Special report

Incentives generally are not the deciding factor for a company looking to move or expand. But incentives are at the center of an economic development arms race, one in which states that don’t play can find themselves losing out on high-profile projects.

If Michigan’s nearly 10 million residents received a collective physical exam, the result would be a mixed bag – and likely a frown from the doctor.

For more than a quarter century, policy makers have tinkered with Michigan’s social safety net. Whether reforms have improved the state’s welfare system remains a matter of ongoing debate.

Michigan’s lakes and rivers face a wave of challenges. At the same time, the state continues to grapple with new threats to drinking water in communities besides Flint.

Debates about Michigan land resources — and how best to use them — are as old as Michigan itself.  

As it enters its second decade, the Pure Michigan campaign has become a flashpoint for critics who say its success is evaluated based on flawed assumptions about its return on investment.

We see the problem every time we drive into a pothole or read headlines about sinkholes, broken water mains and flooded freeways. Yet state leaders haven’t yet done much.

Michigan is a tale of two kinds of cities. Some have healthy and diverse economies. Others face deep and long-term financial crisis and depressed local economies. And Detroit, the state’s flagship city, is a complex chowder of economic revival downtown and deeply troubled neighborhoods on the periphery.