Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts

The perfect place for patents

Eric Markowitz reports the United States Patent and Trademark Office is opening it's first-ever satellite office. His lead source explains why Detroit emerged as the preferred location:
"The USPTO considered many factors before making its final decision to locate its first new satellite office in Detroit. The city fulfilled a number of critical criteria, including a high percentage of scientists and engineers in the workforce; access to major research institutions; a high volume of patenting activity; and a significant number of patent agents and attorneys in the area."

A Michigan Moment?

Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution says it could be. He joined the Business Leaders for Michigan in proposing an Urban and Metropolitan Strategy to focus and accelerate reconstruction of the Great Lakes State.

"Michigan is poised to lead [America's] shift back to an innovative and productive," Katz said. "This could be a Michigan moment if you seize it."

25 year transition to knowledge-based economy?

That's about how long it took Pittsburgh, according to Michigan Future, Inc President Lou Glazer. He doesn't know if Detroit, Grand Rapids and Michigan can do it any faster.

Where there's hope...

Historian Kevin Boyle and Changing Gears compiled an abridged history of supposed Midwest magic bullets, "those quick tickets to jobs and economic prosperity."
  1. Seize on one key industry to grow (detroit = automobile)
  2. Build shiny new landmark (Flint = AutoWorld)
  3. The great event (Chicago = Olympics)
  4. Urban renewal

How to put young people to work?

Minnesota Public Radio put the question to Harvard's David Gergen and Duke's William Darity this morning. Good dialogue:



Informative live chat discussion logged here.

MI Gov Jennifer Granholm presented a ppt file..

...at the Clinton Global Initiative. I'm just saying. 14m in she says "shooting with pea bullets." 16m 20s ... hooked and heckled.

Great Lakes cities in the wake of recession

Brookings today released its Global MetroMonitor, which measures the performance of the world's 150 largest metropolitan economies before, during and after the Great Recession. Surprisingly, Detroit and Cleveland are singled out for their "significant rebound." Here's how, according to the report, metros across the greater Great Lakes ranked globally in the 2009-2010 recovery:

44. Minneapolis
46. Detroit
49. Cleveland
62. Cincinnati
81. Columbus
82. Chicago
83. Milwaukee
120. Buffalo
128. Rochester
129. Pittsburgh
137. Indianapolis

Get smart or be poor

The editorial in today's Detroit Free Press, and the accompanying chart below, makes the case that highly educated people are important to achieve a highly prosperous place.

Nail on the head. And the fact that the Press felt compelled to opine on such obvious matters is yet another signal that Michigan isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Back to the Post-Auto-Industry Future

After four governors, countless economic development schemes and speeches, skyrocketing unemployment, persistent declining incomes, and the complete collapse of the largest corporation on the planet, Michigan still hasn't "begun to explore what the new economy is going to look like."