David Frum of the conservative American Enterprise Institute has written an interesting (albeit pessimistic) account of what went wrong in Detroit (everyone’s favorite topic).

In his National Post article “What Killed Detroit,” Frum argues that poisonous race relations and an insufficient commitment to arts and culture sealed the city’s fate long before the auto giants crumbled.

“The collapse of the automobile industry seems the obvious answer. But is it a sufficient answer?,” he wonders. “The departure of meatpacking did not kill Chicago. Pittsburgh has staggered forward from the demise of steelmaking. New York has lost one industry after another: shipping, garment-manufacture, printing, and how many more?”

Goodwill Industries of Detroit is hosting a campaign designed to put Motor City residents back to work.

The organization is asking employed Detroiters to give $1 to help a jobless family. For every $25 collected, Goodwill can provide a day of job training to an unemployed individual.

My good friend in Youngstown, John Slanina, organized a group bus ride around Youngstown’s Mahoning County recently.

This video is one of the results.

Slanina sent an email to 20 friends and asked them to bring a friend and meet him at the bus stop. The experience was meant to familiarize local residents with the public transportation system.

Rust Wire readers know this blog frequently rants about how Forbes magazine mischaracterizes our cities with its silly and bogus lists – America’s Downsized Cities, Hardest Places to Get By, Dying Cities, and even Best Place for Singles.
(Somehow, Cleveland is ranked as a “dying city,” and a “most miserable city,” yet it is also one of the best places for singles, according to the magazine. Go figure.)
Well, I’m glad to see the folks in Dayton, Ohio, are doing more than just ranting. Upset with their inclusion on the “Dying Cities” …

Some potential good news for the struggling auto industry: The New York Times reports the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program has really taken off – so much so that it is completely out of money.
“About a quarter-million vehicles were sold under the program,” the Times reports, “which offered payments of $3,500 to $4,500 for people who traded in old cars for new ones that had higher fuel economy. The average payment worked out to about $4,000, and the total payout, about $1 billion, the amount allocated by Congress under the …

The Root Magazine is reporting that the White House has made good on its promise to establish an Office of Urban Affairs.
The office is designed to facilitate and coordinate programs that improve the lives of city dwellers. Adolfo Carrion, former Bronx borough president, will lead the office.
On the campaign trail President Obama promised to “stop seeing cities as the problem and start seeing them as a solution.”

The president has a lot on his plate right now, but this seems like a step in the right direction. We need a new vision …

A John Carroll University senior in Cleveland is using the city’s surplus of inexpensive housing and a $40,000 grant to house the homeless.
Brian Mauk began the Metanoia Project (from a Greek term for a drastic change in one’s life) last year to rehab foreclosed and abandoned homes for the area’s homeless.
Homeless people are recruited from the streets of Cleveland to take part in the project. Those who are matched with a home are expected to help out by working on other rehab projects.
Check out this video from WKYC:

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All you members of GLUE – Great Lakes Urban Exchange- may remember hearing (and seeing!) Will Allen and learning about his amazing urban farm, Growing Power, in Milwaukee.
In fact, we at Rust Wire featured some photos from Growing Power back in March.
Now, The New York Times has noticed Allen and the work he is doing.
For those of you not familiar with the project, Growing Power is  “14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing …

Our friends at Great Lakes Urban Exchange (aka GLUE) are featured this story in Artvoice, Buffalo’s alternative weekly paper.
GLUE-sters will be in Buffalo this week for their summit, “Great Lakes Metros and the New Opportunity: Remaking Policy and Practice in a Time of Transformation,” on Thursday, June 18 and Friday, June 19 at Buffalo State College.
“The goal of the conference is threefold: to identify ways to filter federal stimulus money into Great Lakes cities; to develop policy that nurtures the region and helps urban areas grow into sustainable units; and …

I spent last Saturday and Sunday in a happy fog of house parties, porch sitting, chatting with old and new friends, garage sales, home tours, an art fair, a parade, and yummy food vendors – otherwise known as the annual Old West End festival.
For all you non-Toledoans, this neighborhood is a spectular display of architecture – left over from when it was home to numerous Captains of Industry in Toledo’s more prosperous years. Neighborhood boosters will tell you it is the largest neighborhood of restored late Victorian, Edwardian, and Arts …