A growing portion of today’s workforce sides with author Richard Florida, who argues that the places where we choose to live shape the lives that we lead.

In our new economy, talented, creative and innovative people are less willing to move from place to place in search of employment. Instead, they tend to cluster in the places where they want to live and create job opportunities for themselves there.  They aren’t just looking for places where they can work and live—they’re looking for places where they can have a life…where there’s more to do after work than go out to dinner and a movie. Think of Austin, Madison, Cambridge—when people find places like these, they flock to them.  And jobs follow. Growing companies will gravitate to places where they can find lots of creative and talented employees.

That means regional economic development hinges on an intangible: Quality of place.

If you offer it, they will come

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with dinner and a movie, there’s so much more to do here in the Greater Lansing region. That means the odds are high that we already offer the places to go and the things to do that translate to quality of place in the minds of our most desirable potential residents. The critical questions are:  Do we support them?  Do we market them?  Do we properly tell the story of our region’s cultural and recreational assets?

It’s crucial that we do.  As we work to bring new industries and retain our students and young professionals, one could argue that there is nothing more important.

More than 40 million people in the U.S. move each year, and most of them have the freedom and economic means to choose the place where they want to live. What will make them choose Greater Lansing?

Here are a few possibilities:

Our region is home to three professional equity theaters and at least 10 community theaters, as well as countless art galleries and museums, a symphony and a ballet.

We host a multitude of top-tier music acts each year at area events and festivals like Blues Fest, Blues on the Square, Common Ground Festival, Great Lakes Folk Festival and Jazz Fest. We draw countless others to MSU’s Breslin and Wharton Centers, as well as to offbeat venues in East Lansing and Lansing like the Creole Gallery, The Green Door, Gumbo and Jazz, Stage 1210 and the various locations that host Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse acoustic concerts.

We have public parks galore. They include a zoo (Lansing’s Potter Park Zoo), a 20,000-square-foot skate park that was designed and built by Team Pain (Lansing’s Ranney Park), some of the best outdoor rock climbing in Michigan (Grand Ledge’s Oak Park) and a thousand-foot stretch of engineered whitewater for kayaking (Williamston’s Whitewater Park).
We have 30 golf courses within 30 miles, including one of the nation’s finest public courses (Bath’s Eagle Eye Golf Club, which Golf Digest included among its 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses and 25 Best Courses in Michigan in 2007-2008).

There’s minor-league baseball at Oldsmobile Park.

Big Ten sports at MSU.

Antiquing in Mason.

And if you still want dinner and a movie, our region has a ton of restaurants to choose from. They run the range from national chains to only-in-Greater Lansing spots like Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine, Mama Bear’s Café and Vernadine’s Soul Food Carryout. They include old favorites like Beggar’s Banquet, Deluca’s, Dusty’s Cellar and Wine Bar, El Azteco, the Red Cedar Grill and Spagnuolo’s. And they include newer ones like Sansu, Tavern on the Square and Troppo.

Did you know about all of these possibilities? And if you didn’t, why would your 20-something intern know about them?

When people can choose to live anywhere, they need to have compelling reasons to choose the Greater Lansing region. Their most basic needs—for food, shelter, safety and security—can be met in many places. Quality of place is much harder to come by.

That’s why we need to be aware of—and support—the things that make the Greater Lansing region attractive to the talented employees who will draw new businesses here. Skip the movie and go to a local theater performance. Put down the iPod and go check out The Ledges.  Choose Altu’s over Applebee’s.

These are the places and the things that translate to quality of place in the minds of our most desirable current and potential residents—and that are critical to our region’s future economic growth.

		Denyse Ferguson is the interim president and CEO of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (Leap, Inc.), the region’s leading economic development organization.