Michigan Land Use Institute Releases 'Follow the Money' Special Report
Michigan Land Use Institute
New research by the Michigan Land Use Institute documents for the first time a pervasive pattern of public investment that is encouraging runaway sprawl in Michigan. The research, contained in a report being released today, recounts an extensive history of spending on roads, jobs, government offices, and business development that is contributing to urban decay, environmental degradation, poor public transportation services, and increased hardships for people in general and for those with disabilities in particular.
The study, Follow The Money: Uncovering and Reforming Michigan's Sprawl Subsidies, is the culmination of a year of research by the Institute in partnership with United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan. The complete report is available without charge at www.mlui.org in both text-only and PDF formats. Printed copies of the report are also available by mail order from the Web site.
The report describes how certain public investments accelerate sprawl; it also provides state lawmakers with a new way to evaluate how the state makes its economic development and investment decisions, and whether that money can be invested in new and more economically useful ways.
Follow The Money provides compelling evidence that existing economic development policy exacerbates state and local budget deficits, harms Michigan's overall economic competitiveness, and makes communities less, not more, supportive of people in general and people with disabilities in particular.
"Sprawl cannot exist without massive public spending for roads, water, sewers, public buildings, and business development," according to the report. "These intense, taxpayer-financed intrusions into the market have distorted the landscape, ruined central cities, harmed the environment, and reduced the quality of life."
Related Link: Michigan Land Use Institute
For more information contact:
Keith Schneider
Michigan Land Use Institute
PO Box 500
Beulah
MI 49617
USA
Phone: 231-882-4723
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.mlui.org
Posted January 26, 2005
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