In 2009, Ann Arbor became the poster child for critics of Michigan’s public safety binding arbitration law, as a labor settlement cost the city $1.5 million in retroactive pay raises. The judgment came as police and fire departments consumed 55 percent ofAnn Arbor’s budget and the city stared down a $2.4 million deficit. The case […]
Ann Arbor
Posted inSuccess
Song pushes Ann Arbor, state for 'better story'
Every Friday, at 4:30 p.m., local geeks are invited to pop a cold one at Tech Brewery in Ann Arbor. The start-up co-op, located in what was a brewery in the 1880s, rents space to network-hungry entrepreneurs. “Beer-30,” as the gathering is called, offers not just libations, but a good chance to tap into the mind of […]
Posted inSuccess
Haslett builds readers, 20 minutes at a time
Twenty minutes a night. That number is drilled into Haslett kids in this mid-Michigan suburb by teachers in classrooms and parents at kitchen tables. Read for 20 minutes a night. Read Tolstoy. Read a comic book. Read the New York Times. Read the back of a cereal box, if you have to. “It’s like sports,” […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Report: Michigan is high on price of college degrees
College graduates in Michigan and elsewhere are rightly anxious about their future job prospects — an anxiety only heightened by the piles of debt so many have accumulated while on campus. Erin Dillon, senior policy analyst for Education Sector and co-author of a new report highlighting the relationship between obtaining a college degree and acquiring […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Fund-equity deals break teacher contract logjams
In March 2010, members of the Grosse Pointe Education Association held a noisy demonstration before a meeting of their district’s board, calling attention to the fact they’d been working without a contract for six months, and negotiations were going nowhere. The district was planning layoffs and pushing for concessions to cover a shortfall of around […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
All Michigan regions grew in 2010
Michigan’s regional economies surged ahead in 2010, propelled by a surprisingly robust manufacturing sector and solid growth from the “information economy.” The latest figures are a positive pivot from a decade that saw most Michigan regions lag economically. Between 2001 and 2009, 11 of 14 Michigan metropolitan areas recorded declines in real gross domestic product […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Stomach-churning: Highs and lows in Mich. economy
Michigan has starred in its own disaster movie in the first decade of 21st century. The economic equivalents of F5 tornadoes and magnitude 9 earthquakes have battered the automotive industry and smashed construction work in the state. You knew all that, having lived here. But amid all the destruction there was surprising growth over the […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Scoring the '00s: How Michigan's 14 regions changed
Despite billions of dollars in construction projects on the University of Michigan’s campus and Ann Arbor’s reputation as a high-tech business hotbed, the regional economy there contracted slightly over the past decade. Gross domestic product in the Ann Arbor metro area fell 1 percent between 2001 and 2009 as several major businesses left town. Pfizer […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Deep inside the Lost Decade: Decline, transformation and resilience in Michigan's regions
Ann Arbor on the east side and Grand Rapids on the west are widely regarded as the most prosperous and desirable metropolitan areas in Michigan. But Kalamazoo-Portage and Battle Creek in Southwest Michigan surprisingly outpaced Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and all other metro areas in the state in economic growth over the past decade. An […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.