Source: lonelyplanet.com

Michigan State University in East Lansing has been a steady leader among public universities in the United States for sending its students abroad for a portion of their academic studies. On the flipside, the university along with seven other Big Ten universities has been the lucky recipients of a growing influx of international students, particularly undergraduates from China in the past five years. According to the Open Doors 2011 report from the Institute of International Education, of the 25 universities in the United States with the largest international student population, …

This post was originally published on panethos.wordpress.com.
Kudos to Carmel. No…I am not talking about Carmel, California, which is indeed a gorgeous town overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In this case I am complimenting  Carmel, Indiana, a large suburb of approximately 80,000 residents located just north of Indianapolis. When I was growing up in Indy (way back when), Carmel was largely nondescript,  with sprawling subdivisions across cornfields. It was best known for powerhouse football and basketball teams and the Carmel movie theater (sadly no longer there). The downtown area at the time was very small …

Thirty years ago, I took a trip with my dad and brother to downtown Cleveland to watch two old buildings get blown up. The event was billed as a momentous milestone, but to me it seemed more like a natural disaster. A tsunami of dust swept towards us and, within seconds, I lost them in the crowd.

Downtown revitalizations are notorious for cookie-cutter and copycat approaches.  You want to be like Miami? Build a waterfront club.  Vegas? A casino of course.  Indianapolis you say? Well, you better get a world-class convention center.
Here in Cleveland we are in the process of building all this and more. In fact we may just become the collective of everyplace that our diaspora brethren have left us for.

Let’s hope not. In fact I hope this time the leaders listen to themselves talking when acknowledging a basic tenant of economic development: be your …

Check out the work being done by the folks at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which they highlighted in this video.
Learn more about their history and their work downtown, which has gotten some recent publicity.
-KG
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Some great photos of the Steel City from my pal Estelle Tran at her new blog, Pixburgh N’at.

Recognize this spot in Oakland?

Another great street scene.

Love this one.

Make sure you read the sign.
Check more of ‘em out here.
-KG
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Missouri, I know you’ve been walloped by decades of deindustrialization and now the Great Recession. You’re being forced to make some terrible choices when it comes to your state budget. On the chopping block is your historic preservation tax credit. It may seem trite to cry for the potential loss of this program. I mean, shouldn’t you be spending taxpayer money on schools and roads and bridges? Yes, but hold on a second. You need to think this through. Where are your historic structures? In the middle of your cities! For the last 50 years, people have been abandoning your cities for the suburbs. In the meantime, you’ve had to build new roads, install new water and sewer lines, build new schools, and take care of this more spread-out infrastructure. Those buildings in the middle of your cities are worth keeping around. Worth investing in. They’re your history. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore and it’s not going to be cheap to fix them. But it’s worth it. Here’s why:

These photos were taken by Cleveland photographer and urban explorer Kevin Smith. He writes at BornCirca1979.

Below is the Warner and Swasey building on East 55th and Carnegie in Cleveland. For 100 years, they made telescope parts in this building, before closing in 1980. There have been talks about making it into a tech center.

On to Westinghouse Electric, on East 58th Street. This building employed 560 workers in 1960, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. At the time it was Westinghouse’s world headquarters for lighting. It relocated in 1979.

Last week I visited Lowell, Massachusetts, which many consider to be the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the United States.
The city near Boston was home to many cotton mills in the early 1800s, but by the 1920s and 1930s, many of the mills had closed. The economy briefly revived during World War II, but most mills closed for good by the 1950s and 1960s – foreshadowing the manufacturing job losses that would later hit cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland.
The city saw dark times during the 1960s, and some …

This multimedia project by student journalist Estelle Tran highlights two former church sites in Pittsburgh that have now been converted into other uses – one a brew pub and the other a concert venue and recording studio.
Places like this are what I love about Pittsburgh!
Any other good converted churches in your community?
-KG
 
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