What Silicon Valley Can Learn From Grand Rapids

What can Silicon Valley learn from Grand Rapids? The value of encouraging the heart.

What Silicon Valley Can Learn From Grand Rapids

In 2011 Newsweek magazine listed Grand Rapids Michigan in the top ten of “America’s Dying Cities.”

Total Population (2009): 193,710
Proportion Under 18 (2009): 24.8%
Change in Total Population (2000-2009): -2.1%
Change in Residents Under 18 (2000-2009): -2.2 percentage points

It was actually syndicated content from Mainstreet’s “America’s Dying Cities” where they noted in “Grand Rapids Responds To our Dying Cities Ranking”

The rankings of our original article were based on two criteria: changes to the overall population of every U.S. city in the past decade with at least 100,000 residents, and the decline in population of residents 18 and under, both of which were based on census data.

Rob Bliss, Director & Executive Producer (Rob Bliss Events) comments on YouTube page for video

“The Grand Rapids LipDub Video was filmed May 22nd, with 5,000 people, and involved a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, bridges on fire, and helicopter take offs. It is the largest and longest LipDub video, to date.

This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a “dying city.” We disagreed strongly, and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially, in this great city. We felt Don McLean’s “American Pie,” a song about death, was in the end, triumphant and filled to the brim with life and hope.”

What can Silicon Valley learn from Grand Rapids? The value of encouraging the heart.

Related Blog Posts

• The Heart that Holds On
• William Eleazar Barton: The Parable of the Icebergs and the Fog
• Clayton Christensen on “How Will You Measure Your Life?”
• The First Robin: Seeing the End of Winter
• Thanksgiving 2018: a Look Back at Founders Who Persevered

Update 2020:

• in a WalletHub survey of 515 US cities Grand Rapids now ranks in the middle of the pack for growth. Clearly no longer dying.
• DataCommons for Grand Rapids
• Census Data from Biggest US Cities