When it comes to getting younger––particularly retaining and attracting recent college graduates––fixing the damn roads is not the answer.

In a recent report the Citizens Research Council includes a top and bottom ten list of state road conditions compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The top ten states in order are • Nevada •North Dakota •Florida •Georgia •Idaho •South Dakota •Missouri • Indiana •North Carolina •Utah.

Does Michigan have awful road conditions? Yes, it is ranked the fourth worst. Is fixing the damn roads worth doing? Of course. Does fixing the damn roads have anything to do with reversing Michigan’s decades long brain drain? The evidence says absolutely not.

The recent research report Grads on the Go calculates the number of recent graduates from each state’s two-year and four-year colleges and universities and compares that to the number of recent college graduates living in the state. Here is how the top ten road conditions states perform:

• Nevada -9.4%
• North Dakota -31.6%
• Florida -11.3%
• Georgia +14.5%
• Idaho -30.0%
• South Dakota -17.9%
• Missouri -2.2%
• Indiana -30.4%
• North Carolina -5.5%
• Utah -19.6%

So only one state––Georgia––on the top ten road conditions list is a brain gain state. All the others have fewer recent college graduates living in their state than they have recent graduates from the state’s community colleges and universities. Joining Michigan––which is an unacceptable -13.7 percent––on the bottom ten road conditions list are three of the brain gain states: Washington, Illinois and New York.

The Citizens Research Council report includes another ranking of state roads from the Reason Foundation. Same pattern hold true with these rankings. Georgia is the only brain gain top ten state, while four bottom ten states are brain gain states: Colorado, Washington, California and New York. (Michigan ranks 27th.)

So if road conditions has nothing to do with retaining and attracting young professionals, what does? The authors of the Grads on the Go study as reported by the Washington Post conclude:

While the District is an extreme outlier, it sets a pattern. The other winners are primarily states with cities as large, dynamic and regionally vital as D.C. That would include New York, Washington, California, Illinois, Georgia, Texas, Minnesota and Massachusetts.

Exactly! All of the evidence we have seen is what matters most, by far, is transit rich, vibrant central cities. There were 17.6 million 25-34 year olds with a BA or more in the US in 2021. 4.5 million of them live in the central city of the 58 metros with working age populations of 500,000 or more. Transit rich, vibrant central cities certainly is true for each of the nine brain gain states.

If you care about getting younger and better educated, the top ten list you want to be on is cities with the most 25-34 year olds with a B.A. or more. That list is: •New York •Los Angeles •Chicago •Houston •Philadelphia •Seattle •Austin •San Diego •San Fransisco •Boston. 

Of the 58 regions with working age populations of 500,000 or more Grand Rapids ranks 47th, Detroit 50th. Grand Rapids has 22,000 young professional residents, Detroit 20,000. New York is by far the nation’s leader with 773,000. Chicago is the Great Lakes leader with 307,000.

The transportation infrastructure that does matter to concentrating young talent is transit. And walkable neighborhoods that give priority to pedestrians, not cars. So infrastructure/the built environment does matter. But it is infrastructure designed for Generation Z.

Fix the damn roads is just one of many good to do policy ideas on the table for consideration by the Growing Michigan Together Council and ultimately state policymakers that have little or nothing to do with retaining and attracting young talent. Recommend and implement any or all of these worthwhile policies and programs and don’t have vibrant cities Michigan will not attract young talent at any scale. 

Getting younger and better educated requires strengthening and creating more transit rich and vibrant neighborhoods in our central cities and small towns that can attract and retain young talent. These neighborhoods vary in many ways, but all share common characteristics: they are dense, walkable, high-amenity neighborhoods, with parks, outdoor recreation, retail, and public arts woven into residents’ daily lives. And they offer plentiful alternatives to driving.

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Northern Virginia quite literally won economically in the 21st Century when Amazon chose them as the location for one of two HQ2s. Winning what was described by pundits as the Super Bowl of economic development competitions. HQ2 brings to Northern Virginia a commitment for 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000.

(Amazon also chose New York City as the second site for their H2, but withdrew the offer after the announcement generated significant local opposition.)

As we explored, metro Detroit including Windsor and metro Grand Rapids were among the initial 238 competitors, but did not make the final 20.

This, of course, raises the question why did Northern Virginia win? What were the assets they offered that mattered most to Amazon? Understanding what assets matters most is imperative for Michigan regions to understand because HQ2 is representative of the predominant type of high-paid jobs investments being made employers.

If we want––and we should––an economic development policy focused on high-wage jobs the reality is they are highly concentrated in professional and managerial occupations. Not just STEM: think workers in offices, schools and hospitals.

And as the Northern Virginia proposal states, where these jobs concentrate benefits the entire economy:

A significant beneficiary of Amazon’s new investment in NOVA will be the region’s small businesses. Retailers, restaurants, contractors, and local service providers derive most of their sales from within the community. Those small businesses will benefit from increased demand from Amazon itself as well as from increased spending associated with Amazon’s employees, both directly and indirectly.

So let’s see how Northern Virginia sold itself to Amazon. Here is the first section of their proposal:

As a partner to Amazon, Northern Virginia (NOVA) brings several distinctive, high-impact assets to the table

North America’s top producer of tech talent.
Greater Washington is the country’s most educated region (~49% of those 25 and older have at least a bachelor’s degree), and it produces more computer science graduates than any other metropolitan area.  The region also has a ready base of talent, with the country’s third-largest pool of software developers and fourth-largest pool of management and legal professionals. The combination of depth, concentration, and growth of talent available in the Washington, D.C. metro area, with additional tech talent production from Virginia’s world-class higher education system, will ensure NOVA maintains and enhances its edge with access to the best and brightest.

A global and inclusive region…
Greater Washington is a global power center, the capital of global democracy, and one of the country’s most racially, ethnically, and internationally diverse regions. Women are twice as likely, and African Americans five times as likely, to work in the technology sector in NOVA than in Silicon Valley. Approximately one in four of its residents was born outside the United States, and the children in NOVA schools speak~100 native languages. Communities in NOVA are ranked among the most LGBTQ-friendly nationwide, and diversity is one the region’s core strengths.

…on a human scale.
NOVA offers something for everyone, with access to some of the country’s most interesting cultural and historical sites, sports teams in all major leagues, and a dynamic food and wine scene. The area is home to a broad range of outdoor activities, from kayaking on the Potomac to hiking in the nearby Shenandoah National Park, all as part of a mild four-season climate.  The region offers a diversity of housing options, some of the country’s top-ranked public schools, and one of the country’s top-rated public transit systems.

The leading metro for public and private sector innovation.
Innovation is in Greater Washington’s lifeblood. The region’s legacy of transformative technologies transcends sectors, from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) role in inventing the internet and voice-recognition systems; to public/private collaboration to create more than 70 miles of automated corridors for connected and autonomous vehicle testing; to the region’s history as the foundation of the telecom revolution and our current depth of technology companies; and to the National Science Foundation (NSF) whose grant funding through the Digital Library Initiative supported the research and eventual foundation of Google, Inc.— Greater Washington sits uniquely at the nexus of public and private innovation.

A stable and competitive partner with a legacy of exceptional governance.
Virginia is consistently rated among the best states in which to do business by leading publications, and Northern Virginia local governments are well-managed, have a history of visionary leadership, and a commitment to innovation. Of all the Fortune 500 companies based in the greater D.C. area, two-thirds have chosen to locate in NOVA. In 2017, U.S. News & World Report ranked Virginia as the No. 2 best state for governance, considering fiscal stability, budget transparency, and state integrity.

A new model of economic development for the 21st century.
Virginia’s partnership proposal was customized to match the scale of Amazon’s ambition and designed to support shared growth over the long term. While the package includes a competitive, performance-based incentive offering, it focuses primarily on strategic new investments in public assets that would benefit companies and citizens across Virginia.

The state incentive package includes in the order they are mentioned in the proposal:

1. Doubling Virginia’s Tech-Talent Pipeline
2. Regional Transportation Infrastructure Investments
3. Post-Performance Incentives

Here are cash incentives:

Subject to General Assembly approval, the Commonwealth will provide post-performance incentives to Amazon that will be paid annually based on job creation and wage levels, with minimum average wages of at least $150,000, plus benefits, escalated at 1.5% annually.  The company will be eligible to receive up to $550 million in incentives if it creates 25,000 qualifying jobs (i.e., $22,000 per new job). Up to $200 million in additional company incentives (for cumulative total of $750 million) is available if the company were to create a total of 37,850 qualifying jobs within 20 years (i.e., $15,564 per new job in excess of 25,000 jobs, up to 37,850 jobs).

This winning proposal demonstrates the validity of Michigan Future’s core learning from three decades of research on the evolving American economy, that talent––not low taxes––is the asset that matters most to growing, retaining and attracting high-wage employers. In essence talent attracts capital, not the other way around. That the economic policy priority for a high-prosperity Michigan is to prepare, retain and attract talent.

The Northern Virginia description of the assets they offer starts with their current and future talent concentration of professionals and managers; their being welcoming to all, and their quality of place––with an emphasis on alternatives to the car––so that they are attractive to place for talent to live and work.

And the future investments they offered Amazon build more of those assets. The major investments proposed by state and local government are not cash incentives––their cash incentives were far less than offered by Michigan’s two big metros––but rather increased spending on K-16 STEM, transportation and affordable housing. All of which they describes as “A new model of economic development for the 21st century.”

If Michigan is going to compete with regions like Northern Virginia for high-wage employers we need to completely redesign our economic development strategy and practice. What Michigan needs, first and foremost, is a human capital centered economic strategy not a business creation, retention, attraction centered economic strategy. The economic development foundation now is high-quality education systems that prepares the next generation for the economy they are going to live in and communities where mobile talent, from all races, creeds, ethnicity and sexual orientation, wants to live and work. As Northern Virginia teaches us, these are the actions that are what positions you to win economically in the 21st Century.

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Austin Texas voters just voted to raise property taxes to pay for the operations and maintenance of Project Connect, a high-capacity $7.1 billion transit system expansion. Project Connect is highlighted by a new light rail system with 27 miles of service and 31 stations. It also includes a transit tunnel under downtown (think subway); four new rapid bus routes; and 15 new neighborhood circulators, on-demand pickup and drop-off to locations within zones. The tax also provides funding of $300 million for transit supportive anti-displacement housing strategies. The tax increase is permanent.

At the same time Austin voters also approved a $460 million pedestrian- and bicyclist-centric transportation bond proposal.

This is what winning in the 21st Century looks like. As we have explored, quality of place attracts talent, and talent = economic growth. Concentrated talent is what attracts high-wage employers. Talent is also entrepreneurial, so where it is concentrated are the places with the most high-wage business start-ups. So talent concentration is essential to high-wage job creation.

The places where talent is concentrating are primarily big metros with vibrant central cities. Central cities because mobile talent increasingly wants to live in high-density, high-amenity neighborhoods where you don’t have to own a car.

Austin now joins other big southern metropolitan areas that have made transit––particularly light rail––central to their economic growth strategy as we explored in a 2012 post entitled The South we should want to learn from. Prosperous, growing regions like Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte and Phoenix.

Michigan, of course, is a transit laggard, particularly metro Detroit. And we are paying a price for being a laggard. The lack of talent and transit is what Amazon cited in explaining why no Michigan region made their final twenty regions to be considered for their 50,000 high-paid jobs HQ2.

In a Crain’s Detroit Business interview Dug Song, co-founder and general manager of Duo Security reveals why, although an Ann Arbor started and based enterprise, the company is now expanding most in Austin. Crain’s writes:

Top of mind for the 44-year-old entrepreneur: the state’s struggling K-12
education system, the region’s lack of integrated mass transit and a
culture that he says inhibits a more robust startup community in the
metro Detroit area and the broader state.

Song is on record about his support of higher taxes to pay for some of
these items.

If Michigan is going to be competitive in retaining, attracting and creating high-paid 21st Century jobs it is going to require our making public investments in creating places where talent wants to live and work. As we detail in our Creating places across Michigan where people want to live and work, transit may well be the most important amenity in retaining and attracting talent.

Yes those public investments will need to be paid for with higher taxes. But, as Austin voters understood, those taxes pay for a service that is both important to improving the quality of life of current residents and is a vital to future economic growth, particularly growth of high-wage jobs.

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By renovating a symbol of the city’s decline, the company hopes to create a magnet for the talent needed to prevail in the next automotive era.

Ford has learned the lesson that far too many Michigan business leaders and policymakers have not: that creating places where young talent wants to live and work is essential to economic success. They have learned that what matters most to their economic survival is talent. That the places that are/might out-compete them are located where young professionals are concentrating.

Ford now knows that placemaking is not something you can afford only after you have a strong economy, it’s what you need to do to have a prosperous economy. They also have learned that this cannot be done in the suburbs. That to be competitive requires public and private investments to create high-density, high-amenity central-city neighborhoods where you do not need to own a car.

As the Times writes:

Ford thinks the Detroit presence in particular will attract young professionals who now gravitate toward Silicon Valley and other high-tech hubs, and typically steer clear of established companies whose corporate ways they see as sterile and rigid. It’s the same thinking that prompted McDonald’s to move to Chicago from the city’s suburbs, and General Electric to relocate to Boston from Fairfield, Conn.

“Our goal is to have the autonomous vehicle invented and proved out here, and to attract the entrepreneurs and young businesses that will enable that, so we really will be able to create the mobility corridor of the next 50 years,” Mr. Ford (William C. Ford Jr., the company’s chairman and a great-grandson of the automaker’s founder) said.

Amazon, in their HQ2 competition, also delivered the same message. That Michigan’s two big metros are not worthy of consideration because neither Detroit nor Grand Rapids has the talent concentrations needed by knowledge-based services companies.

This also is the prime lesson to be learned from our recently published metro Minneapolis case study Regional Collaboration Matters.  Metro Minneapolis is doing a far better job than metro Detroit (and metro Grand Rapids) in retaining and attracting young professionals. They have for decades made creating a place where people want to live and work an economic development priority. With an emphasis on the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Business and political leaders there have understood that amenities like transit and parks (and the arts) matter more than low taxes in creating a prosperous economy. They have done things that are off  the table in metro Detroit: strong regional governance, rail transit and higher taxes. The payoff is that on every measure of economic well being––including the proportion of adults who work and household income––they are a national leader, while metro Detroit––even with one of the world’s great industries––is now a national laggard.

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“I love the environment, and there are a ton of outdoor activities all year round,” he said about a metro area that celebrates its cold winters. “The city is really good about taking care of the streets and it’s easy to get around on public transit.”

Carrigan, 31, is far from alone in his assessment of the Twin Cities’ livability. Minneapolis and St. Paul regularly appear at or near the top of ‘best cities to live’ lists. Much of that is due to a demand by residents here for high quality parks and trails, a clean environment, cultural amenities—collectively known as placemaking– and a commitment to pay for them.

Talent and placemaking go hand in hand in metro Minneapolis. Local business and community leaders strongly believe that you can’t have a talented workforce if smart people don’t want to live in your community.

In 2008, voters passed an amendment to Minnesota’s constitution, known as the Legacy Funds, that raised the sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent to protect the environment, support arts and culture, and fund parks and trail projects. The tax expires in 2034.

Legacy Funds money has helped the Metropolitan Council, the local regional government agency, award more than $625 million for parkland acquisition and development, and projects such as environmental education to local parks systems in metro Minneapolis.

Minneapolis and St. Paul for years have been recognized as having the best park systems among the 100 largest cities in the country by the Trust for Public Land, which helps cities create and finance parks. Minneapolis and St. Paul were ranked first and second, respectively, in by the organization in 2016 and 2017. Detroit ranked 75th in the 2017 study.

“You can’t have a great city without a great park system,” said Adrian Benepe, senior vice president of The Trust for Public Land.

Minneapolis and St. Paul also have aggressively been building miles of protected bike lanes on city streets and using their zoning powers to increase residential density, which many young people desire.

Metro Minneapolis also has one of the best transit systems, including light rail, in the country. Many see that as a crucial economic and placemaking investment.

“You don’t have to have a car to live here. In Michigan, it’s hard to get around anywhere if you don’t have a car,” said Marissa Luna, a 28-year-old Saginaw native who moved to Minneapolis last year. “Minnesota invests in public goods, which is really important to young people who have a lot of student loan debt. Buying things like cars is not feasible.”

In the Twin Cities, talent development has long been the key ingredient in growing a metro economy that is one of the most vibrant in the country.

“For us, it’s about a highly educated workforce that is well aligned with our industry sectors,” said Peter Frosch, vice president of strategic partnerships at Greater MSP, a regional economic development group formed in 2011 by the Itasca Project, a group of local business leaders.

Metro Minneapolis’s young adults are a brainy bunch, with 58.2 percent of those age 25 to 34 holding an associate degree or above in 2016. That was the ninth-highest percentage among the 53 largest metros in the country. The comparable percentages were 45.8 percent in metro Grand Rapids and 42.8 percent in metro Detroit.

The Twin Cities didn’t get smart overnight. Frosch described the effort as a mix of private and public sector efforts to create knowledge jobs and boost the educational level of its workforce.

“The demand from the economy was part of it,” Frosch said. “Industry here developed a lot of intensive knowledge work post-World War II, and that grew and grew and grew.”

Minnesota also started boosting education spending in the 1950s because of worries that that state was lagging in a variety of economic measures, including per capita income and gross domestic product.

“By 2000, we had one of the most educated workforces in the country,” said Art Rolnick, a former Minneapolis Federal Reserve economist who studied the state’s economy going back to 1920. “We argued that was causal to our strong economy.”

Local metro Minneapolis leaders aren’t taking the region’s strong economic performance for granted. Worried that the economy might outstrip its available workforce, they’re undertaking a variety of efforts to retain and recruit talent.

There’s a strong focus reducing economic and racial disparities. That’s in part because the region is becoming more diverse.

The portion of minorities age 25 to 64 in the Twin Cities region is expected to nearly double, from 22 percent of the total working-age population in 2010 to 43 percent by 2040, according to census data analyzed by the Itasca Project. The white working-age population is expected to decline.

In 2015, Greater MSP created “Make It. MSP.” bringing together 150 businesses and community and organizations to help welcome and acclimate newcomers, especially minorities, to the region.

“This has to be place where they can stay and thrive,” Frosch said.

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One part of what we’ve failed to do, in either metro, is create a world-class regional transit network. In both cities, it’s hard to live a car-free life. Detroit has wriggled closer. We finally created a regional transit authority in 2012—something that took years of effort in the state legislature—but we haven’t funded it. (Without strong support from Oakland and Macomb county executives, a millage failed in November 2016.)

And in early February, at his State of the County speech, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson showed that he will insist on being a barrier to the transit system the region needs. He stated, “I will not force these communities into a plan that will not benefit them,” the Free Press reports. (Rather than support a county-wide millage, he wants individual towns to have the ability to opt in or out of a system, which effectively prevents the system from ever being truly regional). Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel claims his voters want improved roads, not transit.

Whatever else one might find objectionable about their opposition to regional transit, the most practical and obvious mistake these leaders make is clinging to the idea that any communities in Southeast Michigan would fail to benefit from a regional transit system.

The talented workforce moving to cities are choosing an urban quality of life characterized by dense housing, proximity to many amenities, and the option to live car-free. The presence of a robust transportation system is important to them. A survey of Millennials in 10 major U.S. cities released by the Rockefeller Foundation and Transportation for America in 2014 found that 54 percent of respondents would consider moving to a city with “more and better options for getting around.” 80 percent of respondents agreed that it’s important for having a wide range of options, including car- and bike-sharing, pedestrian friendly streets, bike lanes, and public transit.

Even more importantly, it’s critical to understand that an economy is regional, regardless of whatever political boundaries exist between cities and the communities that surround them. Knowledge workers are increasingly mobile and are concentrating in major cities and their regions. Millennials, now the largest demographic in the labor force and the future of the American workforce, show a marked preference for metro living (the delineation of “Millennial” ranges, but is most often defined to include those born between 1981 and 1994). According to our own analysis of 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 94 percent of college educated 25-34 year-olds with college degrees live in one of the country’s major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Almost half of them—48 percent—live in just the 20 largest metros in the country.

Places that succeed in attracting talent are generating prosperity. Talent is mobile, and where talent goes, high-wage enterprises follow. Talented workers are also entrepreneurial, so their concentrations lead to new start-ups and job creation for everyone. Where you see those concentrations of talent, you also see their spending power ripple through the local economy via increased demand for retail, hospitality and other service sectors. In the past, that local demand for service in Michigan was driven by high-wage manufacturing workers; today, it’s driven by high-wage professionals and managers.

Every community in Southeast Michigan will benefit economically if we grow our ability to attract the talent, and the employers, that work in the knowledge economy. They overwhelmingly are looking for communities with transit. And we’re not going to build that one town at a time.

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One area where this is particularly true is transit. Particularly rail and bus rapid transit. Across the country––in red and blue states––big metros are investing in light rail and bus rapid transit. Either regions starting from scratch to get in the game or those who have it, expanding. Why? Because they understand that rapid transit is a key ingredient to retaining and attracting young talent. And that young talent is an essential ingredient to future prosperity.

In Michigan there is some recognition in metro Grand Rapids that transit matters, far less so in metro Detroit. At the state level, transit, by and large, is either viewed with hostility or disinterest. Not smart!

Atlantic Cities––which does a great job covering transportation––recently published an in–depth article on the debate in Chicago over a proposed Ashland Avenue bus rapid transit line. What struck me most reading it is that the vigorous debate they are having is completely missing here. And that until that debate is occurring here regularly we are going to be non competitive in retaining and attracting young talent.

The city of Chicago has about 250,000 residents––the second most in the country––25-34 year old with four year degrees. Detroit has 11,000. (The cities of Grand Rapids, Lansing/East Lansing, and Ann Arbor are in the same ball park as Detroit.) An extensive rail transit system is one of the core assets that has made Chicago a talent magnet. You can live there and not own a car, an increasing priority for college educated Millennials.

As Atlantic Cities notes Chicago is not resting on its laurels. They write: “In 2012, shortly after Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor, he and then-Chicago DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein got to work on a progressive transportation agenda that aimed to create 100 miles of protected bike lanes, a number of rail improvements, and a trio of BRT lines.”

Apparently the one controversial part of the expansion plan is the Ashland BRT. Which Atlantic Cities frames as a debate between those in Chicago who are car-oriented and those who are transit friendly. But Atlantic Cities portrays the Ashland BRT debate as about the appropriateness of rapid buses on one non-downtown corridor rather than a debate about the importance of rapid transit to the city’s and regions future. That seems to enjoy near universal support. So Chicago is debating whether or not to add a third bus rapid transit line to a system of more than 100 miles of rail.

That the debate is vigorous––both side well organized and engaged–-is something that doesn’t exist here at all. Where no one has to get organized to defend/support a car orientation. Its simply assumed to be the right answer. And hardly anyone has made the need in our urban centers for an alternative a priority.

In metro Detroit we finally have created a regional transit agency (which is good news), but haven’t funded it. And its Board seems not to share a vision of the central role rapid transit (rail and bus) can and should play in the region’s future.

As with so many other issues, either we get engaged in this debate about what being competitive in the 21st Century requires or we are going to continue to be an economic laggard.

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Our fixation on trying to once again make Michigan a factory-based state is at the center of our last century politics. But so is our approach to transportation. In some ways its even worse. As many of our policy makers seem to be ok with returning to 19th Century gravel roads rather than raise the gas tax even with across the board support from the business community for this user fee approach to road funding.

One of the reasons we need a gas tax increase is people are driving less. And this started before the Great Recession. This is not about we can’t afford to drive, its above changing consumer preferences to live in denser communities where they can walk, bike and use transit, rather than drive everywhere often for what seems like forever. Rick Haglund in a MLive article is one of many who has written about the Millennials, among others, driving far less than their parents. Haglund writes: “A new University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study found that by most measures, driving miles peaked in the United States in 2004, several years before the Great Recession and high gas prices hijacked consumers’ wallets. Michael Sivak, who authored the study, said the decline in miles driven is mainly a result of more telecommuting, increased use of public transportation, people relocating to cities and a decline in young drivers.” (Emphasis added.)

The trend is clear that 21st Century transportation systems are going to need to more balanced. Not just designed for cars, but for walking, bikes, and transit, transit, transit. As we have written before (here and here), in big metros like Detroit that should include rail. Places with this less car centric transportation systems are going to do better at retaining and attracting mobile talent. And places where mobile talent concentrate will be the most prosperous. End of story!

And yet Lansing, if they can cobble together the courage and votes to fund transportation, is proposing to spend nearly all the new funds on fixing and, even worse, expanding roads and doing it in a way that favors rural roads over the roads where people live. If we are serious about building a 21st  Century transportation system there are four steps we should take in whatever transportation funding initiative emerges in Lansing:

• Fund roads on the basis of population, not road miles.
• Increase the funding for transit to the state constitutional maximum
• Adopt complete streets as the basis for transportation design rather than the current policy of ever wider and wider roads to move cars faster and faster
• Stop major road expansion projects like the widening of I94 and I75 in metro Detroit.

For those interested in learning what a 21st Century transportation system should look like and how to build it I highly recommend Walkable City by Jeff Speck. As Speck makes clear, we know what 21st Century transportation looks like because leading edge communities across the country are building it. Its time for Michigan to join them.

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The Millennials, more than any previous generation, are concentrating in big metropolitan areas anchored by vibrant central cities. For Michigan to prosper it’s central cities – particularly Detroit – must be places where young mobile talent wants to live and work.

Through fundamental policy change the Snyder Administration can help create that quality of place. It largely requires changing the direction of three state agencies.

MSHDA can be a major player in the creation of vibrant urban neighborhoods. But far too often they are not both because of their almost sole focus on low income housing and their rules and regulations that prefer to invest in suburban style development even in urban neighborhoods. We need an explicit change in its mission to include both low income housing and creating vibrant urban neighborhoods. And to change its policies to favor development consistent with walkable urbanism.

The Department of Transportation probably is the most important state agency for creating quality of place. It also probably is the agency with policies that most work against creating the kind of neighborhoods young mobile talent are looking for. Its funding formulas favor rural, rather than big metro, roads as well as vastly favor roads over others forms of transportation (transit, bikes, walking). Its rules and regulations, like MSHDA’s, are written for suburban and rural, not urban settings.

We need changes to the funding formula that would base road funding on population not road miles and that would provide transit funding at the constitutional maximum of 10%. Also design standards for urban roads need to be completely overhauled consistent with walkable urbanism.

The M1 light rail line may well be the single most powerful tool for creating a Detroit that can compete for young talent at scale. Getting it funded and built needs to be a state priority.

Parks and outdoor recreation are amenities that matter to young talent. The state’s natural resources department (no matter what its name) through its land trust fund can fund the creation of new parks in our cities. But that too would take a change in policy which currently heavily favors rural and wilderness locations. Beyond the trust fund, special parks like Belle Isle could benefit from conversion to a state park. We need to charge the department with responsibility for expanding parks and outdoor recreation opportunities in our big metros, particularly their central cities.

Finally the arts. State support for the arts peaked in the Engler Administration at a little more than $25 million annually. Not a big amount, but with a big impact. It is a key amenity for young talent. Restoring state funding for the arts, possibly with a challenge to corporations and foundations to match, is an essential ingredient of a quality of place agenda.

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