For years, environmentalists have pushed for the development of green and energy-efficient technologies as a way to curb climate change and prevent a future ecological catastrophe.

But Thursday morning, speaking to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning D.C.-based think tank, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm said that focusing on global warming is the wrong message — if you really want to grab Americans’ attention, focus on the economic opportunities in a greener economy — especially for auto-dependent areas.

“The bottom line is, that if we’re not talking about jobs, then it’s not going to resonate across the country,” Granholm said, speaking to about 100 people in the CAP’s downtown office. “Maybe that’s just my view as a governor from the industrial Midwest.”

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 …

President Barack Obama will speak in Youngstown today, seeking to highlight successes from his $787 billion stimulus bill, according to the Plain Dealer.
The president will make a private appearance at the VM Star steel plant, which is set to undergo a $650 million expansion. The stimulus bill helped pay for improvements that will pave the way for 350 new jobs.
The big joke in Youngstown is that the city is a popular place for presidential candidates to visit once every four years, so it’s meaningful that the president is visiting. The …

Check out the new Metro Matters podcast, from the folks at Next American City magazine and the Brookings Institution.
If you listen to this inaugural edition, you can hear about everything from the stimulus, to US exports, Richard Florida and manufacturing. There’s a good bit of Rust-Belt related discussion as well.
-KG

The Associated Press has conducted an inventory of the 128 auto plants closed by the Big Three since 1980 and the results are discouraging.
Only about three in five has been repurposed for a new use. Those that have been reopened are employing far few workers at lower wages.

“The cost is going to be borne by the next generation,” said James Rubenstein, a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who has studied U.S. auto plant closings and openings. “It’s the children and grandchildren of the laid-off workers. They won’t have …

Interesting article about the state of General Motors from Scripps Howard.

Despite the car maker’s highly publicized reorganization this year, GM still leads the nation in market share with about 20 percent of the total, down from 22 percent in 2008.

Consumers seem to have shrugged off the auto maker’s reorganization, according to tis article. This is particularly true of Chinese consumers who have revived the popularity of the Buick.

Meeting Chinese demand will be critical because the country surpassed the US as the biggest consumer of automobiles this year.

Though we often hear that manufacturing in this country is “dead” or “dying,” this article from the Harrisburg (Pa) Patriot-News shows the lengths some states and counties still go to — offering millions in tax incentives — to land manufacturing jobs.
The author spoke to folks who said these kinds of incentives are needed to woo businesses, and others who said their time has past, that pitting one region against another means everybody loses.
What do you think?
Is this a game states, counties and cities have to play? Or should they opt …

The Economist Magazine is running a cautiously optimistic story about the future of Youngstown, paying tribute to recent downtown developments and the success of the Youngstown Business Incubator.
“Youngstown’s problems have been manifold,” The magazine writes. “But now there are a few signs that things are starting to improve.”

“One example is the Youngstown Business Incubator, which provides cheap office space and other assistance to start-ups that specialize in business software.
“Founded using government seed money 14 years ago in a part of downtown where few dared to venture, let alone start a …

For the last two days, Cleveland State University has been hosting Lessons from Europe: Regional Governance and Economic Transformation in Older Industrial Cities.

The workshop is being put on by The German Marshall Fund of the United States with support from the Ford Foundation. On Friday, the group will be traveling to Detroit’s NextEnergy to do the whole thing again.

I had the opportunity to sit in on a speech from Professor Dr. Valentino Castellani, the former mayor of Torino, Italy, a city that has been called the Detroit of Europe.

The city was once the industrial capital of Italy, a one-company town where the economy centered around Fiat, the Italian car-maker which is headquartered there.

President Obama will speak just outside Youngstown today at GM’s Lordstown plant, kicking off the a presidential tour of the Midwest on jobs and the economy, according to The Detroit News.

The plant  has been through a series of ups and downs in the past year.
From The Detroit News: Thirteen months ago, then-CEO Rick Wagoner and dignitaries attended a splashy event in the plant to announce a third shift and $350 million investment in the plant to build the new Chevrolet Cruze sedan, which is expected to launch next year and …