I nearly killed myself to get these photos (wiped out on my bike). But it was worth it because I think they turned out pretty cool (even if I did shoot them on my iPhone).

I have lived in Cleveland for two and a half years and I’ve never been through the industrial valley at night until this weekend. It was surprisingly busy.

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.

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:

Much has been made of the food desert phenomenon afflicting the industrial Midwest.

GOOD Magazine, Dateline, NBC and countless others have weighed in on the apparent market failure that causes grocery stores to shun cities like Detroit and Cleveland like a bad case of head lice.

This whole storyline reached a fever pitch earlier this year when it was widely circulated that the city of Detroit — all 140 miles of it — lacked a single grocery store. This was, of course, patently false. A quick Google search shows that there are dozens, even hundreds, of foodsellers populating Detroit’s neighborhoods.

When you’re an environmentalist, like me, spring means freshening up the table display for the green fairs, energy conferences, and Earth Day celebrations that invade parking lots, LEED-certified meeting rooms, and repurposed, old brick school buildings all over the city. Native plants are for sale, Rachel Carson’s name is affixed to a march or lecture series at least once weekly, and wrists get sore from signing petitions and postcards to go to the EPA.

For the Pittsburgh region, spring also means receiving bad news from the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report, which ranks the cleanest and dirtiest air in our cities. (Pittsburgh always gets bad news.) Angry rebuttals from editors and think tanks are released almost as quickly, questioning methodology, sampling rates, and monitor locations.

A reporter from a local radio station recently interviewed me for a story about “urban pioneers.”

I didn’t think much of it, until I started reading this amazing book called Missing Women, Missing News. Turns out, this term is based on some pretty suspect assumptions about cities and the people who inhabit them.

Author David Hugill points out that the term “pioneer” symbolizes a “frontier,” or sharp physical or social divide, between competing constituencies. In the case he explores in his book, the competing constituencies are the wealthy gentrifiers of Vancouver and the poor residents of the city’s Downtown Eastside neighborhood.

Community groups, neighborhoods even whole suburbs in Cleveland are helping advertise their offerings using smart phone aps. These portable guides can help you catch a film, catch the bus or grab a bite to eat when you’re on the go in the Cleve.

This is definitely a policy other communities, public agencies and businesses should be looking into to help with marketing and customer service.

Details after the jump.

Of all the anti-transit zealots in office right now, Ohio Governor John Kasich really stands out from the rest.

His first notable action as governor was to return $400 million in federal dollars for passenger rail between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. But as we all know, he wasn’t the only governor to take the opportunity to make a political statement at his constituents’ expense.

Kasich took it further. In what Jon Stewart has referred to as Kasich’s “special blend of dickishness,” he dismissed project supporters as being part of a “train cult.” Then he appointed a former asphalt industry lobbyist to run the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Even given all that, however, his latest move is pretty brazen.

Smithsonian Magazine swooped into Cleveland recently with a story called Signs of Renewal. The article really did the rounds on Twitter and Facebook feeds in Cleveland, as it should have. Positive press is really treasured here. It provides a needed dose of recognition and legitimacy for those who have been laboring to help the city rebound.

As great as it feels to be praised like that in Cleveland, I couldn’t help but think it felt oddly familiar. There are basically two kinds of articles the national media writes about Cleveland: the plotline of one story is sort of the news version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The other is more like sports classic Rudy. The story either centers around a community coming together over a idyllic urban farm, or it leads the reader on a terrifying stroll down an unmitigated horrorscape, danger lurking in every corner. Same goes for Detroit, Youngstown, Flint.

Steven Von Worley at Data Pointed has produced these awesome maps illustrating population changes across the United States.

If you look at the Midwest specifically, you see the classic sprawl from the inner city to the outer suburbs. The blue shows double-digit population growth; the red shows depopulation.

Pretty depressing right? How do you like those gas prices, Midwestern rich people?

But wait! It’s not all bad news!