Lt. Governor Gilchrist Launches 'Thriving Cities' Tour to Continue Putting Michiganders First and Delivering Real Change

Press Release

Today, in Detroit, Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II launched the next phase of his 'Thriving Cities' tour. In 2019, Lieutenant Governor Gilchrist started 'Thriving Cities' by holding conversations across Michigan to hear directly from community members in cities. This phase will analyze the tangible impacts of the game-changing investments the Whitmer/Gilchrist administration has made to help cities thrive, and explore ongoing, underlying challenges that they face.

"Michigan's cities offer tremendous opportunity to our people and we are proud of the progress we have made to help families, communities, and small businesses in our cities thrive. However, cities continue to have underlying, unmet needs, and the COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the disparities that Michiganders of color in cities face daily," said Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II. "I look forward to connecting with more communities across our state on this leg of the Thriving Cities tour to highlight what the Whitmer/Gilchrist administration has done and will continue to do Michiganders in cities. Our number one goal is to put Michiganders first by improving the quality of life in urban centers and increasing economic opportunity."

The Thriving Cities tour will be making 25 stops across Michigan, including meeting with residents from Flint, Saginaw, Benton Harbor, Lansing, and more.

"During my first tour across the state, it became clear that after decades of disinvestment, local communities across Michigan were struggling to address their crumbling infrastructure, broken education systems, and widening skills gap," said Gilchrist. "Since that tour, we made the largest K-12 investment in state history without raising taxes, made community college and job training programs free to help more people get good-paying, high-skill jobs, created 15,000 auto jobs including the first plant in Detroit in decades, and continued to fix the roads and repair water infrastructure. We made progress on these issues which were discussed in every city I went to on the first Thriving Cities tour. They're issues that people across Michigan face every day. On this tour, I'm looking forward to discussing more solutions we can pursue and investment we can make to meet every city's needs, from transportation to infrastructure to housing. Governor Whitmer and I will continue showing up, listening, and taking decisive action to get things done that make a real difference in people's lives."

For more information and that latest updates on the Thriving Cities tour visit: https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90502_95096---,00.html

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