Lackawanna is on a tear lately in an ill-advised effort to eliminate its historic heritage. The latest news from the former steel city is that it’s compelling the demolition of the old Lackawanna Steel office building (later known as Bethlehem North Office Building).  The demolition is set to begin today, Monday, May 21. 

The old Lackawanna Steel headquarters has been empty for probably three decades and neglected for probably four.  It may be the most historic building in Lackawanna, after the OLV Basilica.  It was the heart of the Western New York steel industry …

“The biggest challenge facing a shrinking city is the move of the working class from the urban core to the suburban fringes. Rust Belt Chic is about more than the return home to help. It also concerns a reversal of the flow to greener pastures. The inner city is the new frontier, whereas outlying rural areas used to be the ‘blank slates’ for utopian dreams. The only irony here is that suburbia is now suffering from blight.”
Jim Russel, from Bar Mleczny in the Cleveland Review
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Salon’s Will Doig wrote a thoughtful, …

At the end of this post is a list of those communities in the Rust Belt that have been designated by the League of American Bicyclists as a “Bicycle Friendly Community” on its 2012 list. A total of 210 communities have received this honor nationwide, including 47 (22.4%) here in the Rust Belt.
Nine communities that are shown in italics were added to the list in the past year.  Another 11 communities in the Rust Belt where named honorable mentions. Please note the list does not include several communities in the Boston, New York …

The spring of 1968 ushered in one of the most tumultuous years in modern American History. A year that nearly saw the fabric of the country split apart as assassinations, riots, and protests rocked cities from coast to cast.

Much ink has been spilled over the lingering cultural and social fallout from that year. We have also largely remembered the impact of the icons that were martyred in 68. Much less attention has been paid though to the lasting side effects of the massive riots/uprisings that followed the assassination of Dr. King.
In the days after April 4th, 117 civil disturbances broke out in inner cities across America. In 18 of those the National Guard was required to put down the rioting. Federal troops ultimately marched into three cities: Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington D.C.

Let me first say I don’t consider myself a Cleveland cheerleader. I consider myself a Clevelander that is tired of the weariness that comes with asserting my city’s right to exist outside of poverty and punchlines. Is Cleveland poor and a punchline? Yes. Is that all to the story? No.
So when I was presented with the chance to tell a Cleveland story for the D.C.-based Urban Institute I knew what I didn’t want to do: a piece on vacancy, and joblessness, and the general malaise of the Rust Belt condition. …

8000 BCE. Humans and mammoths co-exist in Northeast Ohio until we hunt them into extinction.  Hough probably not settled due to bugs.
1200 AD. Native peoples begin settling into villages in river valleys.
1500 AD. Mound builders start to disappear.
1600s. Iroquois take over Ohio in a bloody war with various tribes.
1700s. Iroquois move east to fight the French and English. Wyandot move into region (most artifacts near Sandusky). They were known for their “rough hair”  (read: mohawks—my husband is a descendant.)
1799. Doan family builds tavern at E. 107th & Euclid …

63rd Street was once a mecca of culture and business on Chicago’s South Side. Amelia Earhart went to a high school on the street. Duke Ellington confabbed with Tony Bennett between gigs. Hugh Hefner (only arguably cultural, but certainly a businessman) assembled the first issues of his magazine in a nearby apartment.

Today, 63rd Street is a tabula rasa. It’s a boulevard of grass, a razed meadow in the heart of America’s third-largest city. Not even drug dealers or gang bangers hang out here. There’s no place to sit, no stoops to command.

That flow of creativity pirouetting into the Rust Belt—it isn’t just about cheap space. Or the fact our cities have the feel of a Tom Waits song.  It’s also the realness, particularly the prevalence of conflict. There’s conflict in the person trying to make do. And there’s conflict in the post-industrial landscape.
Imagine for a moment: there is a spot not far from where I live. It was the stockyards. It had money and movement; now it has shells of buildings and gaps in the street line. What’s still there are …

Monday evening I had the honor to join approximately 100 fellow participants, planners, partners, and stakeholders from throughout Greater Lansing at a kick-off meeting for the Mid-Michigan Program for Greater Sustainability at East Lansing’s Hannah Community Center. Partners in the program include the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, Lansing Area Economic Partnership, Michigan State University Land Policy Institute, Michigan Energy Options, the Michigan Fitness Foundation, Greater Lansing Housing Coalition, the Mid-Michigan Environmental Action Council, and CAM-TV.
The four-hour event showcased the nine sustainability projects that will be part of the three-year effort …

As famed Bronx, NY environmental activist Majoria Carter said, “I believe that you shouldn’t have to move to live in a better neighborhood.” Indeed, the best — and perhaps only — way for the rust belt to be reinvented as a sustainable, thriving, and inclusive region is by accomplishing the task in community after community … one at a
time.

The most valuable takeaway from the decade’s old civil rights movement is that, while workplace integration is achievable via legislative mandates and judicial rulings, no amount of governmental pressure can force individuals of different races to live side-by- side if they have no desire to do so.