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This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 11 Jun 2009, by Matt Kramer.

  • 11 Jun 09
    mattkramer
    Matt Kramer

    Michigan Works to Remake Itself Without King Auto
    By BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY

    DETROIT — The former General Motors Centerpoint truck plant in Pontiac, Mich., is another empty building that served for years as a reminder of the declining fortunes of American automakers.

    But the day after G.M. filed for bankruptcy, it was bustling with activity.

    Ed Montgomery, the Obama administration’s director of recovery for auto communities and workers, was touring the building with camera crews in tow.

    Amid all the grim auto news, it was as good a photo op as he could have hoped for — the building was the future home of the Motown Motion Picture Studio.

    The state, with the help of incentives, lured 25 film crews to Michigan last year to shoot movies like “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Gran Torino,” from Clint Eastwood, and officials are hopeful about a new growth industry.

    “I’m very optimistic about the project,” said Mr. Montgomery, adding that the studio could create 3,000 new jobs. “That’s an excellent start.”

    But any promising starts in Michigan are overshadowed by the brutal reality of the state’s economic plight. Just across the street from the building Mr. Montgomery was touring, workers at a huge G.M. truck plant learned the day before that their factory would be closing, one of seven more Michigan plants the automaker plans to shut down.

    G.M. has promised to use its tour through bankruptcy to become a more nimble and competitive company, but Michigan faces an even tougher task in reinventing itself.

    For all the talk of California’s economic woes, the distress in Michigan is greater. About 800,000 jobs have been lost in the state — about one in every six — since 2000, and its unemployment rate has reached 12.7 percent, higher than any other state.

    The fallout has been even worse in heavily populated southeastern Michigan. Manufacturing jobs in the seven-county region that includes Detroit have fallen 51 percent since the beginning of the decade, and auto-related positions have fallen 65 percent.

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