Saginaw and Bay City, sister cities of the Great Lakes Bay region, were once presumed dead. But today, vacancy rates are down sharply, iconic downtown buildings are getting a second life and businesses are growing in tech, aerospace and manufacturing.

In this special report:

▪ Sister nonprofits work for a brighter future in Bay City, Saginaw: In both Saginaw and Bay City, on track for ghost town status a decade ago, vacancy rates are down sharply and cranes dot the downtown landscape. Read story.

▪ The only U.S. polysilicon supplier is still reeling: Hemlock Semiconductor is the poster child for the unintended consequences of tarriffs. The company lost 700 jobs and $500 million in revenue after 2012 tarriffs were imposed on Chinese solar manufacturers. Read story.

▪ A vending machine, but for tooling parts: Jim Terry took a job at P.F. Markey to get some sales experience under his belt after college. Over 30 years later, he's still there, and he's built a tiny local operation into a national tooling parts distributor with over $50 million in revenue projected this year. Read story.

▪ An aerospace startup lifts off in Bay City: BGT Aerospace LLC started out of a kitchen after the founders were laid off from their jobs at Thomas Instrument. Since then the startup has landed SBA loans and 15 government contracts, which means good news and bad news for a new company. Read story.

▪ Communications startup helps Saginaw businesses tell their stories: Bored with corporate culture at Dow, Amy Augustin founded Venture6 Studio LLC to help companies get their message across through marketing strategies, logo design, video, mobile apps, multimedia presentations and more. Read story.

▪ From Saginaw to the cloud, Dice Corp. grows security business: Dice Corp. says off-site hosting and storage has been key to steady growth of 20-30 percent annually in recent years. Read story.