Leaving Michigan Behind: Eight-year population exodus staggers state

[LeannaM]

Didn't see this posted anywhere, though I'm sure you guys are tired of negative news by now.

"
People are leaving Michigan at a staggering rate. About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving -- young, well-educated high-income earners -- are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.
Long treated as a symptom of Michigan's economic woes, outmigration has exploded into a massive problem of its own, a slow-motion Katrina splintering families, gutting state coffers and crippling an already hobbled economy, one moving van at a time."


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...staggers+state

[sg9018]

Posted here,
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?t=186
and here,
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?t=173
and there is a fellow up article about how half of university grads flee Michigan,

State tries to bolster grad rates, but growing number move away
Ron French / The Detroit News
Chicago -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm must see Emily Zuker in her nightmares.

Young, bright and college-educated, the Michigan State University grad got her degree in 2006 and immediately moved to Chicago -- now home to the largest concentration of recent MSU grads in the nation.

"It's just like being back at Michigan State," said Zuker, 25.

Except that it's not in the state of Michigan.
At a time when Granholm is pushing to double the number of college grads, the number of grads leaving the state has doubled instead.

Half of Michigan's college grads now leave the state within a year of graduation, taking with them their diplomas and the talent needed to help rebuild Michigan's economy.

"Every time we lose a student, we're losing part of the talent pool the state needs," said Michael Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan. "The states with the most talent win."

Green-and-white Spartan flags fly in the doorway of O'Malley's West. A neon MSU football helmet perches above the bar. Autographed jerseys of Mateen Cleaves, who led the school to its last NCAA basketball title, and former quarterback Drew Stanton hang on the walls near a big-screen TV that always shows MSU games.

One of the most die-hard Spartan sports bars is west of campus -- 225 miles west, in the trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.

There are more recent MSU grads in Chicago than in any other metro area -- including any community in Michigan. While the Windy City has always been a destination for Spartan grads, the number going there -- and other vibrant urban centers such as Minneapolis and New York -- is growing.

The number leaving the state has doubled since 2001, from 24 percent to 49 percent, according to a school survey.

Michigan-native grads of the University of Michigan are even more likely to leave -- 53 percent left in 2008, according to U-M.

By contrast, a similar survey at North Carolina State, found only 30 percent of graduates left North Carolina.

In some high-demand fields, the talent hemorrhaging is even worse.

"There's no longer a glut of 50 of them [[engineering grads) going to GM every year," said Garth Motschenbacher, director of employer relations in MSU's College of Engineering.

Granholm's goal in danger
Other Michigan colleges are witnessing the same exodus. A first-of-its-kind survey of all 2007 Michigan public university graduates, conducted by Michigan Future, Inc., revealed that half of grads left the state within a year.

"People are just starting to care about this," said Michigan Future President Lou Glazer. "They're just starting to understand that college grads drive the economy."

Saying that college grad rates must increase for Michigan to remain competitive, Granholm set a goal in 2004 of doubling the number of college graduates.

Since then, the number graduating from Michigan colleges has inched upward from 38,615 in 2004 to 41,250 in 2008.

But the burgeoning exodus of college grads has wiped out that gain.

The biggest beneficiaries of Granholm's efforts so far have been states like Washington, where officials bluntly describe the influx of thousands of college-educated workers from Michigan as a cost-effective approach to education.

"That we can attract those people [[with degrees) is a benefit to the state," said Washington state Rep. Glenn Anderson, the ranking Republican on the higher education committee. "We are importing intellectual capital at a very low cost to ourselves."

So many college grads have flooded into Washington to work for companies such as Boeing and Microsoft, that Anderson has had trouble pushing for increased higher education funding for in-state students.

Indeed, since 2000, Washington has jumped from 18th to 12th in the nation in the percentage of adults with a degree. Michigan fell from 30th to 35th.

"We're getting a lot of people, bright people, and that's good," said State Rep. Mike Sells, D-Everett.

You don't need a college degree to know what happens to Michigan if the trend continues. "If we don't get younger and better educated," Boulus said, "we're going to get poorer."

Large tax impact looms
Twelve percent of the members of the MSU Class of 2007 live in Chicago -- three times more than live in Detroit, according to data from MSU and Michigan Future.

For the 22,000 MSU alumni who live in the Chicago metro area, "psychologically, it's not like they moved away," said Kelley Bishop, MSU director of career services. "Of course, from a taxpayer perspective, it's quite a distance."

On average nationally, those earning bachelor's degrees today can expect to earn $900,000 more over their lifetimes than those with only a high school diploma, according to the Census Bureau.

Multiply that by Michigan's net loss of 18,000 people with college degrees in 2007 alone, and Michigan faces a devastating future loss in tax revenue.

Though he doesn't have data, Bishop says he believes many college grads move back to Michigan eventually. But other studies show that if expats don't move back before they marry and have children, they won't at all.

"If they're in Chicago and get married, they're more likely to move to a Chicago suburb than back to Michigan," Glazer said.

In fact, 63 percent of college grads who had moved out of the state said they had no intention of ever moving back.

"When the state is trying to foster higher education because we know business follows talent, what do you do when your best and brightest won't stay?" asked a frustrated Kurt Metzger, demographer and director of the Detroit Area Community Indicators System, a Detroit-based think tank.

"We're in a fight for college graduates," Metzger said, "and we're losing."

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090...+flee+Michigan

[Russix]

Why aren't they all moving to Oakland County? Michigan is in a life or death battle and Detroit is the key to its survival. Everyone is so infatuated with the idea that it’s not necessary to have a vibrant urban center to build a strong sustainable economy. Instead of the city pulling the state down, it could be pulling it up. What the hell else is there in Illinois? Chicago is Illinois’ economy. If the state can stop dancing around the political ramifications of investing in urbanizing technologies for the city, it could save itself.

[buzzman0077]

If this state really wants to attract and retain recent college grads then they will have to invest in mass transit and increasing density in Detroit. Many of the college educated peers of my generation want a more urban lifestyle than the suburban plains and McMansions that we grew up in offered. I hate, and I don't use hate lightly, that you can go to any suburb in this country and it is almost exactly the same as every other one. There are no longer and regional differences anymore. At least cities seem to maintain some uniqueness to them.

[English]

Why aren't they all moving to Oakland County?

This is what no one in SE Michigan wants to talk about.

[MrNittany]

The number of 2007 MSU grads living in Chicago is TRIPLE [[!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) the number of grads living in Detroit?????????

Maybe that stat just refers to the cities themselves, as opposed to the entire Metro regions ....... but regardless, that number is absolutely jaw-dropping startling.

[jjw]

Here in Baltimore, I now have six coworkers who have graduated from Michigan schools and moved. They all mentioned similar reasons: better jobs being the main one but also clearer choices for a city-neighborhood being right up there. Two of them take our metro to work each day and comment on the fact that they can leave the car parked most of the time.
A lot of younger people want options that Detroit just isn't offering at this time.

[Lloyd]

The problems with Michigan really begin with Detroit, and the problems with Detroit are wide and varied.

The first issue is the vast urban sprawl caused by the exodus from Detoit. If the "best and brightest" move to the suburbs there is simply nothing left as a base to keep a city vibrant.

The second issue is the apparent corruption of Detoit politicians. It certainly appears to me, as a Detroit ex-pat, that it is more important to the city leadership to line their pockets as well as the pockets of their friends, cronies and relative than it is to actually work to bring the city back.

The third issue is the lack of urban identity. I now live in Charleston SC where there is a "75 year rule." That means that if a building is at least 75 years old man cannot bring it down. As a result, this relatively little city has many homes that date to the 1700's and still more that date to the 1800's and there is an urban identity where people care about the city. In Detroit, even when I still lived there <and we have to go back to 1975 for that> the really old buildings were in disrepair and on the verge of falling down, I would wager there are not many of them left today and, if they are, they are in such a condition that restoration is not an option. No identity = no pride = no hope for the city.

Only three, there are still more. Want to bring Detroit back? First restore the identity that it once had, or does anyone not remember when Downtown was vibrant with the best collection of Art Deco buildings anywhere and a host of gilded age mansions?

[Danny]

Lots of people are moving out of the state for better employment opportunties. Our manfucturing jobs are now in the globalization sector and there's nothing we can do to control or downsize it trend. Give a big thanks to George Bush and cronies for making world trade possible. Also thank Obama for making world trade a relationship. Don't blame Granholm for this mess. He tried her best to bring international companies to Michigan it is gaining small steps.

[iheartthed]

Why aren't they all moving to Oakland County?

Great question. I would love to hear the Great Protector of Oakland County's pocket book answer it.

[tetsua]

You'd be surprised how many Michigan plates I see at this apt complex here in Chicago.

[Homer]

Daughter went to Grad School in Colorado and boyfriend out there is also from SE Mi. They plan on returning next year pending home sale issues in CO. They are Pharmacists and will have no trouble finding employment. There are jobs here depending on your field of interest.

[zitro]

Don't blame Granholm for this mess. He tried her best to bring international companies to Michigan it is gaining small steps.

I always wondered about he/her.

[digitalvision]

First restore the identity that it once had, or does anyone not remember when Downtown was vibrant with the best collection of Art Deco buildings anywhere and a host of gilded age mansions?

This is mistake number one. I'm not saying we shouldn't save those old buildings... but those days are gone. They're long gone, and there's some bullshit to the "glory of yesteryear" [[ever watch "Bullshit!" by Penn and Teller? They did an episode on this. Great viewing on SO many topics, even if I don't agree with it all). A city is not made of buildings, but of people.

We don't have much left. We need to keep what we have left that we can, and then move forward. That identity and culture you speak of is gone; that identity is distributed history amongst the suburban grandmothers we have. I don't want to bring back the glory days of a majority of matchstick houses, regular race riots, and more. Detroit was a dirty, stratified city. A city that was not pro-entrepreneurship and firebombed auto dealers open on weekends. Fuck that.

We need a urban mind mecca; the reality of work [[which our leaders across the region don't get - Brooks simply cannot understand the motivations of young professionals, he keeps trying to put it into the box of how HE understands things should be done; the problem is those rules do not apply) is that almost everyone is going to be pseudo-independent. It sucks, especially if you're used to security, but it's how it is, and instead of whining about it deal with it and make it happen. Blaming people doesn't get you a job.

I see my well-qualified, educated, high-earning friends leave this state in droves. I just saw another one off to the west coast for a $10k pay cut but they're going to be able to walk to work. They had a great job, making $250k a year at 32 years old. With of cost of living, they're taking a more serious haircut than that and they know it. This has repeated a lot in my life.

The key to this is Detroit. Detroit has to get it's act together, because 2/3rds of the land near the proposed rail line, according to Hertel, is undeveloped. Detroit has to encourage small entrepreneurship and stop focusing solely on the big win. We need to embrace the fact that it IS a global economy [[and not changing) and use our international border crossing wisely.

From being a single-industry town, to our racial strife, to our lack of vision, the reality is our past sorta sucked and I don't want to relive that. And I don't want it to be Chicago or New York, because if I did, I woulda left because frankly it's way fuckin' easier to get in a U-Haul instead of staying around here trying to make a difference.

Detroit should and needs to be Detroit; unique to itself, sharing some of the positive attributes of areas, but also have it's own qualities. Interestingly, by going last in the major city redevelopment train, we've seen the best and worst practices. There's a roadmap. And it hinges on the city center. In many ways, this mayoral election is so critical but everyone's hit the snooze button; and I really hope both Dave Bing and Ken Cockrel come out with the vision and not just the band-aids.

[xD_Brklyn]

Even as a recent high school grad attending WSU in the early 80s, it seemed so obvious that the city needed to diversify and adapt. Still I'm surprised things are getting this bad.

[professorscott]

I'm not at all surprised that things are getting this bad, because we make one constant, glaring mistake in this region: we never change anything.

Einstein's definition of "insanity" is: repeatedly doing the same thing, and expecting different results. Works for me.

[Optima]

Professorscott seemed to succinctly summarize the myriad of Detroit and surrounding area's problems. I say and have said repeatedly that regionalization is the answer to salvaging this entire area but with "leaders" like Monica and her cronies with their short-sighted and obviously deficient "logic," there is simply no hope and without hope, there is nothing.

I still spend my money in the city and have realtives who pay taxes there but there really is little hope for a rejuvenation unless a true partnership is unveiled and education becomes the focal point. Quite frankly, I wouldn't root against the success of the city [[as defined by criteria used repeatedly on these threads) but am not holding my breathe either...

[Lloyd]

Digitalvision, you missed my point. I was not saying to restore the Art Deco/Gilded Age feel of Detroit, I was talking about restoring a cultural identity. I feel that having the abiltiy to identify with a place is the foundation of pride in that place, and that having pride is necessary to the will to help that place succeed.

[jjw]

I agree with Digitalvision. Hopefully Detroit maintains and restores those buildings, plans, layouts, areas that make it uniquely Detroit. A full restoration of Fort Wayne would be a step in that direction along with the elimination of the parking pad on Belle Isle for the "car" race.

[DetroitPlanner]

The biggest issue here is not saving old buildings. You can't save old builldings if you do not have the jobs needed to fill them as offices, apartments, or industrial buildings. You also can't have a good transit system unless you have a job for people to get to.

The brain drain is a serious issue. We spend literally tens of thousands of dollars to educate each student only to have the best leave our state or region. This leaves us with more folks on the dole and less dollars to support them with. In this scenario, historic preservation will never be a priority.

The state needs to think about radical approaches to funding colleges. We have too many leaving. There should be a serious penalty for this. We can no longer afford to have our schools draw people here from around the world, educate them at our universities, then allow them to leave the State. It makes no sense economically and puts us in a far worse position. It would be far better for the State to close down U of M, MSU and WSU and ship all of its university students to Ohio!

[digitalvision]

Thing is, DP, by adding those penalties you will push more qualified people away from even spending their college dollars here. It's the wrong incentive. No one wants to be restricted to where they can go, so all we'll get is the bottom of the barrel who have no choice BUT to go to our universities because they can't qualify anywhere else, because they will be restricted.

I know that the people I know would of gone out of state for college under such a restriction. People do whatever is best for themselves. Remember, many times, these folks are paying for their own college through loans, private scholarships, etc., the state isn't.

[Lorax]

Well, then the answer is to incentivize graduating students to stay in Michigan. How do you do that?

First of all you need to attract varied businesses, which I believe is happening now under Granholm. Energy, health care, education itself-

Furthermore, in keeping with the theme of renovation/ green architecture/green energy, what Michigan, and specifically Detroit needs to see are the trees in the forest!

Use the incredible depth of architecture in Detroit as a laboratory for historic preservation.

Develop through the local universities a degree program larger and more comprehensive than any others offered in the US, and use publicly owned buildings as experimental laboratories, with an end user in mind- whether it be for resale to private enterprise, a combination public/private usage- and make sure from the beginning there is a plan for the structure and it's eventual new use.

This has to be done on a large scale- call it a WPA style comprehensive university led program to target structures large and small, with emphasis on street-line preservation and enhancement, and fold it into the larger plan for the city with infill housing and sidewalk edge retail.

Now for the hook- give graduating students the incentive to stay by offering jobs through a private/public cooperation in related businesses based on merit.

Give these students a price break on continuing to use university housing for a limited time to get their careers off the ground, which would incentivize the universities to add additional housing units as well.

Offer university discounts to continue their education in state.

Treat the idea of being a Michiganian as a privilege.

At the state level, to encourage young, talented, educated people to stay, offer incentives such as MEANINGFUL tax breaks for mom & pop size small business startups [[not the SBA definition of small business, but the real definition, say, less than 100k in startup costs). Tax breaks for those willing to start families and put down roots.

Stop penalizing people for being poor- eliminate the aggregious practice of debtor prisons which both Florida and Michigan engage in to raise funds by tossing people into prison for not paying miniscule court fines.

End the practice of prisoners being used, and the system gamed to encourage prison as an alternative in order to provide private enterprise free labor for manufacturing purposes.

Local governments need to be held accountable, and removed if not doing the people's business.

Nationally we need to return to a tarrif based economy, which will cause us to be accused of protectionism, but is engaged as a practical practice by most nations including Japan and China, and in the short term will increase the demand for American workers building American products for Americans to buy. This is crucial if we are to have any semblance of a manufacturing base going forward.

These are systemic changes that need to take place, and like much of America, need to be done to drag our people kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

The answers are all around us, it's the naysayers who need to be shown how it can be done.

[DetroitPlanner]

Thing is, DP, by adding those penalties you will push more qualified people away from even spending their college dollars here. It's the wrong incentive. No one wants to be restricted to where they can go, so all we'll get is the bottom of the barrel who have no choice BUT to go to our universities because they can't qualify anywhere else, because they will be restricted.

I know that the people I know would of gone out of state for college under such a restriction. People do whatever is best for themselves. Remember, many times, these folks are paying for their own college through loans, private scholarships, etc., the state isn't.

I'd have to disagree with you on a few points. The people who leave do not have a lasting impact on the economy and are not worth the investment. I'm not talking about other money, just money that comes from taxes that could be better utilized not subsidizing people who are not from Michigan and plan on leaving Michigan once they are done with school. There is clearly no easy answer to this problem.

The State spends quite a bit of its money on the universities but is not reaping most benefits from having them here. What would be the point to keep them around? Private colleges such as U of DM, LTU or CCS also bring in students, but the state does not subsize them in the same degree as it does public ones. Lots of people come to Michigan from elsewhere, get educated then leave. These folks only estabish residency in order to get a break on tuition, most of their economic base is still out of state. Its not like Ann Arbor or even Cass Corridor is reaping huge tax reciepts from having these institutions located in their area. In many cases the cost of infrastructure alone is not covered by what comes in from the leeches.

[Novine]

The Urbanophile had an extensive discussion on this topic. I agree with his point that it's counter-productive to focus exclusively on keeping graduates here in state. For some, their career fields don't offer opportunities in state and for others, it's good for them to see some of the world while they're young and impressionable. We have too many people in our state who don't travel and don't see other cities and cultures and that's not good for us. We should be focusing on how we can encourage those graduates to come back when they're ready to raise families or encourage graduates from other states to come to Michigan.

[professorscott]

It's the wrong approach here to try to use a stick. If people want to leave, they'll leave; this isn't East Berlin, and you can't make it so.

The problem we have is simple and solvable: we have built a region that is not attractive to people in their 20s and 30s. We have to rebuild the region, and remarket it, so it is attractive to young adults and young families.

What does this mean? Well, send our planners and political leaders to successful regions that are attracting young adults: Boston, Denver, Portland, others. Compare what those cities/regions offer to what metro Detroit offers.

Some things we do well; for instance, I would hold up the Metro Park system against any other community's parks. Those things we need to do a better job of selling.

Some things we absolutely suck at; for instance, public transportation. Those things we have to fix.

But if we keep running the region as we have for the past seventy years, we'll just fail. Detroit could easily fall below 600,000 or 400,000 or any number you care to name. The region could slide back into the low 3 millions. Many suburbs will be in large portion abandoned. This is not hyperbole; it's a prediction. My concern is, almost nobody in our local political caste seems to have any understanding of these issues. They are like the seagulls in Finding Nemo, brainlessly repeating the chant of "Mine! Mine!"