The folks at Brookings released a report Monday on the importance of exports to the economies of Great Lakes cities.
Among the findings:
- Exports support 1.95 million jobs in Great Lakes metros
- Cities in this region have some of the highest volumes (dollar-wise) of exports and the greatest reliance on exports. Out of the nation’s top 100 metro areas, Chicago ranks third and Detroit ranks ninth in total dollar volumes of exports. Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Indianapolis all rank in the top 20, the study states.
How does your city compare?
“Now …

Editor’s note: This piece was contributed by Ivy Hughes, a Lansing, Mich.- based journalist. Read more about her on our contributors page. -KG

Five years ago my husband and I moved from Colorado to Michigan — by choice — for a job in the mortgage industry. We knew we were taking a huge risk, but at the time we had no idea we were venturing into a storm of opportunity we would have missed had we stayed in an economically thriving state.
Michigan is the underdog the media loves and …

The New York Times is carrying an interesting article about the city of Memphis and the shrinking ranks of the local black middle-class.
As a result of predatory lending and job loss, residents the majority-black city have seen decades of economic progress reversed, The Times reports. The article focuses on the role played by Wells Fargo, and outlines the mortgage lender’s targeted efforts to sell high-interest loans in black neighborhoods. The results are hallowed out neighborhoods and declining wealth for blacks and latinos in metro Memphis.
According to the article, the weath …

Has anyone seen the HBO Movie The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant?
It looks like it came out last year, so I’m a little late on this one. It is focused on the last few months of a plant in Moraine, Ohio (near Dayton).
-KG
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A native of Indianapolis, I could always tell that there was a difference between my hometown and Cleveland, where I lived for several years. Both were Midwest, working-class types of towns, but Indy was more suburban, less dense, kind of like Cleveland without the hard edges.

According to a recent report from the Brookings Institution, The State of Metropolitan America, understanding the differences between Indy and Cleveland — or Columbus, or Pittsburgh, or Minneapolis — is a crucial part of understanding each city’s individual fix. The 172-page report, which already has received praise from mainstream pundits such as David Broder, compiles data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to paint a demographic portrait of the United States, focusing on the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

From the Flint Journal via Flint Expatriates:
Former Genesee County Treasurer Daniel Kildee is pushing for reforms to allow local governments to sue property owners who don’t take care of their homes- the proposed system would allow the Genesee County Landbank to recover costs of cleaning and fixing up homes, according to Flint Expatriates.
I’m curious to see if this idea goes further. A few years ago, when I was writing stories about vacant properties in Lorain, Ohio, Kildee’s Genesee County Landbank was often cited as a model other cities should copy.
Kildee …

Here it is, from Aaron Renn at Urbanophile.
Thanks to Rust Wire reader and Detroiter Claudia Raleigh for bringing this to our attention.
What do you think about the points he makes?
-KG
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“Cleveland won’t be reborn until it buries its dead,” a Cleveland Magazine article explains, and the ghosts haunting Cleveland are some 8,000 vacant and abandoned homes.
They draw drug dealers and prostitutes while dragging down surrounding homes’ values. Mayor Frank Jackson has stepped up efforts to bring the problem under control in recent years. But annual foreclosure rates hovering around 14,000, means the city is aiming at a moving target.
“There’s a lot more supply than there is demand,” says Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis. “If there was huge demand for this …

Why not Detroit? Or Cleveland? Or a more compact, less-sprawled out city like Pittsburgh?
This Reuters story says Houston, the “petro metro” is aiming to be the electric car capital of America.
Stories like this make me so mad.
A city in the Great Lakes region would be much better suited to this, yet some folks in Houston are showing more leadership on this issue. For instance, Houston has signed a deal to build public charging stations. “Such agreements are key to easing skeptical consumers’ fears of running out of juice if their …

Greater Ohio and the Brookings Institutional have released their long-awaited report, Restoring Prosperity: Transforming Ohio’s Communities for the Next Economy.
Among the findings, Ohio should consolidate local governments and school districts to reduce the local tax burden. The state should redirect manufacturing strength toward new technologies and maximize federal investment.
To compete, Ohio will need to reinvest in its metropolitan regions, which account for 81 percent of the state’s population and 87 percent of its GDP, the report states.
“Ohio’s seven largest metro areas concentrate slightly more than 75 percent of the state’s …