This one managed to slip past us last week, but in case you missed it too, this article from The Economist is definitely worth checking out.

Here are a few excerpts:

There are glints of progress [in Flint], and not just because GM is building a new factory. Construction workers are beginning to transform the downtown area. There is a heated contest for mayor: Dayne Walling, a Flint-born Rhodes scholar brimming with good ideas, is challenging Don Williamson, the incumbent, in November's election. Flint is trying to chart its own course. And it is not alone. A faint spirit of change is wafting through some of the rustbelt's grimmest streets.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, think-tank, argue that America's old industrial cities can indeed rise again. Big cities such as New York and Chicago have experienced a rebirth, thanks in part to fine mayors and a surge of immigration and new business in the 1990s. Most rustbelt cities have had a more modest revival or none at all. But urban optimists insist that the renaissance can spread: cities are the natural centres of the new knowledge economy and will only grow more appealing to young people and ageing baby-boomers, who want amenities near their homes.

Also in Flint are LISC, part of a national non-profit group that channels grants and loans toward community work, and Uptown Developments, which is using so-called “baklava financing”—layers of private investment, loans, grants, federal and state tax credits—to build residential lofts as well as retail and office space downtown. Together, these groups are trying to make Flint liveable, a city that might lure a start-up or retain its students after graduation.

We've complained in the past that community economic development initiatives aren't getting the attention they deserve from the mainstream media. That's been slowly changing as the year has worn on, with more local papers finally picking up stories about community revitalization efforts. Even so, it's still exciting to see Flint's redevelopment work featured so prominently in a respected international publication like The Economist.

Michigan still has a long way to go before we can shake that "rust belt" image, but it's definitely a good sign that we're making progress if the folks across the pond are taking notice. Hopefully with a little help from people like you, we can continue in our own work to make Michigan a great place to live and work.