At the end of 2009, Michigan’s unemployment rate was the highest in the nation at 14.6%; Illinois had a projected state budget gap of $5 billion; and, Indiana and Ohio had home foreclosure rates of more than 9.5%. The unpredictable labor, financial, and housing markets have only exacerbated the challenges the Midwest was already facing.

Since 2007, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program’s Great Lakes Economic Initiative (GLEI) has raised awareness and action around the economic challenges and opportunities facing the region. It has built lasting support among regional leaders for a shared policy agenda by developing a network of public, private, and academic champions who are working for economic change in the states. The shared policy includes increasing venture capital in the region; developing a network of freshwater research and innovation centers; ensuring federal infrastructure investment; and driving economic growth for older industrial cities.

Federal stimulus dollars, coupled with the new White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers, are helping to boost job creation and the green economy as well as improve our nation’s infrastructure. These federal initiatives, if correctly designed and implemented, have the potential to help the overall prosperity of the Great Lakes region.

A Joyce grant will help Brookings bring together multiple federal agencies, foundations, and the White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers in partnership with communities most affected by the struggling U.S. automobile industry. The goal of the gathering is to develop a plan for action around policy ideas and strategies that will help revive the region, with a particular emphasis on concrete steps to help cities effectively tackle long term effects of devastating, prolonged population loss.

The grant will also support new research about the changing demographic and economic dynamics of the region, and help connect Great Lakes partners to a national network in order to share ideas and successful practices.

"The recession has not been kind to much of the Great Lakes region,” said John Austin, nonresident senior fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program. “But, by taking a fine-grained look at the factors that play into the area’s economies, we can determine how to retool them so the Great Lakes can once again prosper and grow."

Find out more about the Joyce Foundation’s Special Opportunities program by clicking here.

Find out more about the Joyce Foundation’s Employment program by clicking here.