Okay, here's another story we missed during the holiday break. The online magazine Capital Gains –– which showcases growth and investments in the Lansing area –– had a great article about how the city is slowly but surely turning things around:

Part of the story, at least, goes back to an adage relatively common among municipal officials, developers and real estate investors: public investment can help spark private investment.

At its most basic, the idea is that strategic applications of municipal resources in infrastructure, amenities and code reform can give private equity the sense of stability, momentum and, of course, return on investment, it needs to invest in an area. And once those private dollars start flowing, it sends signals to the market and other money jumps into the pool.

While it’s certainly not the whole story, part of downtown Lansing’s recent development boom can be traced back to simple investments that have made the place more attractive to people, and therefore more attractive to development dollars.

Go read that line in bold again. It's what the Trust Fund and our partners throughout the state have been preaching all year long.

Some of the critical mass of municipal investments are likely little urban details—what development writer David Sucher calls “city comforts.” These, says Sucher, are the “small things that make urban life pleasant: places where people can meet; methods to tame cars and to make buildings good neighbors; art that infuses personality into locations and makes them into places.”

Sucher’s popular development guide called City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village, suggests that the “keys to transforming our cities into places of comfort and delight are in plain view and not in the least bit concealed or accessible only to obscure expertise. Like Poe’s purloined letter, they are so plainly visible that our eyes skip over them.”

The City of Lansing’s attention to these subtle improvements can be found along the Michigan Avenue corridor. For example, in the last year, the city’s added old fashioned street lights along the two mile corridor. Rain gardens have also been added to this corridor, and sidewalks reconstructed.

As anyone who lives or works in the downtown area can attest, the changes over the past year have been remarkable.

Pat Gillespie has spearheaded two major development projects in the Lansing area (which we've blogged about here and here), and while he says street lights and rain gardens may not be the deciding factor for businesses looking to invest in an area, they definitely send the right message that a city is invested in its own resurgence.

“No matter what the investment or the strategy, what is important for the individual human being is how the city works at the personal level,” writes Sucher. “Small details at the individual level are where a municipal strategy fails or succeeds.”

Following that strategy appears to be paying dividends in downtown Lansing, where tireless brainstorming, lobbying and innovation from city leaders, planners and developers has created a buzz and energy that’s making the city’s concrete changes very, very comfortable.

If you get a chance, be sure to go read the whole article.

You'll be glad you did.