LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – A recent report from the Center for American Progress ranked Michigan very prominently as a stand out state that has “transformative potential” and as a state gaining several large federal investments. 

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“Michigan—the historic home of the American auto industry and a state where organized labor has long played an important role in giving workers a good job and a strong voice—represents a microcosm of the economic and community transformation that will arise from this 21st century investment agenda,” the report said.

The report emphasizes three recent projects in particular, that focus on transportation infrastructure as well as expanding Electric Vehicle (EV) development.  The sum of the total ongoing investment agenda projects in Michigan equals more than $10 billion. The chief projects involve domestic EV battery production plants including Ford’s Blue Oval Battery Park project and infrastructure reform. 

The Ford Motor Company’s $3.5 billion investment to build the United States’ first lithium iron phosphate battery plant—$2.5 billion for construction of the new plant and $1 billion for machinery and equipment for operations according to the report. 

“Initial estimates project the plant will create 2,500 jobs that span a range of educational requirements, from four-year college degrees to on-the-job training,” the report said. 

Investments are not just going towards the cars traveling in and through Michigan, but also for the roads they traverse. 

“With a $105 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, using funds from the [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act] IIJA, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) will remove I-375 and replace it with an at-grade, 35-mph boulevard,” the report said. 

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Plans for the project include new pedestrian walk-ways, buffered bike lanes along the roadway, and new two-way local roads for the highway which opened in 1964.  

Despite the least monetary investment of the six major investments, the report also described the $12.3 million investments in Downtown Kalamazoo, the home of roughly 73,000 people.  As part of a new initiative called “Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program,” Kalamazoo was named one of six recipients for major grant funding. 

According to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigeg, the initiative helps “cities and towns not only address the consequences of past choices that live on to affect transportation today, but to deliver a transportation future that connects communities and helps residents get where they need to go.”

The report concludes by calling Michigan “one state of many with emerging stories about the work being done—by ordinary citizens, by business, by workers, and by state and local governments.”