Airport City, a landscape of modernity and prosperity, has helped Detroit become the nation's fastest-growing big city and pushed southeast Michigan back to the top of America's best economic performers, a place it has not held in 70 years. The quality of life in southeast Michigan — which at the start of the century embarrassed bright young adults and drove them away — is now a point of pride keeping them around.
This is the vision of Wayne County's development director, Mulu Birru, and an exciting plan for southeast Michigan. As the article points out it has some serious obstacles in its path, but I think Birru has the right attitude when he says, "It's a big project and it will take a lot of consensus, a lot of cooperation and a lot of imagination to make it work. But it's all possible."
The Airport City vision and yesterday's conference "Where Do We Go From Here? at least let me know that the region's leadership is thinking about Michigan's struggling economy, though time will tell if Michigan is able to successfully transform itself and thrive or if it will be left to languish and struggle.
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