Since reading the book Aerotropolis several months ago, the topic of intermodal logistics has been on my mind. One logistical issue that routinely comes up in the Great Lakes Region is the congestion and delays that take place in and around Chicago. Being a chokepoint for numerous rail lines and highways at the south end Lake Michigan, the Chicago Region is critical hub for cross-country freight movements.  With the rapid growth in just-in-time delivery, containerization, container ports, and intermodal facilities over the past few decades, any bottlenecks and/or delays here …

Two weeks ago, Ed Glaeser, professor of Economics at Harvard and author of The Triumph of the City, wrote another in a series of articles that use Detroit as an example of a failed city that has lost its “entrepreneurial culture,” despite, and perhaps because of, large public investments in infrastructure and housing (see Bloomberg articles, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and City Journal.) In these articles, Glaeser consistently argues that the country should learn from Detroit’s experience and, more-or-less, uniformly avoid federal infrastructure spending. He argues that cities should focus instead on deregulation and lowering taxes that scare away would-be entrepreneurs. “Failed public policies that tried to fix Detroit with urban renewal and transportation projects stand as stark evidence against the view that our economic woes call for more federal spending on infrastructure,” says Glaeser.

What makes a city great? According to Jeff Speck, the secret sauce is, quite simply, walking. If your city is a good place to walk — that is, walking is safe, comfortable, interesting, and useful — everything else will fall into place.

In Walkable City, his talked-about manifesto about healthy urban places, Speck lays out a simple formula for any city to become a pedestrian haven. “Putting cars in their place,” “mixing uses,” “getting parking right,” and supporting transit and cycling are a few of the 10 principles, he says, that separate the successful cities from the rest.

Video after the jump

 
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Paths and Nodes: Cincinnati from Andrew Stahlke on Vimeo.
Shout out to Urban Cincy for the heads up on this video.
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As our faithful readers are well aware, Rust Wire has been very critical of Cleveland’s regional planning agency, NOACA, namely because we — and by that I mean editor Angie Schmitt, the person writing this — think(s) the agency has played a critical role in the sprawl that has devastated greater Cleveland’s urban areas. We don’t think anyone at NOACA is a terrible person, per say. We just thought — and again by we, I mean me — that they are just terribly old-fashioned, in the sense that they see …

This post originally appeared on Streetsblog.
Let’s say you’re a Rust Belt city trying to dust off your stale image and compete in the 21st century. You would think the last thing you would want to do is prevent able-bodied people in your region from working, especially those who are most economically vulnerable.
But you’d be wrong! Perrysburg, Ohio, a suburban neighbor of Toledo, where I was born, is taking a page from Detroit, carving out big parts of the region to exempt from transit service.
The Toledo Blade, in an article that …

Park(ing) Day is an international, grass-roots demonstration of the wasted potential in American cities represented by surface parking.
Cleveland, Ohio had its biggest demonstration ever today, with five different pop-up “parks” on Prospect Avenue downtown.
I recorded this video for posterity.

Hope you like it!
-A.S.
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The last few times I have visited my home state of Indiana, I have noticed a number of new hospitals recently opened or being constructed along the I-69 corridor in the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne regions. Along I-69 north of I-465 in Indianapolis, it seems like new hospitals are rising from the cornfields at each interchange. IU Saxony Hospital, Community Hospital, and St. Vincent Hospital have all recently migrated to this corridor between Indianapolis and Anderson. The map below does not even include the pre-existing Riverview Hospital in Noblesville (just above the top of the map) or the two existing hospitals in Anderson (Community and Saint John’s) located about 10 miles to the east.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
According to September 2012 issue of Money magazine and based on a variety of socio-economic, climatic, financial, and demographic attributes, Carmel, Indiana (just north of Indianapolis) is the best place to live in the United States in 2012. Eden Prairie, Minnesota (southwest of the Twin Cities) took third place in the annual barometer. Other Rust Belt communities included in Money magazine’s Top 100 include:
#11 Woodbury, Minnesota (Twin Cities)
#12 Fishers, Indiana (Indianapolis)
#14 Eagan, Minnesota (Twin Cities)
#19 Lakeville, Minnesota (Twin Cities)
#22 Maple Grove, Minnesota (Twin Cities)
#26 Troy, Michigan (Detroit)
#37 West Bloomfield, Michigan (Detroit)
#39 …