Downtown, people live and work in the proud, tall buildings of Michigan's golden age of industry. Mammoth brick and concrete factories still manufacture products or find new life as housing, shops, or offices. City and village skylines are punctuated by the towers, domes, and steeples of city halls, courthouses, and houses of worship. Shoppers strolling on Main Street admire the ornate brick and red sandstone storefronts. Residential neighborhoods delight the eye with all the variety and intricate detail of dozens of different architectural styles, and houses display their repaired porches and freshly painted clapboards.
New development respects the old and enhances the character of the community.
Parks, fairgrounds, and cemeteries are places of recreation and refuge as they were for those who created them many decades ago. Travelers through Michigan find broad vistas of cherry orchards and cornfields with farmhouses and barns, and rustic lodges secluded in the forests. The Great Lakes shore seems never ending - sandy dunes and rocky points dotted with lighthouses, boathouses, shipping docks, and quaint summer cottages. Protected archaeological sites preserve those remnants of our history that survive only below ground and under water. From Isle Royale to Monroe, the natural and the built environment are in harmony, and every place in Michigan maintains its distinctive identity.