This is Michigan

In Lakewood, Colo., a long-shuttered mall is being rebuilt into a 22-block area with parks, bus lines, stores and 1,300 new households. Tysons Corner, Va., is undergoing a full transformation from an office park to a walkable, livable community. And officials in Ferndale, Mich., are promoting the arts scene and building affordable housing in an attempt to revitalize the small city outside Detroit. Remaking America's sprawling suburbs, with their enormous footprints, shoddy construction, hastily built infrastructure and dying malls, is shaping up to be the biggest urban revitalization challenge of modern times-far larger in scale, scope and cost than the revitalization of our inner cities.

General Motors is just about ready to start offering in-house financing once again. Its acquisition of AmeriCredit is complete, pending approval by AmeriCredit's shareholders. The merger is officially effective as of October 1st, 2010 and is an all-cash transaction valued at $3.5 billion.

After a dismal period of huge losses and deep cuts that culminated in the Obama administration's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, the gloom over the American auto industry is starting to lift.

President Obama toured the Ford Explorer plant in Chicago yesterday as part of his tour defending the auto bailout.The U.S. auto industry will add 182,000 more U.S. automotive jobs through 2012, said Sean McIlindin, chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research yesterday at the conclusion of the Management Briefing Seminar in Traverse City, Michigan. Many of those new jobs will come in the Midwest, he added.

PORT HURON, Mich. - This state's tourism ads make people feel good enough to cry. They give hope to the jobless and goose bumps to the jaded. Daily they win new fans on Facebook, new followers on Twitter. When they come on the radio, they inspire listeners to turn up the volume.

From the farmlands of France to the rust-colored post-industrial cities of Michigan, this year's top institutions are finding good science in some rather unusual places.

From auto parts shipped to Canada to a soccer stadium designed for a South Korean city, metro Detroit firms are among the nation's leaders in exporting goods and services to other nations.

What's on our Fourth of July table?

This much is certain: You won't find metro Detroit's collective menu anywhere else in America.

It's coneys, hummus, Greek salads and peach cobbler ... artisan bread, pad thai, berry pie and baklava ... square pizzas, sliders and salsa. It's Faygo and Vernors, Redcoat Tavern and Miller's, Buddy's and Little Caesars.