Talking Michigan down … and back up again


Mixed Signals by Darryl Wattenberg

The Detroit Free Press has a video feature University presidents talk Michigan's economic woes, wherein Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon, University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman and Wayne State University president Irvin Reid discuss how our universities play a role in surmounting the state's economic challenges.

In related news, 15 of the 20 lowest-ranking states in making the transformation from transformation from "smokestack chasing" to a global, knowledge and innovation-based economy are in the Midwest & Great Plains, according to The 2007 State New Economy Index Report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). It may come as a shocker to find that one of the Midwest states NOT among the lowest ranking is Michigan.

Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenbery spoke with Robert Atkinson of the DC-based ITIF. Atkinson says that Michigan has been a national leader in putting in place policies knowledge development, entrepreneur capital, education and workforce re-training. Atkinson's relatively upbeat assessment came with a downbeat caveat that turning around a huge economy like the state of Michigan will take time.

You can get the complete report, The 2007 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the States, from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.



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This is program that compares articles on Absolute Michigan. Sometimes the results are a little odd.

This entry was written by farlane and posted on March 2, 2007 at 10:24 am and filed under Articles, Build Michigan! News Updates, Business, Chambers of Commerce, Community, Community & Nonprofit Organizations, Computers & Technology, Government, Industry & Manufacturing, Jobs & Employment, Media, Michigan, Radio & Podcast, Schools & Education. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

One Comment

  1. farlane
    Posted March 8, 2007 at 12:11 pm | Permalink

    Grand Rapids' Rapid Growth hits this story too:

    Despite an embarrasingly high unemployment rate, a state budget crisis, and the paralysis of partisan politics in Lansing, Michigan is transitioning its policies to compete in the global knowledge economy as fast as any state in the nation, according to the recently released 2007 State New Economy Index...

    Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, and California topped the rankings. But Michigan placed 19th, up 15 spots from the 1999 Index, making the biggest jump toward an innovation economy than any other state in America.

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