Can Michigan -- and Detroit -- Come Back?

Although the number of vacant homes in Detroit has doubled since 2005 and the crime rate is the worst in the nation, Michigan still has billions of dollars of investment flowing in from the government and private foundations financing research in new technologies at state universities in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Lansing. As well,

"Michigan remains a global leader in automotive-technology research, with a large pool of highly skilled engineers. The challenge is to use that resource to reinvent America's manufacturing base, and to make sure that enough of the jobs that flow from that reinvention remain in Michigan to restore the state's economy, along with a more confident sense of its future."

The goal must be to diversify Michigan's economy, especially by investing in renewable energy, something Ibbitsen believes the Canadian province of Ontario should be emulating.