The end-of-year reports on 2012 are coming in at a quick clip now – and the news appears to be consistently positive. Michigan’s jobless rate came in at 8.9 percent for 2012 and the state experienced its second straight year of job growth. (The 2009 rate was 13.4 percent.) Total nonfarm employment rose by 47,300 […]
Quality of Life
Michigan is a great place to live. Bridge will report that fact often — and on potential threats to the assets that make it so.
Posted inQuality of Life
Report details surge in child poverty in Detroit
The majority of children in Detroit now live in poverty, says a new report from the demographic firm Data Driven Detroit. The child poverty rate was 57.3 percent in 2011, D3 found in “2012 State of the Detroit Child”, after a decade of huge increases in economic struggles for children in Michigan’s largest city. “The […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Nature-loving tile maker seeks balance between commerce and conservation
HORTON — The plain red exterior of a 19th century red barn that sits near the entry to Scott Weaver’s 80-acre spread south of Jackson reveals nothing about the artwork that takes shape inside the historic structure. But the old red barn sheds much light on the artist inside, who pounds blocks of clay into […]
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Detroit group rallies to convert historic townhouses from crime haven to community hub
This slice of Detroit’s North Corktown neighborhood once enjoyed pleasant streets and good neighbors – that is, until a townhouse complex took a wrong turn and jeopardized the safety of the entire community. So says Jon Koller, who took it upon himself to turn around Spaulding Court and, by extension, the neighborhood it serves. Koller, […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Water expert says conservation is in Michigan’s future
The Great Lakes could reach record low water levels next year. With the state’s defining natural features dropping after a hot, dry summer, Bridge asked Alan Steinman, president of the Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University and a leader on water issues in the Great Lakes region since moving here in 2001, […]
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Legal painkillers fuel spike in fatal ODs
On any given day, what’s worrying Michiganians about the illicit drug scene is likely to reflect what’s been in the news lately. When a Farmington Hills teenager allegedly beat his father to death with a baseball bat earlier this year, his lawyer blamed his use of synthetic marijuana. When a man in Miami attacked another […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Marijuana users explore law's limits
In 2008, Howard Lutz watched a loved one die. The business his family tended for more than 70 years — Lutz News Co. – became a victim of the seismic shift in the ink-on-paper business. Lutz moved on to build another business – one that rests on how Michigan handles a controversial state law. Iron […]
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Rx drug abuse propels heroin use, too
For years, the popular perception of heroin was that of a drug consumed mainly by edge-walking musicians and people who sleep under bridges. Somewhere between Kurt Cobain and the kid down the street, that changed. Today, if heroin were a record on the charts, it would have a bullet next to it. Scott Masi, outreach […]
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Remaking a river
Demolition crews in August took down the old powerhouse at the Brown Bridge Dam near Traverse City. This is part of a larger project to remove two dams and modify a third on the waterway. Bridge photo contributor John Russell reports that the powerhouse was built in 1922; was 33 feet above the waterline; and […]
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Stirring the pot for Detroit development
One came with a poster-sized drawing of the television studio he wants to build. Another distributed a map of a light-rail system – a fantasy system, to be sure – covering much of Southeast Michigan. A third spoke of her plan to put addicts on the road to recovery via horticulture. And the last had […]
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