Business Watch

The Headlands is drawing stargazers to a 550-acre park at the very tip of the mitten, officially designated an International Dark Sky Park.

Jeff Thompson figured he could make his own skis as easily as buying them. Then mom and dad sold their house to come work for him.

Internet-based companies can live anywhere. One twenty-something hopes giving entrepreneurs a great northern Michigan summer might turn their heads.

His parents always warned: In a small-town economy, the pie is too small for everybody to get a slice.

A luxury playground grows where an abandoned cement plant once stood on the shores of Little Traverse Bay.

While the Detroit region is beginning to emerge from recession, the Grand Rapids, Monroe and Benton Harbor areas posted strong GDP gains in 2013.

Amid promising signs of growth, Michigan still has not reached its peak GDP from a decade ago.

The Grand Rapids region is strong in virtually every economic sector, and is the closest of any Michigan region to returning to pre-recession levels.

The Lansing and Ann Arbor regions are closely matched in GDP. Ann Arbor is just ahead in 2013. But will it last?

The Detroit region, digging out from a tough decade, still wields manufacturing might. But its future may well hinge on health care.