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 …

Living in the Rust Belt one becomes accustomed to what many find shocking. Example: in a period of a few weeks I saw the façade of an abandoned brick building fall out of itself on fire and into the street. Firemen and neighbors gathered around to look. Nobody was surprised really. It was more communal than anything.
Then not a few weeks later I went for a jog and came upon a skeleton of twisted metal that had its insides sunken in. It was quiet. The smell was of …

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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Generally, architecture is art, and the lived-in, tidy house could be considered a finished piece; that is, framed, constructed, and imbued with a sense of meaning that is channeled into some schemata that breeds instant recognition, form. Conversely, the vacated, absent version spilling at the seams eliminates such preconceptions, evoking senses of insecurity via disorganization. Vacancy, in effect, serves as symbols of what as a society we aspire not to be.

To that end the swaths of the Rust Belt returning to earth are the effects of what’s societally broke. But if one goes past this convention—and the loss, rubble, and the rats—one can see something else, or a canvas from which new systems can be hinted at (this is Ruin Porn, its other manifestations are just that). Art has always done this: used image to push passed just-reason to ignite a paradigm switch.

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:

A strange, albeit temporary, quiet has settled over the streets of Buffalo’s Allentown neighborhood early this week, as the Infringers that have been a fixture in the neighborhood for nearly two weeks enjoy time at home. The Wambulance is notably absent from its spot on Days Park, and art lovers across the city are left, pleasantly exhausted, wondering why we all don’t Infringe more often.

There is a spirit to the Buffalo Infringement Festival (BIF) – the grassroots arts festival which took place from July 28 to August 7 – that would benefit us all if infused into the other 354 days of the year. It’s a sense of exploration, discovery, creativity and celebration. It seems during those 11 bustling days that anything is possible because there are no boundaries, no restrictions and no judgment. It’s a space where art is created organically and with intention, with the support of a strong and organized community.

Painter and cyclist Jen Clausen is biking through the Rust Belt this month from her home in Madison, Wisconsin, to New York City.
Along, the way, she is painting what she sees every day.
Check out Rust Belt Ride to see what she has seen so far in Milwaukee and Chicago!
Thanks to Madison garden/ political blogger Linda Brazill for bringing this ride to our attention!
-KG
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There is a small experiment currently going on in Cleveland. It is part advocacy, part planning, part art, part urban therapy, and it’s called the W. 83rd St. Project.

It’s based on the notion that cities need to start attending to their emotional landscape via their physical landscape. Because a city building on top of its psychic junk expecting change is like the man who builds towers out of a need to cover some tunneling feeling inside.

The W. 83 St. Project is a neighborhood intervention meant to: (1) attend to the emotional landscape of Cleveland; (2) rework the idea of vacancy in a direct way at the local level; and (3) help a neighborhood heal after a devastating natural gas explosion. The process, in images, will be described below.

I have mixed feelings about this new reality show based on young, single women living near downtown Cincinnati.

One one hand, this type of reality TV show — sort of a “The Hills” ripoff without the drama — probably wouldn’t have even been possible in Cincinnati about a decade ago. The young protagonists live in modern condos in the revitalized Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. They hang out at craft breweries and attend fashion shows.

On the other hand, I couldn’t shake off this feeling of depression after I watched it. Gawker called it, get ready for it Cincy boosters, “a reality show about four boring single women and their boring struggle to balance their boring lives in a boring southern Ohio city.”