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All this year, Michigan Radio’s Morning Edition host Christina Shockley has been speaking with people from across the state about what three things they think we can all do to help the state. Today, we’ll hear from Paul Schutt of Issue Media Group.

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Paul’s first idea is “…to support density as a part of a sense of place.” Paul wants Michiganders to start thinking differently about how their residence is structured in relationship to their community and what a high-quality residence feels like.

“We see places that where people can walk to work every day, make choices about where they live, where they send their kids to school, all of these things. I mean, I was raised in Michigan, where, as you became more successful you were supposed to get a bigger house with a bigger yard, and so you can sit on your back porch and tell your friends that you can’t see your neighbor. Then you know you’ve made it. And I guess what we see in other cities around the world are people who become more successful go up in a tower and are rewarded with a view of their neighbors.”

Secondly, he wants people to create “companies that do business all over the world.” Paul wants to change the dominant mindset of companies that are too focused on Michigan’s traditional business and manufacturing sector. He envisions companies doing business in 20, 30, 40 cities around the nation and the world “…but creating jobs here.”

The third idea he has is to show more support for foreign-born immigrants. Paul worries that too “…often we see immigrants as liabilities. They’re the people who are taking the jobs, they’re the people who are kind of soaking up the health care, and taking the educational resources.” He says that the healthiest places actually “see the foreign born as assets – the people that help them compete in the global economy. The people who are creating businesses and bringing more innovation to the local economy.”

Paul sums up how he thinks these ideas will help Michigan turn around, “I think each one of these ideas support the idea that we have [to have] a higher density of different kinds of people with different ideas,” in the state, and that hopefully these ideas will bring more innovation and “lead us into whatever’s next for Michigan.”