Timebanks have been cropping up in cities across the country. Very loosely, participants trade work hours in an effort to build a better community. Of course, there’s much more to it than that, and Edge Brussel, coordinator of the new Lansing Timebank, as well as Stephanie Rearick, co-director of the thriving Dane County Timebank in Madison, Wisc., tell us what’s involved.
Starting in 2005, General Motors closed several of its mid-Michigan factories, including Lansing Car Assembly and the Craft Centre. The economic blow was devastating to thousands of families who had given generations of service to America’s auto industry. Now, a new task force is working to bring families, businesses and neighborhoods together to plant new seeds in those vacant brownfields.
A new task force will devise strategies for bringing more automotive manufacturing to the Lansing area, and redeveloping former General Motors properties that have been idle for years.
Economic developers have their sights on what they’re calling a “burgeoning” part of Michigan’s economy—the garment industry. East Lansing’s Prima Civitas Foundation wants to connect scattered designers and manufacturers and morph them into a greater economic force.
