- Well, I'm old enough to remember when cities were taken for debt.

You know, I grew up in Newark, New Jersey.

I saw that city decline and decay and go into the abyss.

And then over the past, really 20 years, cities have come back in a powerful way.

And my work's been about what are the economic factors that make cities attractive?

How do they attract talent?

What is it about them and the kinds of talent they attract?

And now, most recently with the rise of remote work, it's kind of a third phase.

Is remote work gonna lead to the end of cities?

I argue no.

How's it gonna affect cities and what's gonna happen to downtown?

So I just feel fortunate to be able to do this work.

- What's the pitch for strong cities?

If someone lives in a rural area and is going, "Oh, city life, it's not for me."

What's the economic incentive?

- Well, actually one of the things Rip and I have been talking about a lot, here and before here, is that one of the things that's really interesting about America, but even more interesting about Michigan, is that you have a portfolio of places.

There are some people, young people empty nesters, some big families that love gritty urban environments.

There are other people who like a walkable suburb.

Still other people, like we're looking right out of the lake.

Who like to be in a lakefront community.

And I think one of the interesting things about Michigan is it has something for everybody.

And we know Americans, break down, they're urbanites, they're suburbanites, they're ruralites and we're not (indistinct).

But the other thing that I find fascinating is sometimes people change.

Sometimes you're an urbanite when you're young and maybe you want to go to a suburb when you get older.

And maybe when you're older, you lived in a suburb, you wanna go back to an urban area.

So I think what, it's not just about making cities great, it's about making all of our places is the best they can be.

- How does that speak to you, Rip?

- Well, I think one of the fascinating parts of Richard's report that he released today is the importance of places that are authentic, historic, and have a trajectory of opportunity.

And I think one of the things that all of the cities of Michigan have in different ways is those components.

So Detroit has this enormous possibility of becoming as an international center of mobility.

Traverse City has a enormous set of opportunities around nature and environment and small downtowns.

Ann Arbor.

- Craft brewing.

- Craft, yeah, yeah, indeed.

A little bit too much of that probably.

But Ann Arbor has the possibility of really stretching what it means to be a great urban university serving city.

You know, on and on and on.

And I think one of the things that we at Kresge have tried so hard to establish is that the building blocks from place to place to place aren't terribly different.

They're good education, they're good opportunities to experience the environment.

There are places where diversity and inclusion become paramount, you know, on and on and on.

And I think what the report suggests is that those things are in place ready to go, and we're ready to take advantage of them.

- Well, let's talk about the report.

And I wanna read the first line, the executive summary, which is "Michigan is at a historic inflection point."

I mean, this is what we're talking about at this conference.

It sort of feels like we have this opportunity to decide which direction we're gonna go in.

- Well, it's so interesting.

You know, my dad worked in a factory in Newark, New Jersey.

I know a lot about manufacturing.

Working class kid.

And for years, our country was de-industrializing.

And although I think cars are interesting and fascinating for a lot of people, this thing, your computer and iPhone, these new technologies were fascinating.

But what's happening in Michigan is the car is changing.

It's no longer my dad's car or my car.

It's a car powered by a battery.

Doesn't have an internal combustion engine.

It is connected.

It's smart.

It's an app that you download.

It rides on a smart road.

But the interesting thing is that Michigan is probably the most well positioned place of any place in the world.

It can do a first, no other region that I know of in history, if they lost a textile industry, they had to go to a new industry.

If they lost steel in Pittsburgh where I lived, they had to go to robots.

Michigan could actually do a first, as the car changes become the leader in that.

And what the report talks about is what it needs to do.

And what's interesting, obviously it needs to develop the technology, do the electrification and the digitalization, and all of that.

It needs to make sure it has the talent, the kids coming out of the great universities and electrical engineering, computer engineering, chemical engineering for batteries.

But what was so fascinating that wouldn't have happened 20 or 30 years ago.

To do that, it needs great places.

I mean, that's what's sort of interesting about it.

It's not just about the technology and the talent.

Those are critical.

But to do that, you need to have great places that people wanna be.

And that's what the report talks about, how Michigan can put that all together and align it.