Preface Part One Part Two Part Three Appendix back to main page
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Summary













Preface

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Appendix

 

The Challenge

The Kalamazoo-Battle Creek region’s economic performance has been sluggish at best, with employment growing only 1.2% a year since 1990 (compared with 1.6% statewide). Over the last twenty years, our average annual growth in employment has been weak at 0.9% compared with regional competitors such as Grand Rapids (2.8%) and Madison, Wisconsin (3.0%). Unemployment is low, but according to the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, this can largely be attributed to outmigration. In other words, fewer people are unemployed in our region because more people are leaving the region than are moving in. Clearly, we have not been adequately generating jobs to attract and retain people.

Not only have we been unable to generate new jobs, we are not closing the gap between our region’s rich and poor. Our regional poverty rate of 14% in 1990 is significantly higher than similar regions such as Hamilton, Ohio, and Madison, Wisconsin, with rates of 8.4% and 10.0% respectively. In addition, our poverty rate is becoming more concentrated. In 1980, 44% of those living below the poverty line lived in low-income neighborhoods, by 1990 that percentage rose to 63%. Perhaps most threatening to our future is that the number of our children living in poverty has doubled from 12% in 1980 to 24% in 1990.

Add to these sobering statistics the impact on the region of mergers between Pharmacia and Upjohn and First of America with National City Corporation, coupled with downsizing at General Motors and Kellogg, and we find ourselves at an economic crossroads.

In January of 1998 our community came together to confront our problems at a meeting in Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College. This meeting was convened by the Kalamazoo Consortium for Higher Education, consisting of the presidents of the four institutions of higher education in Kalamazoo. We decided that we could no longer afford to be complacent, but must actively shape the next generation economy for the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek region. We decided to act. And we decided to work together.

The Data