Michigan's high school graduates and other youth in our southeastern corner of the state had long depended upon auto jobs to provide a meaningful and stable job.

The prospects for an easy-tofind job at an auto plant are dimming as the industry becomes leaner.

So, where will young workers turn in the coming years?

Wayne County is working on one answer. Its leadership and partners in southeast Michigan are well into the mid-stages of creating an aerotropolis, an air-transport hub at Wayne County's Detroit Metro Airport. It's an immense task, compared by some as building a public project equal to the size of a small city. In ideal circumstances, an aerotropolis attracts technology, manufacturing and entertainment job options that keep workers and families in Michigan - and drive an economy like a steam engine, much like water and rail clusters that drove the world's young industrial economy.

An aerotropolis task force awaits a study this spring that will move the project further forward. As the marketing pieces are moved into place, an aerotropolis over the long haul will bring thousands of jobs and new-world industry that leadership hopes will boost our economy and transition into the new century.

A thriving aerotropolis will help keep county youth from leaving the state, which has seen teens and young adults fleeing at alarming rates. Hit by a slump in the American auto industry, Detroit and its suburbs lost more residents in the past six years than any comparable U.S. area except New Orleans, census data show. Wayne County lost more than 89,000 residents from 2000 to 2006 - a loss of 4 percent of the county's 2 million residents. Many are youth and young adults looking for brighter prospects.

Some foreign and domestic regions, in fact, are rolling in a higher gear due to decisions to finance air-transport hubs. Centered largely around Detroit Metro Airport, the aerotropolis in southeast Michigan would span nearly 25,000 acres, straddling Wayne and Washtenaw counties.