Meet the Authors
Mike and Pete bring 5 decades of collective experience in economic and entreprenurship development, urban planning, and public policy. That hands-on foundation is paired with an academic curiosity that pushes both authors toward deeper analysis and sharper reporting. For the past 10 years, they've channeled that combination of practical experience and intellectual rigor into a single pursuit, unpacking why 2 former industrial cities, Detroit and Seattle, have such divergent pathways.
Mike Ducker
Mike has spent the last 25 years chasing a single question: how do entrepreneurs and industries build prosperity for the places they call home? That pursuit has taken him into research, design, leadership, and advisory roles on economic development programs in more than 50 countries. This work has helped unlock $150 million in private capital, and drawn praise from President Obama and the former Prime Minister of Armenia.
Mike grew up in the suburbs of Detroit but wanted to see the world, so he joined the Peace Corps after graduating with an MBA from the University of Michigan. Mike is an endurance athlete; he has biked with his wife from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC, summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, run several marathons, completed a half-Ironman, and 100 mile bike ride. He has been living in Silver Spring, Maryland for 20 years, outside of DC, with his wife Tracy and daughter Maya, a D3 All-Academic Athlete.
Pete is an urban planning consultant, writer and researcher whose work focuses on urbanism and public policy. His research focus has been on cities of the American “Rust Belt” region, specifically the manufacturing-dominant legacy cities of the Great Lakes and Midwest. Pete focuses on urban policy, history, economics, and demographics, with a distinct Rust Belt/Midwest emphasis. Pete is also a practicing urban planner with more than twenty-five years’ of local government experience in planning, economic development, and community development, in the Chicago metropolitan area. Pete has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) since 2010.
Pete is also the editor/publisher of the Corner Side Yard, an urbanist newsletter, since 2012. Pete was formerly an urban affairs writer for Forbes, and an urban policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Pete’s writings have been published widely, including traditional outlets such as Planning Magazine, the Chicago Reader, Crain’s Chicago Business, the Detroit Free Press, the Guardian of London and Encyclopedia Britannica, and Internet outlets such as the Urbanophile, New Geography, Rust Wire, Planetizen and Huffington Post.