The Michigan Municipal League's new book, The Economics of Place: The Value of Building Place Around People was the focus of a recent "That Michigan Radio Show". The book received rave reviews from show co-hosts Steven Bennett and Holly Hetzner.
"As I was reading through the book I was nodding my head so often that my co-workers probably thought I was going into some kind of seizure. No, I wasn't seizing I was just in violent agreement with a lot of the observations noted in the book," said Hetzner during the show.
The radio show, sponsored by the Prima Civitas Foundation, was expected to air on the Michigan Talk Network this weekend, but also is available online here and starting on Monday (Dec. 12, 2011) on itunes under podcasts, search "That Michigan Show" and find show 12.
Michigan Municipal League CEO Dan Gilmartin was a main guest for the show and he talked about the book (available here on Amazon.com), and why placemaking is vital to Michigan's future.
"One of the real issues here in Michigan is issue of place," Gilmartin said. "We're in an environment now where jobs are mobile, people are mobile, companies are mobile, and we're finding out those people we're after if you will are choosing cities throughout the world. The world is becoming more urbanized that it's ever been. There are 60 million people a year around the world moving to cities. We're seeing some real upticks in those urban lifestyles and attracting talented new workforces and attracting new businesses. So when you talk about trying to create jobs and bring Michigan out of its doldrums the concept of having places that people want to be in is more important now than it's ever been."
Listen to the full show here and you can listen to the first part of Dan's segment here and the second segment here.
Read other reviews and articles about the League's new book here.
Matt Bach is director of communications for the Michigan Municipal League. He can be reached at (734) 669-6317 and mbach@mml.org.
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