The Prosperous Future Report
The Citizens Research Council of Michigan has issued a new series of reports named - the irony must be intentional - the "Prosperous Future". The picture painted by the findings is bleak. All things obvious to anyone who has been paying attention, and about which our elected leaders have done little or nothing since this conversation began circa ~2003 [20 years ago].
Be prepared, these reports view low pavement quality as a catastrophe, and the only solution to be giving the Michigan Department of Transportation more buckets of money. Public transportation and non-motorized transportation is mentioned once, in a footnote. There is at least this sentence in the Climate Change report: "As the vehicle fleet is electrified, society should also work to reduce reliance on personal vehicles." One sentence.
As insufferably myopic as any report issued by Michigan's Big-Thinkers can be, there on page 31 of the infrastructure report are these familiar graphics:
I suppose one has to consider the report's intended audience. Our civic leaders aren't ready for change, most of them cannot even imagine it, yet if they read these reports the seeds have been planted. That is also a reminder: elections matter, especially local elections.
Happy reading!
The Reports
- Summary, PDF
- Infrastructure, PDF, 34 pages
- The Environment, PDF, 21 pages
- Climate Change, PDF, 19 pages