1) Experts predict that jobs in the Detroit region over the next 30 years will increasingly move to the suburbs and allow people to work from home, driven by the growth of small businesses and telecommuting. 2) As jobs move closer to where people live in the suburbs, companies are closing offices and allowing more employees to work remotely using technology like high-speed internet. 3) The shift is expected to slow population growth in Detroit and fill in areas within the region's suburbs, as well as see some suburbs like Novi and Auburn Hills experience large employment and population gains over the next 30 years.

1. Jobs expected to migrate with workers to suburbs
Small businesses, short commutes are the future, experts say
Mike Wilkinson
The Detroit News
Natasha Maxwell hopes to retire by the time she's 30.
To do so, Maxwell, 25, started her own home business, fielding customer calls for car,
computer and cellular phone companies from around the globe. She even took calls for
the recent American Idol telethon at the small office she opened in Eastpointe where she
employs a handful of others.
Maxwell used to drive to big cubicle jungles in Troy, Warren and Southfield. Now, she
just buzzes up Gratiot to work. Some days, her commute is zero.
"If I don't want to come here today, I can work at home," she said.
With the auto industry moving in reverse, forecasters believe the engine that will drive
Metro Detroit's economic growth will be smaller businesses located closer to employees
as more people work from home and many others, like Maxwell, start their own
businesses.
Years after suburban growth created longer and longer commutes for people, experts
believe most of the jobs in the next three decades will move toward the people who began
moving away from Detroit a half-century ago.
"There are more self-employed people, more entrepreneurs," said Xuan Liu of the
Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, where he was an author of the 2035
Forecast for Southeast Michigan report. Factories will be less prominent, he said, as jobs
move into "smaller offices, closer to people, serving people."
The report predicts that the population in the seven-county region it studies will not
expand much farther out. Instead, it will fill in the areas within the region as jobs
continue to burrow deeper into the suburbs.
The implications of the job shift are profound for Detroit and the region. If jobs continue
to leave Detroit, suburban support could wane for new public transportation projects like
the eight-mile light rail line down Woodward that was endorsed April 21.
Detroit, suggested Kurt Metzger of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan, could
become a bedroom community for the suburbs, a stark reversal of the last half-century.
"I don't think you're going to buck that trend," he said.

2. While some had predicted that rising gas prices would trigger a return to urban cores as
people try to avoid soaring commuting costs, technology is allowing just the opposite.
The ease of working at home has soared as the cost of photo copiers, fax machines and
high-speed Internet access has plummeted.
Employers are embracing telecommuting as a way to save overhead costs and make
employees more productive and happy.
"That's going to change the way we do business, and that's for the better," said Michael
LaFaive, director of fiscal policy for Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative
think tank based in Midland. A number of the center's employees, dubbed "the pajama
staff," work at home, LaFaive said.
Indeed, a growing percentage of the Metro Detroit work force is self-employed. About 12
percent of the region's workers were self-employed in 2001. By 2005, the last year for
which figures are available, that number had climbed to 16 percent. Meanwhile, the
number of people working at home -- still a small fraction of the overall work force --
tripled between 2000 and 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
What's happening at the Mackinac Center is happening across the region and state as the
economy shifts more to "brain industries" that rely less on muscle.
For instance, the Troy-based Entertainment Publications Inc., which produces the
ubiquitous coupon books, has drafted a telecommuting policy that allows some
employees to take their job home. And around the country, the company has closed a
handful of offices, connecting with its sales staff electronically.
"It just makes more financial sense to close offices and have people work from home,"
said spokesman Tamara Oliverio. "They are fully wired and have access."
SEMCOG predicts that Novi and Auburn Hills will have some of the biggest growth.
Novi, which has over 53,000 residents, could see its population grow an estimated 30
percent. But its job base will climb roughly 43 percent, adding as many as 15,600 jobs.
Auburn Hills is expected to add nearly 13,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, over the same time frame, Detroit is expected to lose more than 35,000 jobs
and roughly 185,000 people.
Overall, the report predicts slow job growth over the next three decades, with
manufacturing continuing its historic decline. The biggest gains will take place in the
health care and social services sector, jobs that traditionally go where people live.
Some may scoff at the suburban jobs, saying they're service and retail jobs that don't pay
well. Metzger disagrees. "Oh, I think they are real jobs," he said.

3. Gregg Palm of Walled Lake would agree. A mechanical engineer by training, Palm had a
"real job" with an automotive design company. But more than four years ago he decided
to follow his passion: woodworking.
Palm now makes his coffee and walks about 75 feet to his 1,000-square-foot garage
where he makes high-end pepper mills, bowls and other kitchen, office and beauty items.
Again, technology has provided a helping hand. Palm can scour the Internet for the best
woods and tools and he can market his products. He hopes to expand further, with help
from the Web.
"I buy materials from all around the country. I'm not going to find those in the local
Yellow Pages," he said.
It's all making possible a dream. And he doesn't have to worry about the home office; it's
in his backyard.
You can reach Mike Wilkinson at (313) 222-2563 or mwilkinson@detnews.com.