I know we’ve had a lot on this blog about the current recession and how hard it has hit the auto industry and Michigan.
So, I apologize if you’re sick of reading about it, but I’m posting a link to this sobering Wall Street Journal Story about laid-off white collar workers.
“Mr. Barr, 46 years old, was the type of well-educated, white-collar ‘knowledge’ worker that Michigan hoped would help offset a decline in auto-assembly jobs. But Detroit’s Big Three car makers have aggressively thinned these ranks in the past two years, perhaps …

The city was featured in a recent New York Times travel piece.
This isn’t exactly all the Cleveland sights I would recommend, but there’s some good stuff in here. And it’s always nice to see some good press for the Cleve.
Any thoughts from our many northeast Ohio readers?
-KG
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The Director of Cleveland’s City Planning Commission and a private developer tackled zoning issues in artists housing today at the second annual Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference being held in Cleveland through Friday.

The city of Cleveland updated its comprehensive plan a few years ago to include special live-work space overlays that allow artists to make their homes in areas zoned for light commercial activity. Arts promotion of this type is considered to be important to the local economy because Cleveland has a surplus of industrial space that is well-suited to conversion for artists. Furthermore, the arts have played an important role in revitalizing a number of Cleveland neighborhoods.

Readers of Rust Wire (and citizens of the Rust Belt in general) may know that some of Buffalo’s strongest assets are its spectacular architectural treasures.
The city is wisely trying to capitalize on these structures for tourism and economic development purposes.
Take a look at this video from The Buffalo News about efforts to restore the Richardson- Olmsted complex (formerly the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane).
I’ve driven by this building before, I’m eager to see what the inside is like.
What asset or piece of unusual architecture do you think your city …

Our friends at the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (aka GLUE) are bringing their “I Will Stay If…” party idea to Pittsburgh.
“Every party results in photographs of participants holding signs that tell what it is about their city that would make them stick with it. The photos will be data for GLUE to play a part in reviving and setting urban policy,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explained in today’s paper.
This idea may sound familiar – we wrote about the party in Detroit a few months ago (see photo above).
For more information about …

Freelance reporter Daniel Denvir has taken some interesting travels recently – places like Cleveland – on his “Rust Beltroad trip.”
Here, he highlights an employee-owned company in Cleveland.
I had never heard of Evergreen Laundry, the company he profiles, but it sounds like they are doing a good job of putting people to work.
I like posting stories like this – ones about our cities as innovators, not just victims of de-industrialization and decline.
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More than one-third of Pennsylvania’s $28.7 billion in foundation assets in headquartered in Pittsburgh.

Names like Carnegie, Mellon and Heinz have played a central role in the city’s resurrection from steel, the Associated Press is reporting.

“Steeler Nation is not just loyalty to the football team,” said Grant Oliphant, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation. “It’s sort of emblematic of the loyalty to the place.”

Carnegie’s contemporaries, including oilman Michael Benedum, one of the 100 wealthiest Americans in the 19th century, and ketchup baron H.J. Heinz, held the same convictions, largely rooted in Judeo-Christian thinking that to get to heaven they had to help the less fortunate.

This past week, The New York Times highlighted Sinclair Community College, a school in Dayton helping to retrain workers for the “new” economy.
This glowing piece highlights the school’s low tuition, well-respected programs, aid for displaced G.M. and Delphi workers, and growing enrollment.
“We help people go from $8-an-hour jobs to $18-an-hour jobs,”the school’s president told The Times.
It’s also good to see a Dayton institution get good press after all the negative “dying cities” stuff.
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The Associated Press reports federal officials are evaluating a prison in rural Standish, Michigan, as a possible site to hold Gitmo prisoners.
It’s not surprising to me that officials would head to an economically depressed state to try to do this.
Youngstown famously became associated with prisons, some of which were privately run, moving into town in the wake of the loss of steel jobs.
Opinion amongst locals on the prison is mixed, the AP reports.
Some think it would make the area a terrorist target. And surprisingly, union workers at the prison don’t …

You’ve probably heard those radio ads or seen other billboards or other advertisements touting “Pure Michigan,” the state’s campaign to attract tourists and their dollars.

When I lived in Toledo, the radio ads seemed to literally play non-stop, promoting Ann Arbor, Frankenmuth, Sault Ste. Marie, the UP, and more.

This Detroit Free Press column reports the state is considering cutting the $30 million budget used for promoting Pure Michigan to only $5 million.

What do you think? Have the ads been successful? Is it money well-spent? As a Michigan resident, do they help raise morale in a difficult year?