Snyder Wants 'Cool Cities'

Perhaps Governor Granholm's most absurd idea, though not the most costly, was the "Cool Cities Initiative". This was the idea that the way to turn around the economy is to spend a bunch of taxpayers' money on liberal 'artists' to make cities 'cool'. This idea is extensively debunked in the following article.

The Curse of the Creative Class
A New Age theory of urban development amounts to economic snake oil.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder has offered perfunctory criticism of Granholm's Cool Cities plan, but he seems to be proposing something very similar.

3 GOP gov candidates debate at GVSU

Snyder said the state needs to emphasize arts and culture to create cities attractive to young college graduates, noting the thousands of people attracted to downtown Grand Rapids last fall by the first annual ArtPrize competition.

But Hoekstra said putting money into "cool cities" initiatives won't help if young adults have to leave the state to find work.

"A 'cool city' to our young people is a city with a job," he said.