Quality of Life
Michigan is a great place to live. Bridge will report that fact often — and on potential threats to the assets that make it so.
Articles
Meet Michigan's divided: Ron Price
Meet Ron Price, from Holland.
In possible swansong, Cabela’s celebrates northern Michigan
Nine starstruck Michiganders were delighted to share covered bridges, barn doors and their own dashing good looks to promote this year’s holiday catalog for the iconic retailer, which recently announced its sale to a rival
How Cabela’s captured its Michigan fantasy photos
The cult-like hunting and outdoors retailer chose idyllic settings across wintry Michigan for this year’s Christmas catalog. Here’s the story behind each one.
As deer hunting season opens, a fierce debate over using bait
Wildlife experts concerned about the spread of chronic wasting disease face off against more than a half-million deer hunters in Michigan. Money, as well as trophies, hang in the balance.
How Grand Rapids is prepping for the next big storm
Michigan, like most states, will have to spend billions on aging water infrastructure. But cities like Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and even tiny Manistee are already dipping their toes into innovative projects to keep surging stormwater at bay.
Detroit banks on green infrastructure to rescue city from heavy rains
Severe storms have been a recurring disaster in basements across Detroit. The city’s drive to install rain gardens and other innovative infrastructure not only reduces flooding, but is far less expensive than adding more underground pipes
How to take wildlife photos like a boss this summer
Legendary outdoors writer Eric Sharp shows you how to capture that eagle, moose, or other wonder of nature without spending a fortune on camera gear
Threat of environmental injustice extends beyond Flint
Whether it’s lead paint in older homes, airborne pollutants from factories, or the everyday stress of life on the margins, poor and minority communities in Michigan too often bear the brunt of environmental peril.
Mining’s last stand? A UP way of life is threatened
Michigan's last two producing Upper Peninsula iron ore mines hang by a thread, as slumping ore prices cripple the industry
From Italy to the UP: A mining family album
The story of one immigrant family, common in this region, is four generations deep
Empathy, action, truth: How crisis communications might save Flint
Experts say the key to rebuilding trust is skilled crisis management, but that’s not happening in Flint, at least not yet.
Pit bulls versus everybody. Should they be banned?
In the aftermath of two grisly deaths, some cities defend laws restricting pit bulls, even as a bill in Lansing would strip local governments from being able to ban specific breeds.
In reversal, rising death rates among middle-age whites in Michigan
A national study finds rising death rates for midlife whites without a college education, even as mortality rates for other groups fall. So it is in Michigan, with stress and poor health leading to drug and alcohol overdoses and suicide.
Amid Flint’s water crisis, a quiet success story
Flint has seen roughly 30 percent of its blighted homes demolished since 2014, exceeding the city’s goals when it received federal funds to fight blight.
Why Flint is planting clover, rather than grass, on vacant lots
Cities are turning to this perennial plant as a low-mow solution for maintaining abandoned or vacant properties.
Improved smiles for some low-income Michigan children
Medicaid expansion and innovative programs are giving more low-income Michigan children a shot at healthy dental care. But access still lags in some rural and urban areas, and impoverished adults continue to suffer from lack of preventative care after years of uncertain funding.
Effort to ban fluoride in drinking water makes little headway in Michigan
Concern over fluoride’s effect on the human body – and some anti-government sentiment – is forcing dentists and scientists to defend the longstanding practice of putting fluoride in water systems to improve dental health.
Despite concussion fears, Michigan allows long hours of prep football hitting
The state is on the front lines of detecting head injuries. Yet Bridge found that Michigan allows high school football teams anywhere from four to six times as much full-contact hitting at practices as states like Ohio, Alabama and Texas.
From high school football star to ‘a completely different person’
A lawsuit claims that youth football led to brain damage and the suicide at age 25 of an Upper Peninsula football player.