Michigan and cities

This piece rambles a bit.

Craig Ruff at Dome Magazine has an interesting series of stories on cities in Michigan. I agree and disagree with parts of it, but it is worth a read. The first one is Does Michigan Need Cities and the second one is The race factor.

Ruff and I have our biases. He says Michiganian for one. I have yet to know what a Michiganian is, but I know what a Michigander is. He's a Saginaw guy and grew up there. I'm from Livingston County before it became considered a exurban or suburb area. I was here pre-sprawl. Across the street from the house where I grew up used to be nothing but woods on two sides. Most of the subdivisions that propped up within 2 miles of the place were from the time I was in High School or afterward. The road is still gravel, and I hope it stays that way. I prefer the country or small towns.

One thing that we do agree on is that what happens in Michigan cities do effect the entire state, directly or indirectly.

From Ruff's article:

Do cities still matter? They surely do. They headquarter corporations, jobs, government, cultural legacies, and entertainment. Because of so many producers and retailers, consumers benefit from relatively low prices for higher quality goods and a plethora of choices. Talent thrives when confronted by a critical mass of other talent.

I'll give you the HQ for government (Lansing), cultural legacies, and entertainment, although the biggest museum in the Detroit area is Dearborn. Cultural legacies are in both cities and suburbs. Entertainment is mostly in the suburbs outside of Downtown. Corporations are in both in cities and suburbs. Most of the jobs are in the suburbs. Technically, the suburbs are cities and incorporated as such outside of occasional urban townships like Redford. Low prices? I can get lower prices at Meijers than I could in Detroit.

Young people flock to cities. They ditch their cars and ride public transit. They shop and play within walking distance of their apartments. Tourists, too, love cities because of their cultural and entertainment vitality and their historical treasures.

Cities are gritty and not simple. We put up with the often ill-tempered mood of frenzied residents and with jam-packed, sweat-laden buses and trains and horrific traffic. High prices. Dinky dwellings. Tons more concrete than greenery. Crime. Often poor schools. But for at least half of human history, the more people who live in a place, the more people who want to live there.

I never ditched my truck, even in college. In fact the fact I had my truck made me popular with many classmates who didn't have it, especially on those nights where I decided not to get hammered. There's benefits and drawbacks to cities. The entertainment is much better in East Lansing compared to here, but Livingston County is home. As far as tourism goes, where do Michiganders usually go on vacation? Up North.

Against the grain of history and in contrast to most populous states, the last couple of generations of Michiganians have eschewed cities. Of our 20 most populous cities, 15 lost people between 2000 and 2010. The gainers (Sterling Heights, Dearborn, Troy, Wyoming, and Rochester Hills) lie outside the central cities of their regions (Detroit and Grand Rapids). In these 10 years, some cities lost astounding percentages of residents: Detroit (25 percent), Flint (18 percent), Pontiac (10.3 percent), and Southfield (8.4 percent).

Michigan’s population declined by 54,852 between 2000 and 2010. Detroit lost 237,493 people and the remaining 19 largest cities recorded a net loss of another 66,000 souls. Were it not for the outflow from our largest cities, the state would have shown a gain of a quarter million people during the aughts.

A lot of ex-city dwellers prefer many things about small towns and country compared to the city. Better schools, less crime, less taxes, land, nature. Detroit's taxes are higher than even the Grosse Pointes. 62 mills. Plus the income tax.

That's not unique to Michigan though. It's not against the grain. It's typical of older cities in the Midwest, ultra-hyped Chicago has lost 1 million people since 1950. Milwaukee 150,000 since 1960. Toledo 100,000 since 1970. Cincinnati 207,000 since 1960. Cleveland 520,000 since 1950. Minneapolis 130,000 since 1950. St Paul 18000 since 1960. St Louis 540,000 since 1950. Gary 100,000 since 1960. South Bend 30,000 since 1960.

The exceptions. Kansas City rebounded to 489000. It's down from 507,000 in 1970 but is higher than 1990 numbers of 435,000. Same with Des Moines at 203,000. Down from 208,000 but higher than 193,000. At their peak currently, Indianapolis is at 839,489 and has passed Detroit. Columbus is at 787,033. Madison is at 233,000. Omaha at 409,000. Sioux Falls 153,888. Fargo 105,549. Wichita at 382,368. The major manufacturing areas lost population. The heavy democrat areas outside of Madison and Kansas City lost population. So did Cincinnati, which leans but isn't overwhelmingly democrat (German population more republican, blacks vote democrat). Indianapolis and Columbus lean dem, but are competitive. It's difficult, but not unheard of for republicans to win there despite high minority populations (around 40%). The other areas are all competitive. I think politics are a major factor in the city declines across the region.

I recognize that our metropolitan areas, which include core cities, are holding their own. Indeed, they represent nearly 90 percent of all jobs and gross domestic product of Michigan. We may need to expand our thinking about what is urban — what is a city — to include the areas and people living places nearby cities.

Why Michiganians fled cities, in defiance of a long global and current national experience, unsettles me greatly. It is terribly destructive economically. You cannot explain cities’ depopulation simply because a downturn of this or that industry, important as that often is. Abandoning cities is damn near unique to Michigan (although one easily can point to other once-powerful cities, such as Cleveland, that share our cities’ distress) and requires you to suspend economic logic and the historical record.

It's not unique to Michigan, and is common in the Midwest and parts of the Northeast as well, particularly Pennsylvania and upstate New York. Philly, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Rochester. Oftentimes, Race is pointed to as the factor. It is to an extent in some areas, although doubtful in Scranton, Minneapolis-St Paul, and Wilkes-Barre, all of which are still largely white. That's likely due to the steel industry in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. I'm not as familiar with the Twin Cities. Pittsburgh still has a large white majority. In other cities, it may be a bigger issue as those cities are at least 40% minority.

The questions are this:

Is core city abandonment a good, bad, or neutral thing?

Should metro areas follow the Louisville or Nashville model of consolidating city-county? Grand Rapids considered and rejected it.

Is the destructiveness the abandonment of the city, or what pushed people out in the first place?

I'll get to those later.

Decitification in Michigan is a pressing matter. State public policy has not been on the side of cities. The State must take the lead in bolstering them. Our attitudes and behavior, too, are way out of synch with global societies. We have an attitude (I go so far as to call it a sickness) that begs for analysis. Our cities have characteristics, like woeful public transit and few outlets for groceries, that cling to a car-frenzied industrial age.

Cities do not appeal to a lot of people in Michigan. A couple of hundred years from now, historians may say that by letting cities wither we were, as Heath Ledger (The Joker) so creepily uttered, “just ahead of the curve.” That’s a bit like betting on the longest of long shots.

Michigan today, with nearly 10 million residents, has but one city, Detroit, that houses more people than Ephesus in the 1st century B.C. or Cordoba in the year 1000. From Ephesus, Cordoba, and Rome, we are unlikely to learn much about the reasons for Detroit’s evacuation and the decline (possibly fall) of less populated cities of Michigan. We learn far more from Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Denver, and a host of American cities that attract people in the modern era.

Minneapolis and Chicago are dropping population. They are hyped. Reality is different than the hype. I'm not familiar with Minny outside of its weather, but Chicago's "growth" is a couple of areas. Much of the rest of that city is hung out to dry. Kind of like Detroit. It's downtown or bust.

Atlanta is also hyped heavily, but is like a Kansas City in size and rebounding effect. It has 420,000 people today, up from 390,000 in 1990, but down from 496,000 in 1970. Same with Boston. 617,000 now. Was 560,000 in 1980, but 800,000 in 1950.
Denver and Phoenix are growing. I wouldn't look to Chicago for learning. I'd look first to Indianapolis and Columbus, followed by many of the plains cities. They are Midwestern. They are closer culturally to Michigan.

Public transport is also very overrated. Light rail and Wally trains to nowhere doesn't make a city. There's a bus system and the people mover. Chicago has a well known public transport. It still doesn't change the fact that they dropped a million people and still drop population. We like our cars in Michigan, but that's not unique here.

Grocery outlets. That's a chicken and egg question. Occasionally a big name grocery store opens up shop in Detroit. Usually it closes quickly. Meijer is supposed to open up one on 8 mile. Currently there is no Meijer, Walmart, or Kroger. There are a bunch of Spartan Stores (Think Glens Up North) locations here. There isn't a big selection, and the question is why in a city of still 700,000+ people is there no big selection.

Back to these.

A. Is core city abandonment a good, bad, or neutral thing?

I'd say it's bad IF the people living like a city environment and want to live in cities as opposed to small towns or rural areas. If people don't like a city environment, move out. Just please don't bring the city with you when you move to the country, particularly its nasty politics that caused a lot of the problems to begin with.

To those who like a city environment, why did they move out? In Detroit's case, it was largely schools, crime, high taxes, and bad services for the high taxes. That largely started when liberals took over the city. Jerome P Cavanagh. If Detroiters want those people to move back, they need to address those issues. I think Bing might be the best mayor the city has had in over 50 years, but he's got a tough road ahead of him with the council.

Should metro areas follow the Louisville or Nashville model of consolidating city-county?

Grand Rapids considered and rejected it. If there was any place in the state where that would occur, it would be there. It wouldn't work in Detroit's case, because the Detroit area is three counties. A Detroit-Wayne County government would never form. The suburbs would never vote for it, and that would be across racial lines. Same for a Tri-County incorporation. I think more likely, but probably wouldn't happen would be "City-County" governments formed with Oakland County or Macomb County. If that happened, you'd have a "city" with over 1 million people. Local control is strong in Michigan. That's why most counties have 16 townships, some villages, some cities, and several school districts, all with different administrations. That's a legacy from the horse and buggy era. In some cases that is good. In others, probably not.

Is the destructiveness the abandonment of the city, or what pushed people out in the first place?

I'd argue the latter. Cities are in competition. They compete with other cities, suburbs, and rural areas. The factors are jobs, cost of living (housing, insurance, land), taxes, regulations, services, schools, crime, property values and the community. If one city fails to do a good job in those areas, people will vote with their feet. Detroiters have voted with their feet. It's not just white folks anymore either. Blacks and Mexicans have also left the area. If Detroit wants to make a comeback, it will have to address those things. Stadiums, theaters, and casinos are good for visitors. Visitors. They visit, and go home.


Coach Tom Izzo of Michigan State used this quote to describe his national title winning 2000 team. ""We've got to drop the pretty-boy attitude and adopt a meat-and-potatoes attitude." I have no idea what Izzo's politics are, but that's the right attitude that can apply to cities, counties, townships, and government in general. If you want stable cities, they need to be built on foundations of families. If they will raise their kids there, they will often stay. It takes meat and potatoes issues for people and especially families to stay. Crime, costs, jobs, schools. Those are the big four. How many people if they had the choice would send their kids to Detroit Public Schools? School and crime. Property and income taxes in Detroit are outrageous. 62 mills and an income tax. That's plus insurance costs. The cost of living is cheaper even in Grosse Pointe outside of possibly initial housing costs. Costs. Unemployment rates are high. Jobs. Those are the big issues. The rest comes after the big four. Detroit can be fixed to a large part, if Detroiters want to fix Detroit and are winning to fix Detroit. That is a choice to be made. Detroiters must fix Detroit. Can they do it? Yes, if they choose to do it. It will require a change in their thinking. That doesn't apply just to Detroit, but all cities and municipal governments.

The second piece from Ruff on race states a lot of truth and discusses Ruff's experiences with his city of Saginaw. It's conclusion.

Michigan has had, for a half century, a pernicious walking-away epidemic among whites from cities with growing black populations. I rationalize, in part, our cities’ declines to an ugly racial history. While increasing numbers of middle-class blacks have been leaving our cities to avoid crime, find better jobs, and get better schools, even greater numbers of whites flee or have fled not only for the same objectives, but also to avoid blacks. It boils down, in large part, to voluntary racial segregation.

That's true. Michigan is a largely segregated state, especially in the Detroit area. It used to be segregated due to housing codes, redlining, restricted covenants, and in some cases the Klan. Quasi De jure, little different than the Jim Crow South. Today it is because Michiganders largely choose to live in segregated areas. De Facto. I'm not saying that as an insult. It just is what it is, and it is as part of Michigan as the automobile. While the black population has migrated out some, the vast majority are clustered in cities, or even neighborhoods. Even in "integrated" areas, the cities are still often segregated.

White city/suburban folk move away when areas - especially schools - become increasingly black. The pattern is whites move to new area. Black middle class and professionals move there. No problem. Black population gets to about 25% or so, whites start moving out before or when the inner city starts moves in. Property values drop. Black professionals follow white suburbanites out to escape the new "inner city." Repeat. The other scenario is schools of choice accept a large number of Detroiters. Home district whites move out then too. Often times it's these "tolerant white progressives" that start moving out. They love "diversity" and sneer from their high horse until "diversity" moves to their school. I get a real laugh out of redistricting where more and more of democrat portions in Oakland County get placed into a Detroit based congressional district. I wish Pleasant Ridge and Ferndale and that area were added as well. They asked for it.

That's part of the reasons of city "abandonment", but there's another cultural factor as well. The culture factor is the big one.

Personally I don't care about color, but if you leave the city - or suburbs - and come to my area, leave the city behind. That goes for all colors. It's not the colors that destroyed Detroit and increasingly some of the suburbs. It's the attitudes of the majority of people in the city who kept electing the same people there over and over again and enact the same policies you had at your own home. Democrats destroyed Detroit. Progressives destroyed Detroit. Democrats of all colors destroyed Detroit. White Jerome Cavanagh democrats and black Coleman Young democrats.

My personal bias is stronger against white progressives. They are the threat to me. They want to control people's lives. Black inner city democrats are not a threat to me. While they enable white progressives, they don't want to control people's lives. In addition, moderates are less apt to vote for an inner city candidate. (Obama aside, and he's from Hawaii and Cambridge before he moved to Chicago)

Where race does factor in is that blacks in Michigan vote over 90% democrat (and I have all the respect in the world for that 10% with the pressure put on them). If my area starts going from moderate republican to liberal democrat on a consistent basis, then it's time for me to go. That is no longer my home. Is that racial flight, or is it cultural flight? I'd argue the latter. I don't want Ann Arbor leftism here either, and that's prominently white. One problem is those who move from one area and keep their voting habits, policy values, and change the area they move to if it is different to the same area they left with more regulations and more taxes. I happen to know a lot of ex-Farmington Hills residents here. They aren't liberal like much of current Farmington Hills is today either. They haven't tried to change Brighton. However, Farmington Hills has changed from 1990 and even 2000. Even Rocky (who won 3 times there) didn't win there in 2010, a good GOP year. Neither did Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson who made it close, but no cigar. It's pretty much gone outside of a landslide year. Demographics. What I don't want to see is the same thing coming to Livingston County that is happening more and more in Oakland County.

Under status quo, white liberals will move further and further away from core cities (and closer to this area) as more and more blacks move into their current homes, away from the core cities. That's a problem. Those white liberals if they stay that way want to change the new area to their old area. That is the bad part about urban sprawl, and it creates more of it. One of my favorite sayings from a tavern is "Be good or be gone." Those who move into an area need to respect the believes of the community of the area. It doesn't mean agree 100%, but it does mean that you shouldn't go into the area and try and change it to the same thing you left. If your goal is to change the community to what you left, you need to be gone - or preferably fix your own city.

Consolidation push?

I've been hearing talk about consolidation for years. I think there's places for it, although other times it isn't the solution. The biggest consolidation projects are those like has been done in Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis where there is a largely city-county government merger. Apparently, there's some serious talk about that in the Grand Rapids area. I'm not in West Michigan, so I can't really comment on whether it be good or bad. I'm almost two hours from Grand Rapids.

The article lead to former Argus reporter Maria Stuart posting this at her Livingstontalk blog.

....Consider that in Livingston County we are supporting 16 townships, two cities, two villages, six school districts (including our Livingston Educational Service Agency) and one county government, in addition to our road commission, EMS service and various fire departments. Each and every one of these units of government has its own governing body, too.

If you count school districts that cross into Livingston County, there are actually 15 school districts in this county. The Livingston based districts are Brighton, Howell, Hartland, Fowlerville, and Pinckney. The others are based in the other counties. Several townships have multiple school district boundaries. All except Hartland have at least two, and most have three, with two having four.

Conway - Mostly Fowlerville, some Morrice (Shiawassee) and Webberville (Ingham).
Cohoctah - Divided almost equally between Fowlerville, Howell, and Byron (Shiawassee)
Handy - Mostly Fowlerville, some Webberville and Howell.
Howell Twp - Mostly Howell, some Fowlerville
Iosco - Mostly Fowlerville, some Howell, some Stockbridge (Ingham)
Marion - Mostly Howell, some Pinckney
Unadilla - Mostly Stockbridge, some Pinckney and Fowlerville
Putnam - Mostly Pinckney, some Howell
Hamburg - Mostly Pinckney, some Brighton and Whitmore Lake (Washtenaw)
Green Oak - Mostly Brighton, some Whitmore Lake (Washtenaw) and South Lyon (Oakland)
Genoa - Mostly Howell, some Hartland and Brighton
Brighton Twp - Mostly Brighton, some Howell, some Hartland, some Huron Valley (Oakland)
Hartland - All in Hartland
Oceola - Mostly Howell, some Hartland.
Deerfield - Howell, Hartland, Byron, and Linden (Genesee)
Tyrone - Hartland, Fenton (Genesee), and Linden.

That's a lot of school districts for an area of less than 300K, and probably less than 250K (Livingston County and districts in other counties). However, it would be a logistics nightmare to consolidate a county wide school district area when you factor the other county based school districts. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it will be a real pain, especially in Green Oak and the Fenton/Linden areas where a significant population is outside the LISD zone.

Think, too, why we need so many fire departments and so many police departments. If there is an inspiration for consolidation of emergency services, it should be Livingston County EMS, which works throughout the entire community so well.

Police and (to a lesser extent) fire get trickier. We have "fire authorities" and some regionalism with the fire departments. Genoa contracts with Brighton. Green Oak and Hamburg have their own. With police though, I'm a little more hesitant to support consolidation. I do not want big city style or revenue enhancement suburban style of policing out here. I damn well don't want East Lansing PD east out here, which is my concern. I've never had an issue or complaint about Green Oak PD here or Howell (City) PD when I lived there. (Genoa didn't have PD). Maria does have a point though.

I don’t mean to say that our various units of government have operated without cooperating with each other. There are some great examples of cooperative ventures in our community.

That said, these are treacherous times for our community, and the success of our future demands that we consider throwing out the government-as-usual model.

I agree, but if there is consolidation, it has to be done right. Grand Rapids is a city of about 190K in Kent County (700K). There's a much more regional atmosphere out there than in the Detroit area. That region wants to consider itself a big name as the leaders of Michigan and make West Michigan as big in prestige as what people think of Michigan right now - Detroit area. It's a different mentality.

The other thing with consolidation or getting rid of townships. Some people don't want to live in cities. They don't want the higher taxes, or even city services. My parents live on a dirt road with no sewers, no city water, and even no cable access. That's fine by them. Dirt roads keep traffic down and sewers and water bills are no fun. Direct TV is better than cable and its taxes/franchise fees anyway.

This is a tough issue, and one that is in a way the 800lb elephant in the room, particularly with revenue sharing being a big issue every budgetary season. On one hand, government is best when it is closest to the people. On the other, when you have somewhere around 16 townships in each county and all the school districts, with their managers, supervisors, superintendents, admin staff, and all that goes with it, it adds up. That's too many.

Would I support forced annexation of the cities/village to their in county Post Office Address boundaries if applicable (Okemos and Whitmore Lake aren't cities or villages)? No way - at least in Livingston County. While it's needed to a degree in Lansing (city/Twp) and Ann Arbor (City/Twp) with its highly irregular township boundaries/islands surrounded by city, it wouldn't be desirable here. Would I support townships becoming largely incorporated county government like it is in large parts of the US? I'd be more apt to consider and support that. What I think would be best is somewhat of a middle ground where some townships merge until there's a population minimum. That would cut most of the townships down in this state, while still preserving a lot of established township governments where there is a significant population.

Looks like the Richard Floridas and New Urbanists are wrong

Another strong argument is made against the New Urbanists in the latest from "New Geography." The Myth of the Back-to-the-City Migration.

One of the reasons I always bring back this topic is because so many of the bad points of the most influential leftists rear their head here.

Remember Granholm's Cool Cities? This is what he was referring to. Richard Florida's thesis. It's not working, but it's still being pushed,
even here in Livingston County. The real key to attracting workers is simple. Work. Right now of the cities, Houston is king.

Are people moving back to the city? Nope. From New Geography

Pundits, planners and urban visionaries—citing everything from changing demographics, soaring energy prices, the rise of the so-called "creative class," and the need to battle global warming—have been predicting for years that America's love affair with the suburbs will soon be over. Their voices have grown louder since the onset of the housing crisis. Suburban neighborhoods, as the Atlantic magazine put it in March 2008, would morph into "the new slums" as people trek back to dense urban spaces.

But the great migration back to the city hasn't occurred.

That's obvious. The census numbers keep showing that with one or two exceptions like New York.

Housing prices in and around the nation's urban cores is clear evidence that the back-to-the-city movement is wishful thinking. Despite cheerleading from individuals such as University of Toronto Professor Richard Florida, and Carole Coletta, president of CEOs for Cities and the Urban Land Institute, this movement has crashed in ways that match—and in some cases exceed—the losses suffered in suburban and even exurban locations. Condos in particular are a bellwether: Downtown areas, stuffed with new condos, have suffered some of the worst housing busts in the nation.

One of the big pushes to these overpriced downtown lofts, apartments, and condos is "walkability". The drawback is cost for the space, no land, more rules and regulations, city crime, parking, and for families, usually bad schools. Now some people are cityfolk, and I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. I prefer small towns and the country. My dream house is 20 acres of woods and an average house where I can go hunting. That's my preference. Live and let live. My problem is when the so called "progressive" crowd wants to force everyone to move to one room lofts in cities, in the name of global warming. I have a problem wasting money when a small portion of elites want this train to nowhere, subsidized by tax money.

There's more.

The story in downtown Las Vegas is massive overbuilding and vacancies. The Review Journal recently reported a nearly 21-year supply of unsold condominium units. MGM City Center developer Larry Murren stated this spring that he wished he had built half as many units. Mr. Murren cites a seminar on mixed-use development—a commonplace event in many cities over the past few years—as sparking his overenthusiasm. He's not the only developer who has admitted being misled.

Behind the condo bust is a simple error: people's stated preferences. Virtually every survey of opinion, including a 2004 poll co-sponsored by Smart Growth America, a group dedicated to promoting urban density, found that roughly 13% of Americans prefer to live in an urban environment while 33% prefer suburbs, and another 18% like exurbs. These patterns have been fairly consistent over the last several decades.

Demographic trends, including an oft-predicted tsunami of Baby Boom "empty nesters" to urban cores, have been misread. True, some wealthy individuals have moved to downtown lofts. But roughly three quarters of retirees in the first bloc of retiring baby boomers are sticking pretty close to the suburbs, where the vast majority now reside. Those that do migrate, notes University of Arizona Urban Planning Professor Sandi Rosenbloom, tend to head further out into the suburban periphery. "Everybody in this business wants to talk about the odd person who moves downtown, but it's basically a 'man bites dog story,'" she says. "Most retire in place."

Even Vegas, and that actually does qualify as a cool city. The trends are accurate, although I prefer country to suburb or exurb. My own experience sees this. Most of the empty nesters I know, still stayed in their homes. Why move? This is where their roots are.

What about these "young professionals" we all hear about for the past 10 years.

What about the "millennials"—the generation born after 1983? Research by analysts Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, authors of the ground-breaking "Millennial Makeover," indicates this group is even more suburban-centric than their boomer parents. Urban areas do exercise great allure to well-educated younger people, particularly in their 20s and early 30s. But what about when they marry and have families, as four in five intend? A recent survey of millennials by Frank Magid and Associates, a major survey research firm, found that although roughly 18% consider the city "an ideal place to live," some 43% envision the suburbs as their preferred long-term destination.

Same as it ever was. Party in the city, but when it's time to settle down, different priorities take over. A well told word of caution is given.

The condo bust should provide a cautionary tale for developers, planners and the urban political class, particularly those political "progressives" who favor using regulatory and fiscal tools to promote urban densification. It is simply delusional to try forcing a market beyond proven demand.

Rather than ignore consumer choice, cities and suburbs need to focus on basic tasks like creating jobs, improving schools, developing cultural amenities and promoting public safety. It is these more mundane steps—not utopian theory or regulatory diktats—that ultimately make successful communities.

This sounds familiar. Jobs not fluff. Crime not lofts. Schools not rails. It's the meat and potatoes issues which are important if cities want to make comebacks, not Richard Florida's template.

Jobs not fluff.

Back in April, I wrote a piece ripping the new urbanist "cool cities" style of BS that bureaucrats and ivory towers think is the key for Michigan comeback. I stand by what I wrote in both the article and comments section and revisit it in the light of recent articles in New Geography.

In today's recession, and specifically to Michigan, there's a lot of talk about keeping younger workers here, and so called "diversifying the economy," which too often means abandoning manufacturing in favor of so called "cool-cities." To the Granholmites, it's "coolness" and "hipness" and not actual jobs that attract young workers. My post in April was Michigan specific on this matter. New Geography gave its own model city. It's not New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, or San Francisco. Houston. I can't speak for recent history with Houston as it has been over 20 years since I've been there. Joel Kotkin, who I believe is actually a democrat (more of an old school one who doesn't support cap and trade or Richard Florida style of urbanism), makes an interesting case for Houston, if one can handle the weather.

So what does Houston have that these other cities lack? Opportunity. Between 2000 and 2009 Houston's employment grew by 260,000. Greater New York City--with nearly three times the population of Houston--has added only 96,000 jobs. The Chicago area has lost 258,000 jobs, San Francisco 217,000, Los Angeles 168,000 and Boston 100,004.

Politicians in big cities talk about jobs, but by keeping taxes, fees and regulatory barriers high they discourage the creation of jobs, at least in the private sector. A business in San Francisco or Los Angeles never knows what bizarre new cost will be imposed by city hall. In New York or Boston you can thrive as a nonprofit executive, high-end consultant or financier, but if you are the owner of a business that wants to grow you're out of luck.

Houston, however, has kept the cost of government low while investing in ports, airports, roads, transit and schools. A person or business moving there gets an immediate raise through lower taxes and cheaper real estate. Houston just works better at nurturing jobs.

It starts with jobs, regulations, and costs, with the rest going to meat and potatoes issues of competence. Jobs and growing economies also attract college educated, much more than BS fluff that dominate the news these days.

Some traditional urbanists will concede these facts but then try to shift the focus to "qualitative" factors: the best-educated residents, the highest salaries, the most expensive real estate. Although it also attracts a large number of low-skill migrants, Houston has considerably expanded its white-collar workforce. According to the Praxis Strategy Group, Houston's ranks of college-educated residents grew 13% between 2005 and 2008. That's about on par with "creative class" capital Portland, Ore. and well more than twice the rate for New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Back to Livingston County, I'll say the same thing about Houston as I said about the "cool cities". We're Livingston County. We aren't Chicago. We aren't Royal Oak. We aren't Ann Arbor. We won't copy them, and should not even try to do so. We don't need to be any of those. Livingston County's strength is rural character, small towns, lakes, and being driving distance from cities, but further away from its influence.

However, we need to study what makes Houston work in this economy compared to what isn't working in Chicago, San Francisco, LA, and Boston, and adapt it to fit in Michigan, and Livingston County.

Jobs will fix this economy, not "cool cities".

Cool cities? People are fleeing them

The Ann Arbor News has an interesting story.The exodus from the cities are continuing with the latest census estimates. For all the talk about cool cities, and new urbanism, and Richard Florida's claptrap, the reality is that more and more people do not want to live in cities.

Even Ann Arbor, the posterchild for urbanism in this state, lost more population, albeit narrowly.

WASHINGTON - Like most major Michigan cities, Ann Arbor lost population during the first half of this decade to the townships and villages that make up its suburbs.

A U.S. Census Bureau report released today shows that two-thirds of Michigan's cities and villages lost population between 2000 and 2006. While no region was spared, the biggest declines came in the state's major cities - Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing.

The beneficiaries of this population shift were the smaller cities, villages and townships that make up metropolitan areas. The shifting population pattern occurred in all of the state's major cities. Villages or smaller cities on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Lansing all grew, while the central cities shrank between 2000 and 2006.

The excel file from the Detroit News. shows all of the numbers.

Livingston overall gained 1.7% over last year. It's a small gain compared to previous years, but it is still the fastest growing county in the state.

Wayne County took a big loss, and not just in Detroit. Just about everywhere in Wayne County dropped outside of Canton and the Southernmost part of Downriver. Even Plymouth dropped.

Oakland County was stagnant. Generally, there was growth west of I-275 and North of 59. The "trendy" areas there all dropped in population. Royal Oak, Ferndale, etc. Macomb County narrowly gained, mostly in the Northern part of the county.

As for the central cities:
Grand Rapids narrowly lost population. It's in better shape than most cities.
Saginaw, Flint, and Bay City all took nosedives.
Detroit and Warren lost big.
Lansing as well. East Lansing was more narrow.
Kalamazoo, Muskegon Battle Creek, Albion, and Jackson had narrower losses. West Michigan is in better shape than East Michigan.
Adrian stayed about the same.
Marquette and Sault Ste Marie stayed about the same, and is doing better than much of the UP. Mackinac County (St Ignace) has had a large exodus.

Instead of cool cities, I think we need to have a cool economy here. One with jobs, low taxes, and high freedom. Leave the fluff and superficial stuff to private citizens.