The problem with Detroit is almost always framed as one of Rust Belt deindustrialization, namely the decline of the American auto industry. But Detroit has another big problem, one that deserves an equally large share of the blame: sprawl.

The thing is, while the city of Detroit has been hemorrhaging population, the region itself hasn’t lost a whole heck of a lot of people. Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard blog points out that since 1970, the Detroit region overall lost about 45,000 people, or a mere 4 percent of its population.

That doesn’t change the fact that Detroit proper is in sad shape. While the suburbs grew at an average rate of 27 percent, Detroit has declined from a height of 1.7 million people to about 700,000 today.

But the way we frame the problem is important …

Despite a horror show of a presentation. Despite the casino construction being stopped. Despite horrible design. Despite half of the Landmark’s Commission not voting (six abstaining?) on the demolition of a architectural landmark for a parking spot, despite it all: the destruction of the historic Columbia Building was approved in Cleveland today.

My city made me sick today. It voted to cut off its nose to pretty it’s face.

After the vote, the packed meeting spilled out into the history of City Hall’s halls so as to provide an exclamation to a historical rerun — one of politics, power, and an old guard holding on to their means of affecting the city’s flesh like a picker obsessed with reopening the scabs.

Editor’s note: This guest editorial come from Brett Wiewiora, Founder and CEO of Onlyinpgh (http://onlyinpgh.com), a tech startup creating an online system to visualize an area’s sense of place and connect people to local happenings.
Take a second to think about the favorite places in your city. What types of places are they?  Do they tend to be places unique to your town? Are they places that the locals know but are otherwise off the beaten path? I know that’s the case with me.
My favorite part of Pittsburgh is an area …

One of the good things about having a blog is that you can use it as an excuse to meet people you admire. That is how I met Mansfield Frazier recently.

Mansfield is sort of a Cleveland celebrity, but unlike some of the regular suspects, he’s actually really interesting and smart. He is a regular contributor at the blog The Daily Beast, the Cleveland Free Times, the Cleveland Leader and also at Cool Cleveland. In addition, he is the tending to a new vineyard on formerly vacant land in inner-city Hough. He’s also an author and national expert on prisoner reentry. Oh, and he served five sentences in prison for counterfeiting, before turning his life around and becoming a successful entrepreneur and businessman.

Beyond all that, Mansfield Frazier is a thinking man — a thinking man who doesn’t hold his tongue. That’s a rarity in Cleveland. (Plus, we both despise the Plain Dealer’s Phillip Morris.)

Anyway, Mansfield was nice enough to let me interview him.

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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It is a timeless meme: a thing genuine (if not flashy) giving in to the allure of being something “better”, “cool”, or more exactly: something that you’re not. The meme usually ends badly, however—with the resultant flash simply a facade that cannot cover up the authenticity that was traded away.

Enter, then, the history of Cleveland’s Downtown redevelopment. It began with the Erieview urban renewal plan by I. M. Pei.  Demolished was urban fabric for the hope that we’d become more like New York. A master plan was made, a skyscraper was …

It has been said that I am too negative about Cleveland. And its true that lately the city’s problems have been taking up an inordinate amount of space on this blog and in my brain.

There are some things I love about the city though. It is kind of hard to describe them, but I catch glimpses every now and then.

It came over me not too long ago when I was at Concordia, a German social club in the suburbs that also hosts indoor soccer. It’s a really family friendly kind of place. A fun atmosphere. You just lean back, take it in, and think, man, this is so Cleveland. A German social club that hosts indoor soccer in the middle of a snowstorm, in the middle of the suburbs, is probably the best place to be in Northeast Ohio on a Saturday night, in my humble opinion. And that’s kind of cool. I’ve never been big on fancy restaurants.

Well below are some photos I have been taking over a few months of the city’s highlights, at least from my perspective. I hope you can see what I mean.

This rebirth was to be a referendum on all the past deaths. Because this time our leaders got it, as the latest Cleveland renaissance was less about a convention center and a casino than it was about the urban fabric. Stand alone splashes were out, then. Building from within was in—with the importance on place, space, and connectivity a sort of confession to wash our past planning sins clean.

But then casino developer Rock Ventures wanted a parking garage/valet staging area to grease entry and exit. And to get it they wanted to demolish the landmarked Columbia Building, with the subsequent car port to be attached to the architectural chest of the city via an elevated glass walkway. And the leaders quickly said yes: the Planning Commission, the mayor’s office. And so it came to this: the Landmark’s Commission meeting, with a substantial public turnout ready and pissed. Or a public sick of hearing how Cleveland is but one last transgression away.

Amazing. More than 3,000 people in Grand Rapids, Michigan, including firefighters, marching bands, local politicians and celebrities, took part in the making of this “lipdub” Youtube video, made in response to a Newsweek piece that called the city one of the country’s fastest dying.

MSNBC held up this video as definitive proof that “Grand Rapids is Awesome.” I am inclined to agree. (It made me cry.)

As a result Newsweek issued this response:

Though he was swept into office in the same class as Scott Walker, John Kasich and Rick Scott, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has set himself apart in a couple of important ways.

While his Republican contemporaries were eschewing money for high-speed rail, Snyder welcomed the funds. Just last week, his state received an additional badly needed $200 million cash infusion.

Now, once again, Rick Snyder is displaying a level of pragmatism — and frankly, vision — that recalls a less acrimonious political era, at least with respect to transportation. Earlier this spring, Snyder issued a directive to state agencies on the importance of “placemaking” in economic development.