Big City Schools, Big City Challenges

While Michigan’s suburbs find it relatively easy to finance new schools and compete for students by building shining edifices at the edge of town, urban districts struggle to update their aging facilities and maintain enrollment. But an ambitious school construction program in Detroit and the restoration of the Coit School in Grand Rapids offer hope. Duplicating those feats in the rest of Grand Rapids and in other urban Michigan districts, however, is extraordinarily difficult, according to "Hard Lessons," a new report on school construction trends by the Michigan Land Use Institute.