Michigan’s Next Step: A Conversation with Bruce Katz

Bruce Katz, Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute has a message for Michigan: alternative energy, sustainability, and an export-driven culture are what will distinguish us in the new economy.

He also says it’s time the state embraced its cities – not its suburbs, exurbs, and small towns – as the true way forward. Like it or not, it is where the nation is heading in terms of talent, innovation, and growth. Urban centers are the great incubators, Katz claims, reshaping our nation’s culture, policy, neighborhoods, and economic policy. Michigan ignores this trend at its own peril.

To compete in the global economy, says the vice president of the Brookings Institution, the state must revise and evolve its ideas about how to achieve economic prosperity.

Katz was in Lansing recently and talked to Capital Gains news editor Natalie Burg.