Dr. Soji Adelaja is a leader and innovator in both the academic and local civic realms. With a focus on land use, economic development, and strategic growth, Dr. Adelaja came to MSU in 2004 from Rutger’s University.
Capital Gains' Managing Editor, Brad Garmon, sat down with Dr. Adelaja for a chat about the Lansing region's transition to a New Economy.
CG: What is the New Economy and what does it look like in Lansing?
Dr. Adelaja: “The basis of the New Economy thinking is that there are some strategic assets that form the basis of our economic development. Things like intellectual property, information technology, great universities and the talent that comes out of that, and the attractiveness of a region and of a state.
Growth in the future is going to come from us harnessing a whole new set of assets in order to grow an economy. In the past, that major manufacturer in town, that major employer in town, basically drove the economy. Today, the types of things that are expected to drive the New Economy are the things [like] parks, access to water, good schools, great universities.
It used to be that people chased jobs, so the attraction of Lansing was that
GM was here. I think in the future you can mount strategies that would draw people to Lansing simply because
MSU is here, or simply because we have a very vibrant IT sector. I interact with a number of smaller IT companies that area doing some fascinating stuff.
The most talented people and the most productive people are looking for great places to live. So the new economy is about building on your strategic assets, and bringing assets there: human capital, advanced technology, bio-economy.
CG: How is the New Economy at work here?
Dr. Adelaja: If you look at the statistics of job creation, one of the most productive cohorts of groups in the U.S. are first generation Americans.
Michigan State is one of the most global universities. When are we in this area going to develop policies and strategies that try to leverage some of the students who come and go, so they can add more value in this community? And I think it goes for Michigan in general. The opportunities are great.
We’re doing research here at the
Land Policy Institute on immigration policies, and the use of immigration strategies as a mechanism for bringing in some of those New Economy folks from foreign countries. The people that are coming into the United States now, a large number of them are coming with advanced degrees, business savvy, and knowledge about how to start businesses. How can we retain those types of people here? Just because we have a national immigration policy that hasn’t sorted itself in terms of how friendly we want to make this country does not mean that we can’t set out in this community to reach out to the best globally and get them to locate here.
CG: What is innovation and what is the climate for innovation in Mid-Michigan?
Dr. Adeleja: Innovation is a frame of mind. It is the art of people wanting to do things differently. There’s technology all over the place. I can tell you there are tons of patents all over this country but only a few of them make it to that innovation phase, where the entrepreneur, the right scientists, the right developer, all come together and something happens.
We have to develop a culture of innovation. We need to create a town that is very tolerant of creativity.
Michigan is at a crossroads. The only way to spin ourselves out of where we’ve been—very manufacturing, very auto focused—[is] to build a whole new economy, and we don’t have a choice but to innovate, big time. And it means we have to manage the discourse, recognize the assets we have in our university, and reach out to those young entrepreneurs who want to do stuff.
That goes back to the question of innovation. If you really want home grown innovation, one of the best things we could do is to begin to get people to understand that this is an environment in which their ideas are welcome, and that the community wishes to support them and help them.
CG: Tell us about your research into the New Economy drivers.
Dr. Adelaja: Everybody talks about the New Economy, but nobody has ever done empirical studies to analyze the growth of regions and states to see where it came from. We want to be able to identify where each state in the nation is in terms of the New Economy and the Old Economy. [We looked] at New Economy drivers and Old Economy drivers to estimate their impact. No one to my knowledge has ever taken that kind of study down to the metro level.
What are we finding? Things like acres of State Parks, population of bachelor's degrees and higher education, green planning capacity, investment in cities.
If we'd have said this ten years ago, that these were the things that were driving the success of a state, nobody would ever believe us. [But] this is what the numbers say, that if you want to grow Michigan, you’ve got to put emphasis on these things.
Dr. Soji Adelaja serves as both the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in Land Policy and Director of the
Land Policy Institute (LPI) at
Michigan State University. Upcoming research papers from his shop will include “How Region’s Grow: The Role of the Old and New Economy.”
Brad Garmon is managing editor of
Capital Gains.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography specializing in business, advertising and public relations photography.
Photos:
Dr. Soji Adelaja in conversation with Capital Gains at his MSU office
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie