News & Events
March 2006
State of the Art Regionalism
If you've never picked up a newspaper, listened to the radio or turned on the television, you might have missed the crisis facing our state. Evidenced by enormous government budget deficits, all too frequent plant closings and increasing social tensions across our region, it is clear that Michigan is in a process of profound change. It is deeply rooted in both demographic and economic changes that are steadily transforming the way Michigan citizens conduct their lives.
Although population growth in our region has been slight over the past decade, migration has been significant as people moved out of urban centers. As our population spreads out, the costs and pressures of daily life increase. Of course, our population is changing as well, with baby boomers leaning into their retirement years and Gen X-ers looking out-of-state for opportunities.
Our cities have been the primary sufferers of this out-migration. Their tax bases are in decline and the investment of generations of Michiganians is put at risk. A quarter of the communities in southeast Michigan are built-out, offering less land for traditional development. The competition for building dollars is stiff, and cities often lose to greenfield communities. Simultaneously, our communities have enormous infrastructure needs, including billions of dollars worth of deferred sewer maintenance. Every new house in the exurbs creates a new challenge for policy makers to prioritize one or the other for infrastructure investment.
Compounding these local trials are the wider trends of globalization and deindustrialization that are driving our national economic changes. These dramatic shifts call out for state attention and the adoption of new metropolitan policy package.
The contents of that package we as policy leaders have yet to define, but the themes that they must ultimately follow are not new or complicated. We must prioritize investment into our urban areas - cities are the economic engine of our region, and we cannot allow them to falter. We must restructure our regional governance and land use practices to adapt to greater-than-local challenges. And our tax policies must change, first to reflect contemporary ways of generating and sustaining wealth, and second to fund regional priorities equitably.
In the coming months, there are two major opportunities to help shape this agenda. The Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) at the University of Michigan along with philanthropist Philip Power will launch a dialogue to craft an economic policy platform on March 14th. Surely that discussion will feed directly into efforts by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce to foster a regional planning process by hosting numerous "community conversations" with citizen, business and government leadership.
Reinventing our region is quickly becoming a top priority for anyone interested in the sustainable development of our cities. The Suburbs Alliance must be a driver of these discussions and ultimately the advocacy behind this metropolitan agenda. The time has come to engage, to lead, to ensure that cities are the building blocks of a new Michigan.
