has gone bust. 5 abandoned units block the view of Egloff’s cars.
“They had gone out of business probably about that time we moved here. And since has been sitting there not doing much. Other than a couple of the homes have just moved out of there. It’s pretty much just sitting there and birds have taken over.”
Inside the city limits, downtown Traverse City is dense. The speed limit is lower. It’s harder to park. It’s easier to walk. That’s how people reach the shops, movies, restaurants and parks. This is a good laboratory for Michigan State University extension agents and the Land Policy Institute. They’ve done100 day long classes all around the state. It’s called The Prosperity Initiative.
“We’re presently in the downward spiral.”
So not a lot of prosperity right now. Mark Wyckoff is Michigan’s expert on urban planning and zoning. He argues that the abandonment of Michigan’s cities accelerated the decline of the economy. So can the downward spiral be reversed?
“Because place and prosperity are interchangeable in the equation here you have to start at the inner part of this spiral and focus on the enhancement of place. By enhancing the quality of place you can attract those mobile assets. By attracting the mobile assets you can get growth and economic output which increases your income and employment which results in more enhancement of place, more movement of mobile assets this time into the place and growth and economic output.”
Mobile assets are skilled and educated Michigan workers who can board planes for Chicago, Washington or Southeast Asia and never come back.
“Not everybody wants to live in the woods.”
Yes, getting away from it all at your cottage up north is a Michigan tradition. But the glut of first and second homes detracts from cities. Wyckoff is saying that public investment even in small cities will pay dividends. He listed the elements of prosperity. Education and entrepreneurship resonated with most of the people in the class. Cindy Fuller is a former mayor of Manistee.
“It’s really the issue that we were dominant in manufacturing for a longer period of time than we should have been.”
So how should a collection of towns and townships rally around their largest city and make use of what they already have? Cindy Fuller says.
“The northwest Michigan region really has something that no other city or area in the nation has. A combination of water, we have been identified as a high wind area, wood for wood products and bio-mass. And still we have a lot of oil and gas.”
Is marketing then the main obstacle?
“I think it’s positioning ourselves, branding ourselves and marketing.”
“There’s no benefit to expand bigger than what you have because you can’t afford to pay the taxes now.
This man owns a bar and a plumbing business in Kalkaska County. He thinks too many tax dollars have gone to cities like Traverse. He puts on his cynical voice of big government.
“Now that I’ve beat you into bankruptcy I guess I really do need you now and I can’t get you to give anymore because I’ve already taken all I can from you.”
Another member of the class might symbolize the new economy. Sarna Salzman is 36. She moved back home from California. Then she started a non-profit ecological engineering group. She didn’t leave the prosperity class by car like everyone else.
“Yep. I just crossed town from Northwest Michigan College to the Old State Hospital on my ten speed.”
Salzman’s home is in the Old State Hospital. It is the behemoth, historic structure that almost got the wrecking ball. It was rehabbed and turned into condos and offices upstairs, with stores and restaurants in the basement.
“The easiest way I’ve found to not drive a car is to not own a car. That’s my strategy.”