Exciting news: There will be Jane’s Walks (neighborhood tour/walks in the spirit of urbanist Jane Jacobs) in both Cleveland and Pittsburgh -along with dozens of other cities- on Saturday.
Click here for more information about the walk Saturday, May 1, in Pittsburgh in the Polish Hill neighborhood (pictured above).
Click here for more information about the walk Saturday, May 1, in Cleveland in the Ohio City neighborhood.
It looks like John Morris at Digging Pitt (a frequent RustWire  reader and commenter) helped organize and push for this in these communities, so thanks for …

Here it is, from Aaron Renn at Urbanophile.
Thanks to Rust Wire reader and Detroiter Claudia Raleigh for bringing this to our attention.
What do you think about the points he makes?
-KG
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Interesting post on the Next American City web site about high-tech firms in Lansing, Michigan converting old school buildings– “Thanks to their expansive plumbing systems, large spaces and impervious surfaces that allow for easy cleanup, the old schools are perfect lab settings,” one user told the magazine.

Furthermore, “Not only are these companies revitalizing the region’s economy by providing jobs, they’re also revitalizing neighborhoods. Unlike many newer schools that sit off of highway exits or in the middle of fields, Lansing’s old school buildings are smack in the middle of neighborhoods,” according to the story.

Have you ever noticed, Obama likes to give his legislation long, convoluted names?
At the same time, this is an important one.
It might be more appropriately called Aid to Industrial Cities. (But obviously that might be politically sensitive. How does the old double-standard go again: farm aid = good, city aid = bad?) This piece of long-overdue legislation would establish competitive grants for revitalizing older industrial cities through the department of Housing and Urban Development. The Community Regeneration, Sustainability and Innovation Act would mostly help eliminate vacant housing, the profusion of …

Residents of St. Louis County showed their support for the local public transit system this week, voting 63-37 percent in favor of a 1/2-cent sales tax increase.

The increased revenues were needed to ward off major cuts for Metro, the local transit authority. County residents had rejected a similar initiative in 2008, according to the St. Louis American.
A broad coalition came out in support of this measure, including corporate leaders, university chancellors and black clergy.
-AS
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Read about the efforts of young St. Louisans (St. Louis-ites? STLers?) to bring more brain and creative power to their city.
Rust Wire readers will see at least two familiar names in this story– that of Jeff and Randy Vines, frequent contributors to this site! Keep up the good work guys!
-KG
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Thanks to Rust Wire reader Mark Golbach for pointing out this quirky but interesting map from the Floatingsheep blog:

What do those little dots represent? The relative concentration of listings of bowling alleys in the Google Maps directory, the Floatingsheep tells us, which are heavily concentrated in the Rust Belt. The highest index value is in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Michigan.
Like the folks at Floatingsheep, however, I have no idea what this means. Interesting though.
-KG
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From the Atlantic Magazine. An interesting round-up of some Rust Belt stories and trends that have made national news recently.
-KG
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Here’s a good visual on what sprawl looks like – and its economic impact – from the folks at Buffalo Rising.
It’s a bit old but I wanted to link to it anyhow. I can’t say it better than they did – “Three times the stuff – fewer people.”
-KG
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Above: An iconic Erie image
I’d like to share some thought from the “Inside Erie” column written by Erie Times-News columnist Pat Howard- and read by myself and many other Erie natives who no longer live there.
He writes this week about something I’ve observed a number of times – folks from Erie (and a number of other Rust Belt communities) can be pretty negative about their hometowns. And it sometimes seems that the loudest complainers are those who’ve never left.
But people who have lived elsewhere (i.e. Erie natives who’ve lived in …