From the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce website:

The Northwest Michigan Council of Governments and the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce awarded the Village of Empire a $20,000 Community Growth Grant on Tuesday, August 24 to the Empire Village Council. The grant was awarded to the village for the purpose of implementing [...]

The Grand Vision recently sat down with Sterling Speirn, President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to talk about the significance of the Grand Vision. The Kellogg Foundation has provided major funding to 3 organizations, Rotary Charities, the Michigan Land Use Institute and the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments to support the activities of [...]

ISLAND (Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, & Natural Design) with major support from The Neahtawanta Research and Education Center, Eden Foods, Fernand Footwear and Fox on a Hill present Permaculture For Abundance With Peter Bane & Keith Johnson.
It all takes place the weekend of August 28th and 29th.
What is Permaculture?
As a system of design, Permaculture [...]

SEEDS, in partnership with the Michigan Public Service Commission, Grand Traverse County, and the city of  Traverse City are developing a climate action plan for our region based on your priorities.
Please click here to complete the short survey!
The results of this Climate Action Survey will directly influence the Action Plan that will be created. [...]

Entrepreneurs seeking funding will be able to present a pitch to angel investors at an event on August 11th.
Boost Northwest Michigan a path to funding your business will give entrepreneurs the opportunity to present a two-minute pitch (no slides) to an audience of experienced investors from the Blue Water Angel Network of Midland, Michigan.
The event [...]

Roughly 70 people attended a traffic calming presentation led by national expert Ian Lockwood on Monday July 26th, 2010.
Up North Media was at the event and produced a full video of the event.
If you would like to watch it online, click here.
Photo: Roundabout from Wikimedia Commons

This article was written by Shauna Fite (Policy Specialist at the Michigan Land Use Institute for Benzie County) and this piece was originally published in the Benzie County Record-Patriot on July 28th, 2010.
More than 20 Benzie residents, community leaders, and local officials are now working together to further the goals of the regional, citizen-based Grand Vision [...]

On July 28th, the Grand Vision Transportation and Growth and Investment Working Groups hosted an informational forum on how Regional Wayfinding can be utilized to make the Grand Vision a reality.
The forum was led by Mark VanderKlipp, President of Corbin Design. Earlier that day, Mark spoke with Melissa Smith about the ideas behind the forum [...]

Roughly 70 people attended a traffic calming presentation led by national expert Ian Lockwood Monday afternoon.
“Traffic calming is taking the mean fast cars and getting them to be slow, happy cars,” joked Lockwood.
On a more serious note, Lockwood said that with slower driving speeds kill rates decrease for pedestrians and property damage decreases as well [...]

There was something of a Grand Vision twist to last night's Michigan By Rail Forum at the Civic Center.
Roughly 130 people attended and they certainly did not sit around listening to a series of experts talk about rail. Instead, everyone broke off into groups around large sized Michigan maps. And with a variety of stickers, [...]