Don't Mess with California

This is an update of a column I wrote for a business publication a coupl of years ago.  It addresses the climate, attitudes, and environment necessary for growth.  It found many of these qualities well embedded in the crazy quilt we know as California.

A Change in Scenery

The economic development profession is well represented by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC).  The IEDC, in January, held a leadership summit in San Diego, California.  Usually, a national event will bring together some 300-500 practitioners from across the nation, Canada, and a few from much farther.  The IEDC provides important information, and advances the education and training of economic developers. 

I used to eschew such gatherings due to an ultra competitive nature.  I honestly could not stand to be in the same room with other economic developers, many of whom were my competitors.  As the years passed and I was asked to present at some of these events, sharing the stage with other economic developers, the ultra competitive nature gave way to more neighborly feelings. 

Being in San Diego for several days constituted a significant change of scenery for me and the weather had very little to do with the change.  Rather, I can easily recall two nearby lunch conversations on two successive days, both of which dramatically illustrate the continental divide between prosperity and stagnation.

The first conversation occurred at an outside café where my spouse and I sat near a group of four young “venture boys” as I called them.  They earned the designation because of their incessant conversation about starting new companies and raising capital.  These were not economic development practitioners, but they certainly represented pure grist for the economic development mills.  At once, they were planners, dreamers, and unbelievably optimistic, not at all worried about failure.

Richard Florida, of the “creative class” literature, would have been proud.  Not only did these young men steep their conversation in “venturespeak”, but they had their tattoos and piercings.  One even brought his pet rabbit in a cage to the luncheon meeting.  I guess we, in Michigan, need to develop our quirkiness.

The second lunch conversation took place exactly twenty four hours later.  Situated at a table adjacent to us were three young women and five young men, all of whom were Black.  Most likely in their late twenties, these young people carried on a conversation that delved into meeting sales targets, upgrading software, and technology developments.  Again, their milieu was one of dreaming, planning, and sharing an unbridled optimism about their business and career prospects.

My spouse noted that between that conversation and one we had heard the day before, you could tell we were not in Michigan.  That had nothing to do with the fifty degree difference in temperature in the weather.  That did not matter to me.  There simply was a huge chasm between the conversations I overheard in California, and the ones I overhear in Michigan.

I share most of the late Mike Royko’s feelings about California (one giant cuckoo’s nest), but I could not help but feel that the conversation of these young people, the hopes and dreams expressed, is one of the reasons why they are enjoying prosperity and we remain mired in stagnation, still fearfully hypnotized by the rustbelt mentality.

Encounters with economic developers reinforced these perceptions.  Retorts from my colleagues concerning economic development ranged from the mournful (“It must be really tough in Michigan.”) to admiration (“If you can do that work successfully in Michigan, you can do it anywhere.”). 

Our problem is not only the sagging Michigan auto industry and the inability of our rust belt institutions to make us competitive, but we have allowed this malaise to infect and diminish our natural optimism and the art of the possible.

California has a horrible reputation for overregulation, very high taxes, and legislated quirkiness.  Many of the state’s traditional industries, especially defense and aerospace, lay in ruins.  The state’s enormous tax rates drove businesses across the borders into adjacent states. 

But, nonetheless, California is a hot bed of economic activity.  Its universities are dynamic and stuffed full of new technologies, just waiting to be rocketed through commercialization processes by willing scientists, entrepreneurial professors, and optimistic young people sharing lunch.  In short, California has crossed over, utterly and completely, to a new economy that treasures optimism, risk taking, and the art of the possible.

I oftentimes tell people that in the economic development business, one cannot afford to be constantly optimistic.  After all, when just about everybody had decided Ann Arbor was Michigan’s shining star and hope for the future, the Pfizer downsizing demonstrated the vulnerability of every community, even Ann Arbor, to humbling economic circumstances.

Nonetheless, the tie between prosperity and attitude seems to be strong, even symbiotic.  As we remained walled in our rustbelt prison, we might remember that we have the will, the brains, the drive, and the money to turn our state around and reclaim our position of global pre-eminence.  We might expedite the process of recovery by talking loudly about our dreams, our prospects, and our new love for risk taking.

The new economy favors people strengths.  California talks the talk and it walks the walk.  Michigan needs to start doing both and very soon.