Jackson — My town was one of the 20 Michigan cities that divvied up $2 million worth of state grants in 2004 under Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s “Cool Cities” initiative.
Twenty years later, Jackson still isn’t cool. Fewer young people live in Jackson, more older people live here, and more people are living in poverty in Jackson than before it became a “cool city.”
So where did the city’s $100,000 grant go? The state turned an abandoned industrial site into a center for arts and culture, with 39 affordable loft apartments.
Those loft apartments—where two-bedroom units run about $1,000 a month—are the remains of the state’s first prison, which was built in 1842. The prison has a two-story-high stone wall that now resembles a long-abandoned, crumbling 14th century European castle.
That wall might be considered an historic landmark, but it surely won’t attract young people. Jackson’s motto for years was, “We Like It Here.” I always thought it should be modified to “We Like It IN Here.”
That’s because we’re known as a prison town, and a $100,000 grant was not going to change that.
“Cool Cities is just another example of failed state economic development policy,” says Mike LaFaive, an economic analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “It amounts to symbolism over substance and it costs taxpayers a fortune. The money wasted on Cool Cities would have been much better spent filling potholes.”
Over the years, that “center for arts and culture” Cool Cities dreamed up turned into tours of the old prison. If I were going to do a tour of my town, I’d make the former Kip’s Pizza Taco House in Summit Township a destination, a chip shot from the city limits. In 1999, a Jackson man named Kevin Artz killed his wife and then cooked her up and “dismembered her body and baked, boiled, or broiled her remains at the restaurant they owned.” The story was featured on an episode of the TV crime drama “An Hour To Kill.”
We take our fame (or infamy, in this case) where we find it.
Jackson County recently purchased the land around the old prison and wants to build a farmer’s market using federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act, which was supposed to help people and businesses recover from the pandemic.
We already have a farmer’s market. It’s called “Krogers.”
Jackson wasn’t the only place that fell short of Cool Cities’ vision.
The Odd Fellows Hall in the Springwells neighborhood in Southwest Detroit was supposed to be “a key anchor for this multicultural community.” Today, it’s a Buffalo Wild Wings. And Granholm? She fled for California when her term ended, despite having supposedly made Michigan much hipper.
I worked in Ann Arbor for eight years as a reporter for the Ann Arbor News. Word quickly spread that I lived in Jackson and commuted. I was consistently sought out by politicians, activists, and colleagues any time embarrassing news of Jackson reached Ann Arbor. The reputational stink of my city followed me around like old-man smell.
My Washtenaw County colleagues would also come up to me and say, “Jackson? I love that restaurant…” Inevitably all citing the five-star restaurant we have downtown, now named Veritas. The out-of-town crowd never saw much of Jackson outside of the 20-foot walk from the parking lot to their waiting $75 plate of surf-n-turf at Veritas.
Cool Cities was not the last time Jackson was force-fed a facelift with taxpayer dollars. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which grants state dollars for business subsidies, gave $50,000 for a Bright Walls Mural Festival campaign in 2022.
And next thing you know, there were pretty paintings on vacant buildings all around downtown.
“This project has changed the landscape of downtown Jackson, adding vibrancy and brightness around every corner,” said MEDC Senior Vice President of Community Development Michele Wildman, in a press release.
See? They want us to be cool again! This time, all it took was $50k of federal pandemic money and a coat of paint.
But it’s not Jackson. We are not an artsy town. We are a prison town. We wear it like a tear tattoo.
I always felt the murals were the brainchild of the craft-beer people who work downtown at Consumers Energy and then commute 25 miles back home, folks who have long harbored a fantasy of turning Jackson into Ann Arbor.
Like those $75 meals at Veritas, the out-of-town folks do love the murals, but I sincerely doubt they’ve ever entered many of the businesses whose walls are adorned by them.
It’s almost like the murals are trying to cover up the ugly reality of what Jackson residents deal with every day.
Life hasn’t smiled on most people in my city. There are drug deals by Mexican cartel thugs in Meijer and Walmart parking lots in the middle of the day. In November, a gun fight broke out between police and a man on East Michigan Ave., our main street. I witnessed it. Have you ever wondered what you’d do if you heard dozens of gunshots 20 yards away? I hit the ground fast.
Maybe our next motto should be: “Jackson: Hit the ground, then look up at our murals.”
What is cool about Jackson is its gritty people, not its glossy paint job.
Rent is cheap. We shop at Walmart. We like to play pool and darts. We have little problem finding $1.25 beers and $2 shots. And there’s a jukebox in my local bar where you can get 40 songs for $5.
The state can keep its pocket change. It won’t make us cool. Sorry if we are embarrassing to the planners in Lansing.
If there is going to be another round of handouts, let’s use them for the potholes.
Tom Gantert is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer.
