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Magazine thinks Ohio has the highest potential for growth

Ohio Attracts More Businesses Than Any Other State for Fourth Consecutive Year

In December, NYPA issued a request for proposals for what could be the nation’s first fresh water-wind project, Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project, to help increase use of renewable energy and spur economic development.

Potential seen in water-wind initiative

Mayor Dave Bing said Wednesday he “absolutely” intends to relocate residents from desolate neighborhoods and is bracing for inevitable legal challenges when he unveils his downsizing plan.

In his strongest statements about shrinking the city since taking office, Bing told WJR-760 AM the city is using internal and external data to decide “winners and losers.” The city plans to save some neighborhoods and encourage residents to move from others, he said.

“If we don’t do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I’m hopeful people will understand that,” Bing said. “If we can incentivize some of those folks that are in those desolate areas, they can get a better situation.”

Detroit Mayor Bing emphasizes need to shrink city

To engage its citizens even more, the City launched Manor Labs, an interactive website that invites residents to suggest and vote on proposals for improving services. What separates Manor Labs from other crowd sourcing efforts is the City’s creative way of incentivizing participation. Each time a resident participates online – either by suggesting a new idea or commenting and voting on the ideas of others – they receive a point, called an “innobuck.” Innobucks can be redeemed for prizes, or re-invested towards making some of the ideas on the site a reality. Once an idea reaches a certain threshold, city officials evaluate the proposal, and decided whether or not to put it into action. So far, five ideas have been adopted from the site.

How Smaller Cities and Towns Can Begin to Benefit from New Media

When University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland recently spun off a medical company, it looked south to Akron’s growing biomedical corridor for the launch.

Fluence Therapeutics Inc. recently opened in the downtown Akron Global Business Accelerator on South Main Street.

University Hospitals startup company opens in Akron

My law school classmate Richard Cohen runs the Southern Poverty Law Center. At our reunion last June, Richard gave a compelling talk about how hate radio and television — he singled out Fox News, Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs — distorts our civic debate. (For example, see Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News).

This week, the Center published a disturbing report on the growth of hate groups. You can read more about it here.

You can download the report here.

This “rage on the right” is not an abstraction. We are confronting the growth of hate in Indiana, where Purdue has been vilified for offering English as a second language courses to Mexican immigrants. A group of us are working in one rural county to establish a safe “civic space” where these issues can be explored without touching off the rage.

Mark Potok from the Center provides an overview: