We caught the Brookings Institute's Bruce Katz on the Craig Fahle Show (see above) the other day talking about Detroit's downtown-to-midtown vitality and ongoing revitalization. Katz reeled off numbers for the 1.5-square mile midtown center: "You've got 24,000 residents, you've got 46,000 workers, a whole bunch of students, over 30,000 — my lord, that's a platform to build on." He could have gotten more detailed and talked about new restaurants, residential lofts and crafty boutiques, creating a cool place to hang out — an actual scene. That's part and parcel of the process by which the state's only urban public research university has evolved into something more than the solid, affordable commuter school that it's been for seeming eons. Tack on the football team's first trip to the NCAA Division II National Championship last year and a refocused vision for academic achievement, and you see why the school is a winner with MT voters.