Michigan, Detroit prep themselves for a new era

Michigan and Detroit are moving into an era that can't rely solely on the auto industry and they are preparing to put their hands in a few different pots.

Excerpt:

The state is now moving aggressively to develop the industries of a new era: car batteries, health science, green technology and defense. Each of these businesses might employ a few dozen people -- perhaps several hundred or a few thousand. But no single business will grow large enough to replace the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been lost in the car industry.

Detroit seems poised to suffer the most from these changes; it has lost much of its former self over the past 40 years and seems forever suspended between urban renewal and urban ruin.

But boosters of the city and the region say it still has much to offer the rest of the country and the world: for starters, a high concentration of smart engineers and innovative designers, and a collection of fine universities to support their work. Urban theorist Richard Florida says the Detroit region has a unique "creative edge and energy" that never went away -- even in the worst of times.

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