Because Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) put so many animals into such small spaces, they require heavy use of antibiotics and hormones, and produce huge amounts of toxic animal manure.

Here are two good reminders that what you eat has a lot to do with who has their feet on the ground in the state Capitol.

The issue in both cases is the power and privilege of industrial agriculture, which has a lot of feet on the ground in Lansing and money to keep them there.

And there are two lessons from these two cases: First, don’t let that power and privilege dissuade you from getting involved, because the underrepresented public-you and me-just won a big one. And second, stay on your toes, because there’s always another stinker coming.

The big win is for those concerned about pollution from livestock factories. It’s compliments of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter, a steadfast watchdog of some 200 concentrated animal feeding operations in our state.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Hannah Clark is looking at how well public transit, including Benzie Bus, is working in the Grand Traverse region.

After a few years away, I’m back home in northern Michigan. I spent the last few weeks rediscovering my former life: the best hikes, the names of friends who have somehow remembered mine, new restaurants, the first swim in frigid Lake Michigan.

Now I’m rediscovering our public transit.

Public transit was almost as much a part of my childhood as canoeing the Crystal River: My dad worked at the Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA), and although I usually didn’t understand a thing he was talking about (Dispatch? Para-transit?), I knew a lot about busses. Before I got a driver’s license I loved riding BATA into Traverse City to fulfill my yearning for the mall. It was an adventure that gave me a sense of mobility and independence.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Like a number of much larger towns, Traverse City may soon legalize urban chickens. Photo credit Daily Mail

Chickens in the city? That is the question that the Traverse City planning commission is pondering, and it appears that many people are saying “yes.”

As this Traverse City Record-Eagle article explains, the town may not have a choice in the matter, according to a written legal opinion by the City of Traverse City’s attorney, Karrie Zeits. Ms. Zeits writes in her brief that the Michigan Right to Farm Act “prohibits cities from banning commercial farming, including the raising of chickens, and that a city resident need only sell one egg to qualify as commercial.”

But that legalese is beside the point. At the heart of the matter for all of us here at the Michigan Land Use Institute is this: Raising chickens is a great way to both expand the local-food economy we so strongly support and better incorporate a protein-rich food into families’ diets.

If it is perfectly legal to raise chickens in Ann Arbor, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Brooklyn, N.Y., we can probably find a way to do it in T.C.! Of course, we’ll need some regulations-like no roosters, for example-to keep both people and chickens safe, clean, and hassle-free.

The planning commission said it would likely bring this issue back in July for further discussion. Stay tuned for your opportunity to be a part of it!

Brian Beauchamp is a policy specialist for the Michigan Land Use Institute. Reach him at brian@mlui.org.

Responding to a worldwide shortage, MSU Extension is helping growers sprout a new hops industry in Michigan.

Because of a worldwide hops shortage, brewers everywhere are increasingly interested in securing locally produced hops.

Brewers and potential growers from the Grand Traverse region and beyond learned about hops production last December, when Michigan State University Extension hosted a “Sustainable Hops Production Workshop” in Traverse City. More than 150 brewers, farmers, and backyard hobbyists attended the event, which had to move to a larger venue to accommodate the big turnout.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Empire’s Lake Michigan shoreline is beautiful, but to build its local economy the village needs a growth plan that includes badly needed infrastructure, something The Grand Vision can help fashion and implement.

Located along a particularly beautiful stretch of northern Lake Michigan shoreline, the small village of Empire looks like a guaranteed economic success story.

But despite its beautiful locale, Empire struggles to maintain enough economic activity, particularly during its long northern Michigan’s winters, so that year-rounders can make a living.

Recently, the village took a standard downtown-boosting step: It buffed up its streetscape and beach. Now officials are pursuing a less traditional project that could turn a lot of younger heads toward this community of 360, where the median age is 49: installing free, village-wide, wireless Internet service.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Space Shuttle Discovery soars skyward from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Dr. Jerry Linenger--who lives in Sutton's Bay--was onboard this special space mission. He spoke this week at the State Theater in Traverse City to a captivated audience about the similarities between space travel and on-the-ground collaboration.

Although it was a regional event, Tuesday night’s rollout of The Grand Vision’s final draft plan at Traverse City’s State Theater was actually a watershed for the entire state.

The evening had real weight to it, and not only because it represented the work of more than 15,000 people across six counties who, as it turns out, largely share a surprising bold, unorthodox view of how this region should grow over the next half-century.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

It took a communitywide vision to build Benzie County’s successful Betsie Valley Trail; now another group is working on another vision, which would bring community-owned wind power and jobs to Michigan’s smallest county.

I’ve watched The Grand Vision from a distance over the past year or so. My associates at the Michigan Land Use Institute have been all over it like a cheap suit, encouraging very, very wide community participation with an intensity and drive that is just one example of why that organization has stayed in business for 17 years.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Seventeen years ago, some Grand Traverse-area residents launched a grassroots movement to better manage the area’s growth. They wanted to protect the area’s pristine environment, farmland, and uniqueness.

The end result was New Designs for Growth, a program that established a way to evaluate whether proposed developments fit the community. The program also produced a highly regarded guidebook to help residents and government officials shape commercial and residential development.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

The New Designs for Growth handbook could blend with The Grand Vision’s 50-year plan for development in the Grand Traverse region.

On Tuesday May 19th from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the State Theater you can participate in an historic event: the rollout and celebration of “the final Grand Vision”-a citizen-certified plan for the next 50 years of growth in our six-county region. And the Michigan Land Use Institute is proud to report that it is truly Grand!

We have tirelessly supported the Grand Vision process since its inception. We collaborated with other organizations to design a citizen-led process to find solutions to local traffic congestion other than building a five-lane bypass around Traverse City and an ill-advised bridge over the peaceful Boardman River Valley. We lobbied to redirect federal bypass funding to the study and to expand the study area to include all six area counties instead of just one. We helped ensure the hiring of the nation’s top scenario planning consultants. And we cranked up our communications machine to help get the word out which resulted in more than15,000 people getting engaged in the process.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…

It was standing room only for last month’s Benzie County Wind Week sessions, including this one at the Elberta Lifesaving Station.

A few weeks ago, I blogged a bit about communities that are coming together to create their own green energy futures. Since then, I’m pleased to say, I’ve seen it again in northern Michigan, this time during a communitywide discussion in Benzie County about wind energy.

The concept of “community” fascinates me. It tends to avoid strict definition, but you know it when you feel it. It could be the Traverse City community, or your neighborhood community. It might be a weekly community that shows up at your church, or a seasonal community that plays softball in the summer. It’s all community, and it’s almost always a good thing.
|Read the Rest of the Entry…