Here’s A Look Back At 2018 For Clues About What Are Likely To Continue As Some Of The More Important Stories Of 2019

Mitchell Rohde PhD, CEO of Quantum Signal, speaking at Army Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Symposium and Exposition in Detroit — Dr Mitchell Rohde, CEO of Quantum Signal in Saline Michigan, speaking at Army Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Symposium and Exposition in Detroit. © 2018 d2 Saline, All Rights Reserved. USA

As a self-assessment, what were the feature stories in Saline Journal that have emerged as stand-outs from 2018 in year-end review?

Rather than simply count the number of articles that went into covering any given subject matter or report on which garnered the most reads, we looked for subtler indicators as well. Which packed the greatest wallop with barely a mention at all? What topics insinuated connections with deft alacrity?

Artificial intelligence (AI)

This year started out with anticipation of self-driving shuttle assembly on East Michigan Avenue and attempts to explain what that meant and its market potential. Hashtag #autonomous? #mobility? Insufficient. We needed to be thinking infrastructures. “Smart cities”? Think even bigger. You’re already being personally integrated with intimate data sharing that reaches right into your pocket. That’s the story: This is already everywhere and growing, fast. [1,2,3,4]

The Saline Hotel

Although the facts of local retail and tourist attraction cover quite a spread, parochial attention has long been cast in terms of a given, that Saline is downtown, of course, and, um, you know “everything else.” Emagine Theatre was a powerful disruption to that when it opened in Eastgate twenty-one months ago. But when the Best Western Premier opens next year, the effective Saline nexus will actually migrate from four-corners to a point just off the TCF Bank parking lot. [5,6,7]

Legally governed from Saline City Hall, certainly; but effectively bringing Pittsfield Township Hall a lot more intimately to the mix. Anyone still want to debate appropriate characterization of this “game-changer” on The Lucy Ann Lance Show in January? [8,9,10]

Priorities in education

During an interview at our Saline Journal offices last summer, Faurecia Interiors North American Operations Vice President Robert Kinney talked about the ongoing investments that firm was making in sponsorship of Washtenaw County area FIRST Robotics teams (plural). The same FIRST Robotics that had a major presence on the floor of Grand Rapids Comic-Con. And at the Army Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Symposium and Exposition in Detroit last month. [11,12,13,14]

Nationally and locally, Washtenaw Community College has uniquely emerged as a player at the forefront of this. Washtenaw Community College. Positioned, for example, along side Faurecia and Lectronics at all levels of the education to employment to ongoing education spectrum, they are part of an organic redefining of what is already needed to succeed in society. [15,16,17,18]

ADA and aging population

There was a good deal of table chatter before the Washtenaw Community College Smart Cities program began in April, focused on why a professor of psychology and family dynamics researcher had been tapped to speak before this largely technical and political interests audience. No question at all by the time she’d finished what turned out to be one of the longer presentations that day. [19]

You already knew that the US population is getting significantly older. But did you also know that people in their prime working years, those with skills most in demand, are choosing where to call home with greatest attraction to those communities that can support their older and even disabled family members who they want to bring with them? [20,21]

Home-grown history

In our questions to the three candidates running for Saline City Council on November 6, we asked each to describe their view of “history” in terms of the future of Saline. They all said encouraging words. [22,23,24]

Our Saline Area Historical Society presented its 2017 report in April. Fantastic programs. But it took well-over a year for support to be garnered to replace the Rentschler farmhouse belfry, felled during a storm. Who knew that there was a completely separate Saline Area Schools Historic Preservation Society and how it makes financial ends meet? [25,26,27,28,29]

On bigger stages — far away stages — interest in puppets can pack a room, enthralled. Our own impressive collection of marionettes and related documentation has entered its eleventh year in hidden storage. [30,31]

Poverty and need

The underserved and far less fortunate are still very much among us. Yes, even in Washtenaw County. The holiday season, now coming to an end, put a special spotlight on this and prompted reminders to give. But these very big challenges need reliable attention year round, served through both public and private initiatives. [32,33,34,35,36,37]

***

Many other features were just as important in their own ways, of course. But these are the standout themes from an inside perspective at Saline Journal, along with the bigger picture contexts and connections that argue for highlighting them here.

References