For a decade, Michigan’s economic dashboard has flashed red: high unemployment, record foreclosures, bankrupt automakers, population declines. And the Kalamazoo region hasn’t been spared from the pain that spread across Michigan. But leaders and families in Kalamazoo are hopeful that the start of the 21st century will mostly be remembered for the birth, in 2005, […]
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
Value of universities exemplified by new hospitals
The other day, my wife Kathy and I went to have a look through the new, soon-to-open University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospitals. The hospitals, located on the south side of the U of M medical system’s campus, have been under construction for the last four years. (The women’s hospital […]
Posted inQuality of Life
The costs of that "$500 house" in Detroit
A year ago, Jerry Paffendorf showed a friend from New York City how a house was up for sale in Detroit’s North Corktown neighborhood via a tax foreclosure auction. That friend fell in love withDetroit, the neighborhood and the house and bought it online for just a few thousand dollars, less than a few months’ […]
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Mining boom roils Upper Peninsula
Ron and Carol Henriksen retired to the kind of place most people can only imagine — a riverfront house in an area of the Western Upper Peninsula that is so serene, the dominant sound is often the whisk of trees rustling in the wind. After living in suburband Chicago for three decades, in the path […]
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Is state losing its love of fish?
Longtime fly fisherman Robert Thorsen enjoys solitary fishing experiences, but the suburban Detroit resident fears he and other anglers may be enjoying too much of a good thing. “I see a lot of stretches of rivers that are deserted,” Thorsen said. “As a fisherman, I don’t mind if there are fewer people on the water […]
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Detroit is, indeed, 'rising'
For the longest time, I have opened my morning paper only to find some negative articles about the city of Detroit. Indeed, these bearers of bad news heralded the city as the fattest, the angriest, the most crime-ridden, and, yes, even the city with the most STDs. My morning ritual of reading the negative press […]
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How do you hold on to the hipsters?
The biggest danger to the revitalization of Detroit’s Midtown — and, by extension, the city itself — doesn’t pack a gun or wield foreclosure papers. He wears a backpack and chews bubble gum. Children — and their parents’ perceptions about local schools — will determine whether the young professionals now streaming into Midtown stay in […]
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Young activist finds energy, challenges in SW Detroit
Two women painted on the wall of Sean Mann’s historic home sum up the story of present-day Detroit. The murals flanking his dining room window portray the women seen in the city’s official seal. A weeping woman on the left symbolizes despair. To the right of the window, a woman represents hope. Mann, 31, acknowledges […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Group pushes belief in Detroit
When it comes to the city of Detroit, it seems everyone has an opinion — and all too often it’s not a positive one. Yet, not all Detroiters are standing idle as others make snap judgments about the city they love. After attending a state conference on Mackinac Island back in 2009, Sandy Hermanoff, CEO […]
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Advocate keeps selling Detroit to young professionals
Dave Egner has traveled a long way to end up right where he started. Egner’s hometown is a third of the population it was in 1950. It has a high poverty rate and high crime rate. Ninety percent of its residents are African American. It’s surrounded by richer communities. Having grown up in East St. […]
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