The Mitten: One Size Fits Most?

The Generation Y Michigan podcast on Michigan Radio and the overly optimistic pro-Michigan sentiments it's inspiring are starting to annoy me.

Oversimplified arguments for pledging allegiance to Michigan willfully ignore infrastructure-dependent jobs, the near impossibility of raising capital for start-ups, and the time it will take most people to turn a profit.

In fact, the very notion of "profit" seems anathema to these folks. Instead, they imply that highly-educated, underemployed Mitteneers should take the path of most resistance, forgoing things like meaningful paid work and health insurance indefinitely.

Forbes.com recently named Michigan as one of "the perennial losers, the sad sacks of our economy," home to one of the four Worst Cities for Jobs. In light of that fact, Michigan By Choice’s rallying cry, “Not enough ___? Start your own ___!” might work for people who make tangible products, but it's irrelevant for those of us whose livelihoods depend on existing infrastructure.

It’s easy to start a band or even a nonprofit, but would you tell my good friend K* – a poet, scholar and educator with two master’s degrees and a doctorate – “Hey, why not just start your own university so you can teach?"

What would Lauren Silverman, Gen Y Michigan's reporter, do if, like my friend J* – a U of M grad with a bachelor's in biophysics, masters in genetics, numerous volunteer experiences and Spanish fluency – found that the only local jobs in her field were washing test tubes? Oh wait, she'd probably move to Washington, D.C.

And what about people who try to start something but can't find the capital to get it off the ground? People like D: After a series of lay-offs and jobs outside the food industry, decided to start a dinner club, and a restaurant, in Grand Rapids. D finally moved to Los Angeles because neither project attracted sufficient investment to even set up shop, much less turn a profit. In L.A., he found two jobs within a few weeks, at restaurants that value his culinary artistry. He also met Robert Downey, Jr.

In order to become a scalable and sustainable employer, start-ups need capital and infrastructu. These are things Grand Rapids – the only part of Michigan I can really speak to – does not currently offer. The city is a great place to start new projects, just not to get paid for them.

Ann Arbor is actually the only Michigan city to make CNN's 100 Best Places to Live and Launch a new business, and there were 41 other places ahead of the college town.

Michigan idealists have also neglected to mention the consequences that an influx of new products or firms could have on local economies.

Take arts production, the entrepreneurial industry of choice. An increase in supply without a corresponding increase in demand is just going to make prices for artwork go down. Not good for local artists who are already struggling in the current market.

Without the introduction of other variables (mainstream critical engagement, increased competition, anything that will create the perception of scarcity), the general and slightly apathetic public is unlikely to respond to increased supply with renewed demand for what are often perceived as luxury items.

A potential consequence of "Just start your own!" for the nonprofit sector is service duplication, a major nonprofit no-no that reduces everyone’s chance for funding. I don't need to reinvent the wheel and start a new arts nonprofit. I need the ones that already exist to start hiring or offer paid opportunities for collaboration.

There's also a certain irony in the fact that Generation Y and Michigan by Choice are brought to you by people employed in their chosen fields at vibrant, innovative firms that had preexisting infrastructures and/or start-up capital.

I would never, ever try to minimize the millions of hours George Wietor has put into the Division Avenue Arts Collective, www.g-rad.org, and countless other local projects. But the fact remains that none of these homegrown efforts are paying his bills. Kevin Buist, another sensational guy, has benefited professionally from the injection of DeVos funding into the local arts sector, most recently through ArtPrize.

Had Buist and Wietor not been able to plug into the functional part of Grand Rapids' cultural infrastructure, would they have had to move too? And how successful would Lauren Silverman be if she had to write, fund, and produce Generation Y without the support of Michigan Public Radio?

And yet they all seem to advocate the path of most resistance as intrinsically virtuous, a veritable badge of honor. To me, this misses the point. Shouldn’t the goal be to leverage the talents we've cultivated into the greatest impact for the largest number of people anyway? If so, then people should go to locations with high need, where they can most quickly and efficiently start filling the gaps.

Another irony here is the fact that all this talk of homegrown entrepreneurialism undermines arguments for why young college grads from other states should stay here. Why should Michigan transplants feel any particular commitment to improving Michigan over their own home states? And if they don't return home, why should they consider Michigan over another state, where they believe they can have greater positive impact?

This is especially true when you consider the time it will inevitably take to turn the city and the state, around.

A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trust reveals that a mono-industry economy combined with state government’s inability to take swift, decisive action has jeopardized Michigan and other states’, competitiveness. Systemic failures like this didn’t happen overnight, and they won’t be resolved quickly either.

People with the education and experience to found successful new enterprises are most likely saddled with student loans, credit card debt, and car payments. In West Michigan, many couples in their 20s are already married, some with children. They just don't have the luxury of risking time and resources into start-ups that may take years to pay off.

*Both J and K are employed, but they are in fields tangential to their academic backgrounds and, by their own admission, making less than they would in other areas.