Michigan Business & Economy

Traverse City needs affordable housing, but must be “built responsibly”

Michigan Public | By Stateside Staff

Published October 12, 2016 at 5:01 PM EDT

"Anything that you would want, from shopping, to health care, to buying a car, you name it, we have it all right here. But yet, we have an incredible small town feel, and that's a very special thing," Brenda Quick told us.

Our conversation with Brenda Quick and Sakura Raftery. Quick leads the Save Our Downtown Movement in Traverse City and is an emeritus professor of law at the Michigan State University Law School. Raftery is director of housing for Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan.

What happens to a picturesque city when its charms draw more and more people who want to live or work there, and when the push for new housing threatens the very thing that made that city so special?Traverse City is wrestling with these questions right now, including the lack of affordable housing.

Brenda Quick, a leader of the Save Our Downtown movement, and Sakura Raftery, director of business enterprise for Goodwill Industries of Northern Michigan, sat down with us at our live event in Traverse City to talk about housing concerns in the area, and what makes the city so special.

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