I would offer an alternative goal. How about THE GREAT research/development/entrepreneurial center of the Midwest. This goal is perhaps a bit modest. It does not seek to supplant Silicon Valley. We can amend the goal later to do that. In my opinion, this is an achievable goal and one that worth pursuing.

Another opinion: The absolute bottom of “high paying jobs” is $150,000. This is the kind of salary mid-level managers get in the major firms. It seems to me to be a reasonable standard.

If you bring in high paying jobs, other jobs will follow (anything from service to assistants to lower level).

What about jobs that you wouldn’t consider high paying, Fred? They can’t all be, and aren’t.

That’s a nice perspective but 2002 was a lot different than now. Since 2002, the population that has left Michigan is so large a number that an exodus of that magnitude has never been factored, studied, or quantitated. Add to that the highest unemployment in the nation, and simply (I feel very strongly that) the only way to attract people is to attract good jobs. Good, high paying jobs are important to rebuilding population. Then the city needs to make itself very attractive for companies to not only start-up, but stay.

As someone who is still a young professional (though at 30 I am quickly moving out of that demographic) I definitely agree that the students vision is something I am many other young professionals want. Many of the communities that younger folks are moving to are walkable, with lots of vibrancy. And I feel like I need to stress that we can have more of these things in Ann Arbor without sacrificing Ann Arbor to the alter of extreme-urbanism. We don’t have to become Chicago or New York development-wise to have some of the great aspects of those places.

I would also say that while jobs are clearly important (especially in this economy) people do move to areas and then try to find jobs. The organization Michigan Future has documented this phenomenon and has concluded that place matters a lot for knowledge workers. It’s actually an interesting chicken and egg concept. If you focus on quality of place do jobs follow or vice versa?

Personally, my husband and I moved to Ann Arbor because we heard it was a lot like Madison, WI. We moved to Madison after college and loved it. I was also interested in graduate school at some point, so the idea of moving to Ann Arbor seemed great. So we moved here when both of us were in our early 20s (in 2002) without jobs or family connections. And we found work and I went to graduate school and we loved it here so much that we stayed. However, we also know many friends that have had to move out of this state because they couldn’t find jobs.

Mary, thanks again for the great article.