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Is this what you've been obliquely trying to find out, if Marquette will pay you $10k to relocate and work remotely from there?
You'll get more useful answers if you ask the questions you're interested in rather than beating around the bush.
No, I don't need $10K. I've already directly asked the questions that I'm interested in, but people find them offensive. I've pointed out, numerous times, that a big part of what I'm looking for is any kind of economic plan that MQT has to deal with the future. Some people on this board might feel that it's insulting, but the simple fact of the matter, once again, is that the country is changing and places which are sticking with "the old ways, because it's who they are, and they're proud of it" are dying. Places which are trying to reinvent themselves in a new century, pushing education, pushing healthcare, pushing the sciences, pushing for an influx of educated and high skill people and a curbing of the outflow of the youth, pushing the arts, pushing for goals which line up with with forecasted future demands are the ones who have the best chance of succeeding. Just like with the evolution of biological organisms, it's adapt or die. Plenty of places in this country are doing the latter. They don't want to be educated, they don't want to rethink old ways, what they want is to live in the past with old, comfortable ways. They want to justify the way they've always been doing things and why those ways should continue forevermore. Again, I'm trying to figure out which category MQT tends toward. Unless you have some kind of natural resource that can't be found anywhere else for cheaper, your future is people and what's in their heads - whether that be writing a great new app or designing some pretty great cabinetry - so you've either got to grow them there or import them - both take planning and I'm looking to see if any of that exists in MQT. I don't know how I could be any clearer on this matter.
Dude, you come across as at best crazy, or at worst just trolling.
Your attitude and preachy attitude strikes a nerve with many of us posting on here and if this is how you act in real live will strike a nerve with others. Particularly in more insular, conservative, and less transient areas.
The whole diatribe about if the communities have a plan for the future is silly.
Honestly, you sound like you should be looking at places like Boulder, Madison, Ann Arbor, Burlington or Austin that have a better mix of tech, economic growth, higher education, liberal culture, and outdoors scene.
Dude, you come across as at best crazy, or at worst just trolling.
Your attitude and preachy attitude strikes a nerve with many of us posting on here and if this is how you act in real live will strike a nerve with others. Particularly in more insular, conservative, and less transient areas.
The whole diatribe about if the communities have a plan for the future is silly.
Honestly, you sound like you should be looking at places like Boulder, Madison, Ann Arbor, Burlington or Austin that have a better mix of tech, economic growth, higher education, liberal culture, and outdoors scene.
If your attitude that an economic plan is silly is common, that would be reason enough not to move there. You'll be a wasteland before you know it.
Dude, look around. Things are changing at light speed. People are moving out of small towns and into cities and significant metro areas. This is the case all over the globe and most assuredly in the US. The midwest is particularly hard hit by this. And the UP has the added struggles of being geographically remote and having a cold climate. Places which sit back and do nothing are being wiped out. Maybe you think I sound like an elitist ass by saying that, but it's a FACT. And that's something that I was getting at in an earlier post, regions which have a culture where facts don't matter are pretty much lost causes - unless they have some in-demand resource.
I mean, look across the lake. Thunder Bay is in a similar geographic situation with a similar climate. They, like the UP, have been watching their young people move away in droves because they find it to be an economic dead end and culturally regressive. Even though they're three times the size of MQT and with much higher levels of federal help, they knew they were in trouble and years ago started the kind of push that I've talked about. They've actually had some success, even getting one or two American companies to move there. They're really focusing on biotech but are pushing the whole knowledge economy thing. They're trying to lure educated and skilled professionals there, they've fast tracked immigration policies for skilled foreigners, they're heavily marketing the region as a beautiful, cost effective, and slower pace environment where professionals and companies can come to set up shop but not have to sacrifice quality of life, etc. They understand their predicament and aren't running from even acknowledging it. Will they be successful long term? I can't say, but they are trying. They have both short term and log term plans to develop the city, rebrand itself away from the country bumpkin stigma that they've acquired over the years, and just generally become something more than a relic of the past which is slowly dying away. If MQT doesn't have something like that, it should worry people.
Now you can call me an elitist a-hole all day long but people, businesses, and communities which just play things by ear and think that the past is good enough tend to do very poorly.
If what you're looking for isn't in there, they're probably not doing it.
Thanks. I did see that but it's kind of bare bones and doesn't really describe any kind of "vision" about how to attract and retain talent and businesses. It's good in that they realize that they need to rebrand and redevelop things like the downtown and harbor, and it's great that they have an arts and culture initiative - both aimed at attraction and retention, and it's also great that they're using an existing MI program to also modernize, update, and generally become more competitive with other regions, but there's not a lot concrete that I can see. Someone somewhere must be working on these things but I can't tell where, what, or who.
I guess what I was looking for was something less day to day and nuts and bolts - like an initiative to bring high speed internet to the region, or 5G plans, which would be critical to future development. I'm aware of NMU's initiative in this regard but it really can only go so far without city/regional involvement, but I can't find much about that. Or I'd like to see some kind of plan to focus in on this or that industry or sector and how they'd like to attract and retain those resources long term. I guess I was looking for a more 5, 10, 20 year plan and how the nuts and bolts stuff of the strategic plan served that forward looking prospectus.
I do thank you for the link though. I think I'll go through it with a bit more detail later. Can't hurt.
Look, I get it, I am not dumb.
MQT actually does have a strong future ahead but heavily based on its current strengths including NMU, Lake Superior, and proximity to outdoor recreation. Tourism in the UP is up significantly over the past decade, but that lends itself to a growing service industry economy.
Nothing can overcome the geographic and economic isolation of MQT from major population centers or the climate.
You can either move there for what it currently is, not for
What you hope it could be or isn’t.
Basic internet searches will give you what you're looking for. I've given you two places to !ook. You obviously haven't checked out much info on the university, either. NMU is currently working on a project that will make internet available across the UP as part of he Educational Access Network. And it is working with local governments, typically starting through the schools.The university has also started a medicinal plants chemistry program, and has just started a cold-weather forensic prigram, complete with body farm. There's a lot happening to adapt to smaller class sizes in the coming years as well, as projections for higher ed are pretty dire.
You talk about logic and knowledge and growth. But you're insincere in your statement that you want to engage. You won't, at any rate. Not in any meaningful way. I'm left feeling that you may be more interested in being superior to being infirmed.
I'm not clinging to a past that is untenable. Our past informs our future, and we know that. Our community has worked hard to bring opportunity and growth. We've become a center for winter recreation to capitalize on one thing we typically have in excess--the cold. That didn't happen accidentally. That was hard work and risk. Not all efforts work out. We have our share of failures and flops. And some things run their course. I don't know how the kombucha biz will be in 10 years. Right now, it's pretty lively. And there is a lot going on like that. Will it last? Better minds than mine are working on that.
It's honestly hard. I'm torn between wanting to tell about what we have going on and hoping your interest is fleeting, OP. Are you genuinely unaware of how you come off? Are you trolling? I just can't tell. Youve struck a nerve with me, and I'm just trying to tell you that if you come here with what seems like an attitude of superiority, telling us that our way of life is backward and that we need to get with the times, it won't go over well. Our history is part of us, and we like it. You can come and be a vegan, and you'll meet other really awesome vegans. But we do not need you to preach the gospel of modern enlightenment. I
Your latest post conveniently overlooks your proselytizing about the ills of hunting. I have no problem with an anti-hunting stance. It's the way you've delivered it, as though the hicks need to be edjumacated about their options and brought to a higher understanding that rankles. And, I think you have a limited understanding of wildlife management and habitat destruction. The whitetail deer population in some areas goes through a boom & bust cycle--surging in years when conditions favor and then suffering mightily with a drought year or a bad winter. Humans have altered the natural order by building towns, roads, and houses, and by pushing natural predators out. Hunting is big money in our communities, but also helps to manage populations. If there was no deer hunting, how would you propose we manage the population? I am not at all in favor of culling herds and just burying the bodies. That seems far more brutal to me.
So, I admit you've gotten under my skin. I feel insulted, honestly. I don't think you have the slightest understanding of this place. And, as much as it galls me, I will suggest you check out the Lake Superior Community Partnership. They are an active organization. Also check out Marquette SmartZone.
And consider that you may not be what's missing from our community. We have people with money here, too. We have smart people here. We have innovators and people who think outside the box. Frankly, we're short on skilled labor. We have people who swoop in & want to fix us. We need people who want to be here & plan to stick around. UP communities have been emerging from a mining based economy, and it isn't easy. But we have some bright spots, and we will keep at it. But we're not going to turn into vegan utopia overnight. So you can either appreciate what you like & live your best life in a place like this, or rail against it & be dissatisfied.
Thanks for the links, but as to your assertion that I must not have done any research because I didn't know about NMU's internet project? I mentioned that in one of my posts.
As to hunting, yes, I'm vociferous about it. It's an obvious moral wrong, so I'm as open about opposing it as I am opposing rape, or murder (of humans), or anything else which used to be acceptable to some but are now pretty well universally acknowledged to be anathema. I get the unmistakable impression that you're taking such umbrage because you know that what you and people like you do is inexcusable. Again, unless you'd be OK with a more advanced species doing that to you and your family, you have no ground to stand on.
As to hunters being great conservationists, in my experience, that's complete bull. I do a lot of wildlife rescue and deal with a number of Parks and Fish and Wildlife guys, and at least half of them are hunters, and it's even their job to know about wildlife, but they are instead unending sources of misinformation. Every rehabber and wildlife vet I know can barely stand to be around them. They're convinced that they know everything, and will tell you with complete confidence about this or that, but when you look it up, it's BS. The only thing that they do know is animal behavior, but only in regard to tracking them, and usually only in regard to the specific animals that they hunt. They know little to nothing about biology, evolution, epidemiology, etc. They will tell you that the Canada goose "problem" is cause by people feeding the birds, even though that only contributes somewhere in the upper single digits to low tees in terms of a percentage, they will tell you that squirrels transmit rabies even though there has never been a case of that, they will tell you that a raccoon out in the day probably is diseased even though that's almost certainly untrue, they will tell you a million and one things about animals and maybe only a quarter is factually accurate. And hunting? Well they're incentivized to give you the rosy picture about how it's OK and even necessary, perhaps even noble, not only because they're human and want to paint themselves in the best possible light, but because must such departments get the lion's share of their funding through the fees generated by hunting and fishing licensing. Everyone who's ever hurt another group in a systematic way has always had a mythology built up about why it's necessary and even for the greater good. I's only when you get out of that bubble that it becomes obvious that it's a delusion. In fact, I've seen studies showing that when hunters are disabused of many self-imposed myths about how they're "helping" nature by hunting, their desire to do so fades if not vanishes. Once they realize the level of suffering that they're inflicting relative to the level of good that they're doing, they can no longer persist in the self-delusion that what they're doing is good, and who wants to be a bad person?
As someone who volunteers in wild animal rescue, I'd have to say that 40% of the injuries seen are caused by hunters and fishermen - and I live in the city. Probably the majority of waterfowl and birds of prey are suffering from lead poisoning. For example, 20-25% of eagles brought in have to be put down because their levels are so high that chelation is impractical. (The lead poisoning is caused by buckshot and lead sinkers.) You constantly see animals which have been wounded or poisoned by hunting practices and are suffering mightily. I do a lot of waterfowl and probably half of the birds I rescue are suffering with injuries due to hooks and abandoned line. And all of this doesn't even scratch the surface of the overwhelming pain, suffering, and fear caused by this recreational "sport". It's as heartbreaking as it is stomach turning. The fact that anyone can take pleasure in such things paints a dark picture indeed for the human race. How people could desensitize themselves to that is unimaginable to me. And to teach your kids to do it? That is outright child abuse.
As for "culling" them (notice how hunters always use such nice euphemisms like culling or harvesting so as to dress up the evil that they do), I will admit that there are times when it is best due to overpopulation or other issues, but those cases are RARE. Hunters like to paint themselves as sportsmen and even caretakers of these animals so as to justify things, but it's BS. Most populations can be managed by other means. And if those noble caretakers of wild beasts were as interested as they say they are about the lives of animals, they would be out there working for those other means, lobbying town councils for better civic planning, getting land bridges built so that animals could cross the roads safely - you know, the kind of thing that they tend to do in other countries which have lack of a hunting culture and a more civilized way of doing things.
One of the most telling things for me is that people don't really "pick up" hunting, they have to be raised with it. If you haven't lead a life where you've learned how to compartmentalize, desensitize, and self-delude, you just can't spin up to that kind of activity. It's kind of like eating meat, lots of kids come to a point where they realize that they're eating beings that they would otherwise like to be friends with. At that point, parents have to lie to them and tell them all manner of BS about how it's fine, and the animals aren't really hurt, or whatever lie gets the job done to get their kid to eat meat. Then that kid integrates those lies and general desensitization into their psyche which allows them to even engage of the cognitive dissonance of being "animal lovers" who have other people raise "meat animals" in horrible conditions and then kill them for their pleasure. The psychology of how humans justify any and all actions no matter how cruel or illogical boggles the mind.
I’ve determined that we have all fallen victim to one of the more elaborate trolling jobs in the history of city-data. This is not an honest inquiry about Marquette. I think the OP truly enjoyed visiting the city, but this is a backhanded way of saying “your city will not attract an elusive prize such as myself, and here’s why.”
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