A precise assortment of articles packaged around topics that affect the politics and quality of life throughout Michigan and beyond.
Michigan's Coal Rush: The Power to Change
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From Rust to Blue
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Several years ago, at the prompting of President George W. Bush, public
officials from around the Great Lakes Basin put together a
multi-billion-dollar plan for a badly needed restoration of those
magnificent bodies of water, which hold 20 percent of the planet's fresh
water. But then the White House cooled to the idea, and the proposal is
stuck in Congress, which seems reluctant to spend that much money on the
environment. "From Rust to Blue" underlines and demonstrates, with
real-world examples from throughout the basin, that restoring the damaged
Great Lakes ecology will also restore the basin's badly damaged economy,
too, and provide a very large prosperity payback that dwarfs the proposed
$20 billion investment |
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Here We Grow: Six Counties, One Future
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The land around and near Grand Traverse Bay has long been famous for its unrivaled beauty and excellent quality of life. But rapid, poorly planned development threatens those northwest Michigan birthrights. Fortunately, an unprecedented, wide-open, citizen-based planning project is coming to the region; it offers residents an unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work together as neighbors and decide, outside of the usual government channels, how the region should grow for decades to come. Nationally renowned community-design experts who believe strongly in public participation lead the project, which features computer graphics powered by real-world data to illustrate what today's planning decisions will do to the land, our economy, and even our traffic jams decades from now. "Here We Grow" introduces us to the team leading the planning, how the process works, and the myriad of ways the results of this unprecedented community "visioning" can affect daily life, the environment, public health, and the economy. |
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Busted
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Michigan doesn’t have a shortage of money, as Democrats argue. The state’s budget is $43 billion annually. Nor are its taxes too high, as Republicans assert. Michigan has a shortage of ideas, vision, and willingness to collaborate. So long as the state’s budget is devoted to building more roads not regional rapid transit, promoting farm products in the farm-killing global commodity markets, subsidizing sprawl in rural areas, selling state forests and other assets at bargain prices, and cutting funding to higher education in the knowledge economy, we all lose. Unless Governor Granholm and state legislators develop a prosperity plan and the programs to carry it out that fit the 21st century - programs that promote fresh local foods, rapid transit, energy efficiency, environmental protection, housing and urban neighborhoods, and access to great schools - it doesn’t matter how much money the state spends or doesn’t spend. This special report is intended to show how existing programs neither buttress the present nor prepare for the future. They do, however, ensure that Michigan’s standing in the world will continue to diminish. |
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Udall: A Letter to my Grandchildren
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A letter by Mr. Udall to his grandchildren about global warming. |
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Judgement on Nature
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This special report takes a close look at recent federal and state court rulings that affect Michigan’s environment and the public interest. It was prompted by an unexpected state Appellate Court ruling in 2004 that barred citizens from walking on Michigan’s Great Lakes beaches. That decision, which viewed private property rights as superior to the historic right of Michigan citizens to stroll along the Great Lakes shoreline, got us thinking. Has the ideological shift in politics influenced how state and federal courts rule in cases that involve Michigan’s natural resources and the public trust? Our reporting found that a new, stricter approach is emerging in how justices interpret environmental law. The result is a gradual expansion in the ability of business interests and developers to gain access to natural resources. The courts also are narrowing the authority of citizens and regulators to apply environmental statutes as broadly as they once did. |
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Smart Vote
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Historic election results in Michigan and in other states since 2000 should settle any dispute over whether voters care enough about solving congestion, slowing sprawl, investing in downtowns, workforce housing, environmental protection, and farmland conservation to make their leaders care, too. The message for elected leaders, even candidates for the presidency in 2008, is unmistakable. Take sprawl seriously. Work for sensible solutions. Or face defeat. |
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Seeds of Prosperity
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Michigan’s agricultural sector does not attract nearly enough attention from the state’s government, although the industry contributes more than $59 billion annually to the state’s economy and employs one million people. Yet, even as more farmland falls to suburban development and agriculture’s political influence erodes, many growers are developing bright, new, entrepreneurial approaches that can save their family farms, the rural towns that depend on them, and our precious land. This special, ongoing series, which points toward the Institute’s second Seeds of Prosperity conference this fall, reports on the challenges and opportunities facing Michigan’s farmers and new policies that local, state, and national officials must embrace to strengthen this welcome trend. The series’ first four articles were written in partnership with Michigan State University’s Land Policy Program. |
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Collected Essays
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A collection of stirring articles by the Elm Street Writers Group |
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Growing Grand Rapids
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Scores of mid-sized American cities in the 21st century face a profound and similar challenge: confront the relentless march of new highways, sewers, schools, subdivisions, and shopping centers pushing ever further into the countryside and develop a new style of growth that rejuvenates dreary downtowns, adds enduring value to the economy, and enhances opportunity for all citizens. This special reporting series, Growing Grand Rapids, investigates the work underway in one midwestern community — a 2003 All America City Award finalist — to solve sprawl and create a world-class place to learn, live, work, and play. |
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Lansing Lowdown
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Telling conversations with some of the most interesting and influential people in Michigan's capital. |
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Target: Environment
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A rash campaign to radically change the nation's basic environmental and public health protection statutes is under way in Washington. The potential effect on Michigan is profound. In partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Institute is investigating the proposed changes and undertaking reporting and commentary about the brazen program and its potential to affect citizens, natural resources, and the quality of life here in Michigan and the Great Lakes region.
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Progress and Prosperity
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Remarkable work is under way in Michigan to slow sprawl and make Michigan
more competitive. Governor Jennifer M. Granholm and Republican leaders are
cooperating to produce promising reforms in land use, economic, urban,
transportation, and environmental policy. The Michigan Land Use Institute
is covering the events, the players, and the ramifications of Michigan's
determined drive to achieve Smart Growth.
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The Turning Point
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On March 24, 2003, Gov. Jennifer Granholm personally opened the first meeting of the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council. The council is the most prominent, state-sanctioned effort in three decades to address the consequences of Michigan’s ever-spreading patterns of development. The last effort failed. The 21st century version is likely to be more successful. The Michigan Land Use Institute's news desk is keeping a close eye on the proceedings. |
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Great Expectations
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Governor Jennifer Granholm promised to strike hard at wasteful development. House Speaker Rick Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema support government activism on land use. Action on Smart Growth is now possible in Michigan.The Institute's journalists are closely tracking the story
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The Great Choice
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The Institute's corps of top journalists and editors covered the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. See their thorough, probing reporting of what the candidates said about Smart Growth, transportation, agriculture, and the environment. |
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Great Lakes Water Security
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On December 6, 2000 the Perrier Group, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle, the world's largest food company, applied to the local health authorities in Mecosta County for permission to drill two water wells on an 800-acre private hunting preserve in the county's southern reaches. The company's purpose: to establish a source for a new bottling plant to ship its popular Ice Mountain brand of spring water throughout the upper Midwest. Five weeks later the permits were granted. Like a hot match put to a fuse, the approvals touched off a stunningly fierce debate about who controls Michigan's underground reservoirs of fresh water -- water so abundant and pure that half of the state's 9.9 million residents draw theirs straight from the ground |
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Opposing Land Deal on South Fox Island
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David Johnson, one of Michigan's wealthiest and most politically influential developers sought for years to wrest control of valuable public lands on South Fox Island, a magnificent Lake Michigan atoll 25 miles west of Leelanau County. On March 7, 2003, Mr. Johnson's latest proposal to turn 219 acres of magnificent state-protected dunes, virgin cedars, and untouched beach previously owned by the people of Michigan into his own private domain was approved by Republican Attorney General Mike Cox. The Institute discovered that in the week prior to the November 2002 election, Mr. Johnson and two senior executives of his development company made large campaign donations to Mr. Cox, who narrowly won his race. |
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The Engler Record
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Judging Gov. John Engler’s environmental record against Michigan's tradition of leadership on conserving natural resources is like comparing a common moth to a monarch butterfly. The Institute closely covered Michigan’s weakening resolve during the Engler years to safeguard resources, protect public health, and enforce environmental law. No journalist documented the story and its consequences more thoroughly than Keith Schneider, the Institute’s program director. |
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The Harding Watch
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Russell Harding, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality director under Governor John Engler, was a candidate for a senior environmental posting in the Bush administration and was under consideration as a possible EPA chief. Michigan business leaders often commended Mr. Harding for streamlining the state's permitting system. But Michigan's environmental and grassroots organizations were forthright in their critical assessment: Mr. Harding's seven-year tenure was marked by a consistent pattern of violating, skirting, and undermining Michigan's environmental laws. |
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Mega Manure Fails Farmers, Public, Environment
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Results of a 1999 Institute investigation of lax oversight of Michigan's factory farms. |
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