News & Events
October, 2006
Civic Incandescence
Last Wednesday afternoon, under the watchful eye of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, the staff of the Michigan Business Review launched a celebration of the creative spirit and the kind of energy that is leading to a reinvigoration of Michigan’s economy. At The Henry Ford, across from Edison’s lab where the light bulb was perfected, the Review recognized 30 companies that are shaping Michigan’s future with a willingness to “tiptoe on the cutting edge with their new products, processes or business strategies.” The organizations they showcased included Ford Motor Company, Trinity Health, Menlo Innovations LLC and a little nonprofit coalition called the Michigan Suburbs Alliance.
Despite our small size and short history, it’s no surprise to us to be included in such an eminent group. The mayors and managers who crafted our organization, along with the visionary leadership of our first Executive Director Jim Townsend, instilled a real sense of the possible in us. Our Redevelopment Ready Communities program is grabbing national attention. Our Creating Collaborative Communities project is transforming the dialogue about intergovernmental cooperation. And our very organizational structure fosters innovation by encouraging engagement and communication on levels other regions envy.
Michigan’s small and mid-sizes cities are the laboratories for inventive public policy. The approaches that Michigan Suburbs Alliance communities take to governing and providing public services in the face of extraordinary fiscal stress are, in many cases, ingenious. If you walk the downtowns and neighborhoods of these cities, you hardly realize that their elected and appointed officials have to make weekly choices between cutting jobs and selling city assets, deferring street maintenance or eliminating social services.
In many cases, municipal leaders are opting for the road less traveled. They’re reaching out to neighboring cities to merge police or fire services. They’re mimicking business practices to incorporate new efficiencies in service delivery. And in a few select cases like Ypsilanti, Huntington Woods or Hazel Park, municipal officials are speaking out and showing residents that the need for change, for new investment, is real – and they’re winning at the ballot box.
New and creative methods for meeting Michigan’s economic challenges can be seeded by research, investigation and networking with the leaders of the state’s government, business and nonprofit sectors. We have much to learn from each other. Innovation Michigan 2006 was the first in a series of exercises the Ann Arbor and Oakland Business Reviews will undertake with U of M Dearborn to explore how innovation is catalyzed and exploited. Their work is certain to feed the spirit of Elijah McCoy, Jonas Salk, Roger Newton, and dozens of other Michigan entrepreneurs – a spirit that is latent in all of us. And the result will be a better, stronger Michigan for our neighbors, our children and ourselves.
