High up on Michigan’s Mitten, arthritis is creeping into the fingertips. Michigan leads the nation with the most counties with a median age over 50.
Nancy Derringer
Nancy Nall Derringer is a former reporter at Bridge
Posted inBusiness Watch
Up North, isolation impedes health care for seniors
In far-flung rural Michigan, hardly anything is close by. It can be a problem for those in need of medical attention.
Posted inBusiness Watch
How posh Aspen and Jackson Hole make housing affordable for year-round workers
Michigan’s northern resort counties could learn from these swanky ski towns in Colorado and Wyoming.
Posted inTalent & Education
Two Michigans gaze across a widening gap
You could hardly find a purer slice of Pure Michigan than the tip of the Lower Peninsula. But as the wealthy prosper alongside blue bays, those who live here year-round find life tougher to navigate
Posted inChildren & Families
In northern counties, workers and business find each other lacking
There’s work to be done in the resort counties of northern Michigan, but opportunity doesn’t always match the available workforce.
Posted inTalent & Education
Flint ‘middle college’ puts students on a road to work, college
Blending high-school studies with college sounds like an approach for the gifted, but Mott Middle College High serves all kinds of students, giving them unusual control over their own education.
Posted inTalent & Education
Love him or hate him, here’s how one school superintendent calls snow days
Everybody else gets to sleep in, but the person who decides whether to cancel school has to be up at 4 a.m., having a conference call. It’s a chilling duty, and thankless.
Posted inUrban Affairs
In Detroit, city hall tries a new approach: helping
Detroit’s newly minted Department of Neighborhoods has unleashed a squadron of district managers, pledging to respond to residents’ calls that went unanswered for decades.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Detroit’s neighborhood fixers, by the numbers
Mayor Mike Duggan’s Department of Neighborhoods measures success in vacant-lot sales, cleanups and complaints answered.
Posted inMichigan Government
Deal to fix roads reached in lame duck, but voters must approve new tax
The bipartisan deal aligns with overwhelming public support for road investment across the state, even if it means higher taxes. The deal captures $1.2 billion a year for Michigan’s crumbling transportation infrastructure, but requires voters to approve a 1-cent sales tax increase in May.