As U.S. states go, Michigan is relatively more involved with international trade than are most states.  This talk discusses Michigan’s role in U.S. trade, with a focus on President Trump’s trade initiatives, particularly trade with China, Korea, and North America. 

Ann Arbor is the eighth most socioeconomically segregated metro area

Carbon "fee and dividend” and “cap and trade” strategies are currently used, or are planned, in many parts of the world. This panel explores challenges and opportunities of these policies.

The panel is moderated by Dr. Knute Nadelhoffer.  Panelists include Dr. Barry Rabe and Dr. Sam Stolper of the University of Michigan as well as Dr. Lisa Del Buono of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. 

The Great Lakes Committee of the Ann Arbor chapter of the League of Women Voters hosts a panel discussion on challenges facing the Great Lakes, with an update on the Line 5 oil pipeline. A panel of experts, including Dr. Eric Anderson (NOAA) and Liz Kirkwood (Executive Director, FLOW), presents and discusses the issues.

Hundreds of community members throughout Washtenaw County read and discussed the award-winning book $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin & H. Luke Shaefer, which was selected as the Washtenaw Reads in September 2016 by a panel of community judges.

About the book:
After two decades of groundbreaking research on American poverty, Kathryn Edin noticed something she hadn’t seen before — households surviving on virtually no income, a level of destitution so deep as to be unthought-of in the world’s most advanced capitalist economy. Edin teamed with Luke Shaefer, an expert on surveys of the incomes of the poor, to discover that the number of American families living on $2.00 per person, per day, has skyrocketed to 1.5 million American households, including about 3 million children.

The result of their investigative teamwork is this book, which received much critical acclaim. "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America" won the prestigious Hillman Prize for Book Journalism by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, was short-listed for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation and was named a New York Times Notable Book and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

About the authors:
Kathryn J. Edin, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, is the coauthor of "Promises I Can’t Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage" and "Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work." H. Luke Shaefer, Ph.D. is an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, where he studies poverty and social welfare policy in the United States.. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, and received the 2013 Early Career Achievement Award, given by the Society for Social Work and Research.

Urban planning as a field focuses on managing development to shape the effects of growth on cities. But what can planners do in cities like Detroit where developing, redeveloping, rebuilding, and revitalizing are not possibilities? University of Michigan professor of urban and regional planning Margi Dewar lays out directions with a few examples for a different kind of urban planning.

The League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area (LWV-AAA) hosted this discussion of the May 5 Ballot Proposal, “A proposal to amend the State Constitution to increase the sales/use tax from 6% to 7% to replace and supplement reduced revenue to the School Aid Fund and local units of government caused by the elimination of the sales/use tax on gasoline and diesel fuel for vehicles operating on public roads, and to give effect to laws that provide additional money for roads and other transportation purposes by increasing the gas tax and vehicle registration fees.”

Susan Smith, President, League of Women Voters of Michigan, lead the discussion, which aimed to provide information on the proposal to amend the Michigan Constitution and on new laws that would be triggered by the amendment's approval. The presentation includes information on how state revenue would be increased and how it would be spent, and discussion of pros and cons of passing the legislation.

The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization and this event's cosponsor, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

Jim Mogensen, community activist, and Mary Browning, have both worked with ICPJ and have been actively involved with the Racial and Economic Justice Task Force since its inception in the early 1990s.

John Powell got involved with ICPJ soon after arriving to the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area in 1974. Already active in social justice and civil rights issues, Powell discusses the role of ICPJ as an instrument of both action and support as his interest and activities branched out into several related areas, including protests over the University of Michigan's involvement in South Africa, advocating for divestiture, and raising awareness of Apartheid.

In this episode, Rebecca Kanner, Gregory Fox, Tobi Hanna-Davies, Mary Anne Perrone, and Richard Stahler-Shulk discuss their involvement in various ICPJ projects and activities relating to central American issues over the years.

Tobi Hanna-Davies talks about her leadership and involvement in the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament during 1980s

Gregory Fox discusses his involvement with the Latin American Solidarity Committee and in establishing a Sister City program in Nicaragua

Rebecca Kanner talks about her involvement with the Latin American Task Force and some of the activities she's helped with over the years, from clothing drives to demonstrations and lobbying.

Mary Anne Perrone talks about hunger and describes their successful 1991 protest over Tom Monaghan's efforts to raise money to build a cathedral in Nicaragua with a $500-a-plate dinner by staging a 5-cent-a-plate dinner of rice and beans.

Richard Stahler-Shulk. a Latin American scholar and Eastern Michigan University professor, talks about his dual role as an academic and activist