One D or bust
Source: Detroit Free Press
By: RON DZWONKOWSKI, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Published: June 3, 2007
Strategy must bring meaning to regional cooperation
MACKINAC ISLAND -- If you did not spend the past few days in meeting rooms at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, you have probably never heard of something called One D: Transforming Regional Detroit. And maybe you never will.
You're supposed to feel it.
"This is a movement we are trying to create," said Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance, one of the six founding organizations of One D.
"This is like going from a DOS operating system to Windows," said Mike Brennan, president of United Way for Southeastern Michigan, another founder.
"It might be five years before you see the needle move on some of these issues, but it's going to happen," promised Maud Lyon, founding director of the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan.
What, exactly?
That's a fair question, since this One D thing hardly marks the first effort to pull the Detroit region together, nor the first to be rolled out in a big way at the annual Mackinac conference of the Detroit Regional Chamber, another of the founding organizations. Why is this one going to be different?
The leaders of the organizations involved -- the others are New Detroit and the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau -- understand the question and the skepticism they face. But they appeared undaunted at meeting after meeting during the conference, insisting they have achieved a new level of cooperation and that now, in these tough times, is when change must begin.
That may be the best case they can make even if they can't say it too loudly because it sounds threatening. But we are threatened. We're in bad shape, in danger of becoming an economic backwater, and nothing in the current power structure can fix it. Something's got to give, and it might as well be all those old barriers that have impeded progress for so many decades.
Even if you don't know what One D is, you know where those barriers are: between city and suburb, black and white, Republican and Democrat, have and have-not, plus along county lines, city and township borders, and between the Detroit region and the rest of Michigan. Those barriers generate suspicion, closed-mindedness and a me-first instead of we-first attitude that has blocked movement on such basic things as a coordinated, comprehensive bus system.
Dick Blouse, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, noted that the Chamber first adopted a resolution 40 years ago in support of regional mass transit. That's four decades. And today, more people than ever drive themselves to work every day and grumble about the traffic while those who take the bus have a harder time than ever getting where they need to go. That's progress?
One D: Transforming Regional Detroit has staked out six areas for measurable progress, with "measurable" being a key word. After all, if nothing changes, nothing changes, so this group needs to be all about results.
The areas are economic prosperity, with goals including job growth in the upper fourth of the nation's 50 largest metro areas; educational preparedness, with goals including high school graduation rates in the top half of the nation's 20 largest metro areas; quality of life, with goals including "fully sustainable arts, cultural and social service organizations"; and race relations, with one goal of increasing positive media coverage of the region's diversity; and the aforementioned regional transit. On that last, the goal isn't this specific, but the first thing needed is an end to the ability of communities to opt out of the SMART system. Bus service is never going to be regional if buses have to keep going around the likes of Livonia and Novi.
One D deliberately kept government agencies out of its structure because it intends to be a one-voice advocate for public policies that are consistent with economic development in the region. And government tends to start from what you can't do instead of what you can.
Edsel Ford II has been named to lead a Champions Council that is charged with evaluating One D's progress on each of its priorities and issuing an annual report. Here's hoping he issues more than one, because this region ran out of excuses for not changing a long time ago and now is running out of options.
"Regionalism is the only way we will be able to compete in a global economy," Ford said in a speech to the conference. "That is the essence of our motivation to act and think differently."
That, and a healthy measure of fear.
RON DZWONKOWSKI is editor of the Free Press editorial page. Contact him at dzwonk@freepress.com or 313-222-6635.
By: RON DZWONKOWSKI, FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Published: June 3, 2007
Strategy must bring meaning to regional cooperation
MACKINAC ISLAND -- If you did not spend the past few days in meeting rooms at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, you have probably never heard of something called One D: Transforming Regional Detroit. And maybe you never will.
You're supposed to feel it.
"This is a movement we are trying to create," said Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance, one of the six founding organizations of One D.
"This is like going from a DOS operating system to Windows," said Mike Brennan, president of United Way for Southeastern Michigan, another founder.
"It might be five years before you see the needle move on some of these issues, but it's going to happen," promised Maud Lyon, founding director of the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan.
What, exactly?
That's a fair question, since this One D thing hardly marks the first effort to pull the Detroit region together, nor the first to be rolled out in a big way at the annual Mackinac conference of the Detroit Regional Chamber, another of the founding organizations. Why is this one going to be different?
The leaders of the organizations involved -- the others are New Detroit and the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau -- understand the question and the skepticism they face. But they appeared undaunted at meeting after meeting during the conference, insisting they have achieved a new level of cooperation and that now, in these tough times, is when change must begin.
That may be the best case they can make even if they can't say it too loudly because it sounds threatening. But we are threatened. We're in bad shape, in danger of becoming an economic backwater, and nothing in the current power structure can fix it. Something's got to give, and it might as well be all those old barriers that have impeded progress for so many decades.
Even if you don't know what One D is, you know where those barriers are: between city and suburb, black and white, Republican and Democrat, have and have-not, plus along county lines, city and township borders, and between the Detroit region and the rest of Michigan. Those barriers generate suspicion, closed-mindedness and a me-first instead of we-first attitude that has blocked movement on such basic things as a coordinated, comprehensive bus system.
Dick Blouse, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, noted that the Chamber first adopted a resolution 40 years ago in support of regional mass transit. That's four decades. And today, more people than ever drive themselves to work every day and grumble about the traffic while those who take the bus have a harder time than ever getting where they need to go. That's progress?
One D: Transforming Regional Detroit has staked out six areas for measurable progress, with "measurable" being a key word. After all, if nothing changes, nothing changes, so this group needs to be all about results.
The areas are economic prosperity, with goals including job growth in the upper fourth of the nation's 50 largest metro areas; educational preparedness, with goals including high school graduation rates in the top half of the nation's 20 largest metro areas; quality of life, with goals including "fully sustainable arts, cultural and social service organizations"; and race relations, with one goal of increasing positive media coverage of the region's diversity; and the aforementioned regional transit. On that last, the goal isn't this specific, but the first thing needed is an end to the ability of communities to opt out of the SMART system. Bus service is never going to be regional if buses have to keep going around the likes of Livonia and Novi.
One D deliberately kept government agencies out of its structure because it intends to be a one-voice advocate for public policies that are consistent with economic development in the region. And government tends to start from what you can't do instead of what you can.
Edsel Ford II has been named to lead a Champions Council that is charged with evaluating One D's progress on each of its priorities and issuing an annual report. Here's hoping he issues more than one, because this region ran out of excuses for not changing a long time ago and now is running out of options.
"Regionalism is the only way we will be able to compete in a global economy," Ford said in a speech to the conference. "That is the essence of our motivation to act and think differently."
That, and a healthy measure of fear.
RON DZWONKOWSKI is editor of the Free Press editorial page. Contact him at dzwonk@freepress.com or 313-222-6635.
Labels: InTheNews, One D, regionalism
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