Editor's Letter

Coasting To Prosperity

V

icki Barnett, a well-respected civic leader and politi-
cal activist, is promoting a developing strategy to
help Michigan and neighboring states coast to a
stronger Great Lakes region. The aim is to raise the bar by
capturing the potential of the region's natural resources, pro-
fessional talent and innovation investment.
This coming together, dubbed the
North Coast Project, is a daring idea,
born from grassroots prospecting over
many years by many disparate forces
to improve the economy and expand
opportunities within the region.
Given its central location, Michigan
could benefit greatly. Barnett's view
of the region encompasses Michigan,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
York and, as ancillaries, the Canadian
provinces of Ontario and
Quebec.
Barnett, a Farmington Hills-based investment
consultant, is a former Farmington Hills mayor
and immediate past president of the Michigan
Municipal League. In a position paper, she out-
lines her vision for the North Coast Project, an
economic stimulus coalition for the Great Lakes
region — so fertile in building blocks but so
under-regarded in political circles.
The coalition would exploit the region's
strengths to elevate the shared economic worth
Vicki Barnett
driven by key indicators like durable goods
manufacturing, higher education, medical
facilities and natural resources.
The North Coast Project eyes a vital entrepreneurial envi-
ronment. It would seek to recruit talented professionals and
fund commercialization of the many patents that originate
here as well as attract national and global investment.

The Barnett 80,16
As a journalist, I have followed Vicki Barnett's political for-
tunes for 23 years. She's genuine. With Michigan's economy
on a downward spiral since the go-go 1990s, Barnett paints a
bright picture of one possible road to economic recovery.
In December, Barnett wrote a thoughtful column in the
newsletter for the Center for Michigan, an Ann Arbor-based
think tank founded and led by former newspaper publisher
Phil Power. I was struck to learn that the Great Lakes states
together form the third-largest economy in the world behind
only the U.S. as a whole and Japan. The region contains a
high concentration of the world's top 100 universities, gradu-
ates almost 38 percent of America's university graduates and
develops 32 percent of America's patents.
"But despite these achievements, our region commercial-
izes only a scant percentage of these patents and continues to
bleed jobs and commerce to a global economy:' Barnett wrote.
Maybe Michigan's economic woes stem from over-provin-
cialism. Maybe Michigan does need to reach out more and
be the catalyst for a Great Lakes engine that fundamentally
recalibrates the region's economic and political model. Says
Barnett: "Our cities bear the burden of old-economy thinking
that employs state tax incentives to lure manufacturing plants
across common borders in an ongoing zero-sum game

The hope is for a North Coast Project that transforms the
educational, medical and research vigor into economic spurs
for the region, especially its urban sectors where extensive
government-financed infrastructure already exists.
Barnett's research reveals that most North Coast states are
significant tax donors to the federal government; they get far
less back than what they pay in federal taxes. Michigan got
about $1.54 billion less than what it last paid to the feds.

The Economic Boost
The North Coast coalition would expand Michigan's congres-
sional voice from 15 representatives and two senators to a
formidable team of 125 representatives and 16 senators —
almost 29 percent of the House and 26 percent of the Senate.
Municipal and business leaders of the Great Lakes states
have met a few times since March 2007 to shape a North
Coast Project plan relating to nuts and bolts issues like federal
transportation, urban support, innovation development and
post-secondary education investment.
Specific planning foresees a common venture-
capital pool, Great Lakes restoration in collabora-
tion with the federal government, and reciprocal
agreements to grant in-state tuition to attend public
universities throughout the North Coast. Another
intriguing idea calls for professional credentialing
and certification to allow holders of state-awarded
teaching and nursing degrees, for example, to
receive licenses to practice throughout the region.
Barnett says the Washington-based Brookings
Institution estimates that a Great Lakes restora-
tion compact, called the Great Lakes Regional
Collaboration Strategy, stands to ignite economic
incentives worth $50 billion. "New, long-term recreation and
tourism opportunities would infuse billions of additional dol-
lars into the economies of our coastal communities',' she says.
With more coastline than any state other than Alaska,
Michigan is poised to benefit significantly from priming our
grand waterways.
With the right mix of Great Lakes improvements and busi-
ness enhancements, perhaps we can, like Barnett says, trigger
transforming Michigan from rust belt to brain belt — "from
an aging state into one reborn for the 21st century!'
It will take years for the North Coast Project to jell. The pro-
cess will gain momentum once the Great Lakes' incremental
restoration gains congressional approval.
It's fortuitous that the framework to prosperity lies in the
region's existing resources. "All we need to do:' Barnett says, "is
redirect our priorities, work together and invest in ourselves."
Vicki Barnett knows the North Coast Project right now is a
paper tiger. "In any case she told me, "I will continue to move
ahead and reach out to new partners in our common efforts!'
I like her tenacity. The great state of Michigan will reap the
reward of any degree of the North Coast Project's success.

❑

E-mail Vicki Barnett at: VLBarnett@aol.com.

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Is a super regional collaboration really
practical?

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Has Michigan been too insulated economi-
cally?

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March 6 • 2008

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