My wife and I moved from Toledo to Northeast Ohio almost eight years ago. Today we certainly consider Lakewood to be our home. But if you ask either one of us where we are from, we will proudly proclaim Toledo. It is the place that provided both of us with fantastic memories and shaped our identities. Not coincidentally then, it is source of intense pride in the Sattler household, so much so that a few years ago when a friend jokingly derided Toledo during a party in our home, we immediately discontinued his drinking privileges – a minor punishment for a major infraction. To this day, we still take great pride in Toledo and believe it to be a great place to call home. For us, it just so happened that our careers led us 100 miles east, but it has not done anything to diminish our appreciation for the city and its residents.

I started series on the “psychology of the suburbs” unsure if crack, big box sprawl, the amygdala, “Don’t Tread on Me,” and innovation–stunting conformity had a legitimate connection. I ended it confident they do.

Let’s begin with crack. It’s got immediate perks for sure. But there are the long-term consequences that render the short-term gains mute. This lesson of crack is also the lesson of big box economics, i.e., initial tax revenue hit succumbs to long-term cost of sprawl. But we got no rehab for cities, or any value-driven consensus to stop the self-destructing instant gratification for that matter.

Greater Lansing has an amazing music scene, but it is seldom heard about it outside a 100 mile or so radius from the State Capital. Probably the best known band to hail from this area is The Verve Pipe, with its memorable #1 hit single “The Freshman.” Frontier Ruckus, The Hard Lessons, and Autumn Lull (among others) have also made a decent amount of buzz outside of their Greater Lansing roots.

Recently, a new album entitled Ghost Town Lullabies was released by a Greater Lansing area alternative rock band called Elliot Street Lunatic. Ghost Town Lullabies is simply superb! I cannot give it a high enough rating – it is literally off the charts for those of us who like alternative rock or indie music.

Speak with any preservationist who has considered LEED certification for a project and they will be quick to point out that the act of saving an existing structure is given the same weight as installing bike racks in the LEED scoring system – that is to say, not much.

Yes. I do believe this to be an accurate statement over the long run. Frankly, any major American city that solely relies on streets and highways for its transportation network will fail to remain competitive and will falter economically over time. That includes cities with bus transit systems that rely on the same streets and highways.
By rail, I am including subways, commuter rail, or light rail (tram, trolley, and modern streetcar). I am not including BRT (bus rapid transit), because they use the same thoroughfares as traditional buses and automobiles. …

It’s branding season again in Cleveland, so says the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In its 2012 editorial agenda, a main goal for the upcoming year is “[rebranding Cleveland] to change not only the look and feel of our region’s “capital city,”… but also the way the world and Clevelanders themselves look at it.”

But the branding of a Rust Belt city is tricky business, as you’re dealing with the prospect of putting lipstick on a poorhouse, or at least that’s how it can be perceived. For example, Atlantic Cities recently did a study examining perceptions of the country’s big cities, and the Rust Belt claimed six of the top ten spots in highest percentage of negative reactions, with Detroit and Cleveland claiming first and third place, respectively.

Those immortal song lyrics come from Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee and fellow Hoosier John Mellencamp’s classic rock tune entitled “Pink Houses.” On my return trip to Michigan from Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon, I decided to follow the road less traveled and was fortunate enough to visit one very proud small town for an hour or so and take in some of the local history and culture.
Most small towns cannot claim a legendary icon as their native son or daughter. Charming Fairmount, Indiana, set amid a patchwork quilt of rural farms and with an population of approximately …

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 …

Cleveland’s Mayor Jackson needs to be given credit in that he is at least talking to the talk. That is, he wants to design Downtown down to human scale. Part public space design, part pedestrian-level connectivity, the Mayor’s vision rightly understands that stand alone projects are just that: stand alone. No better than having telephone poles lining a street without the benefit of wires.
Parsing, the city’s philosophy of connectivity—and in a meta sense: vitality—seems to be that of the circulatory variety. In other words, you got a heart, you got lifeblood, and …