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

Year	Population	Rank in US
2019	201,013	113
2018	200,217	115
2017	198,829	119
2016	196,445	121
2015	195,097	122
2014	193,792	123
2013	192,294	123
2012	190,411	123
2011	189,025	123
2010	188,040	123
2009	193,710	115
2008	193,159	116
2007	193,082	114
2006	192,935	113
2005	193,289	110
2004	194,299	109
2003	195,840	109
2002	196,541	104
2001	197,480	97
2000	197,937	95
1990	189,673	86