Michigan Apartheid

The University of Michigan's brave stand for affirmative action before the Supreme Court hardly means the state itself is a paragon of racial tolerance. In fact, Michigan is the most segregated state in the nation thanks, among other things, to two generations of public investment ever farther from urban centers. Governor Jennifer Granholm's Smart Growth council has an opportunity to change that and transform cities into the kind of richly diverse communities that, among other things, would help keep more of Michigan's well-educated young people from leaving the state in droves.