As strange as it sounds, it can happen, according to this recent story in the Pittsburgh City Paper.
“Even today, Cranberry retains some rugged rural terrain amidst the strip malls and drive-throughs. Cranberry may be a synonym for “suburban sprawl” for many, but local officials are trying to preserve those places — and environmentalists give them high marks for the effort.
Still, finding a connection with nature is a lot like my coyote encounter: If you blink, you may miss it,” the author writes.
What did the Pittsburgh-area suburb of Cranberry do? …

I took off on a road trip across the Rust Belt this summer both because I saw it as a potential for some good stories (which you can find here) and because it seemed like a great opportunity to visit a part of the country that I knew solely through reading and conversation. I also veered a bit out of the Rust Belt’s traditional boundaries to do a story for NPR’s Latino USA (scroll down and then listen here) on immigrant urban farmers in Cincinnati.

And it turns out I wasn’t the only person with such ideas. One group of planning students from Department of Urban Planning at the University of Illinois made a similar trip, calling it “Rust Belt Road Trip.” Another group did the same thing as well. It has to be more than the catchy alliteration–there must be something in the air.

Our friends at Great Lakes Urban Echange (GLUE) alerted me to this event: a film screening Tuesday, (Nov. 24) at 7:30 pm at the Drexel Theater, located at 2254 E. Main Street, in Bexley, Ohio.
The film is The New Metropolis, about America’s first suburbs and the problems they face. For a more detailed explaination of the film, click the link to the movie’s web site (above), or read a more detailed explanation from Cincinnati CityBeat.
The film will be followed by a panel discussion. The screening is being hosted by Greater …

The idea for Pop Up City is to re-utilize underused urban spaces, a theme that carried over this weekend in The Bridge Project, a party and art show, held under the Detroit-Superior bridge in downtown Cleveland.

The streetcar level under the bridge has been featured in this blog before. Cleveland’s rapid transit rail service ran under the bridge long ago.  The space has been referred to, perhaps incorrectly, as Cleveland’s abandoned subway.
Well, folks from across the Cleveland area attended The Bridge Project last weekend, and I have pictures thanks to my …

The Director of Cleveland’s City Planning Commission and a private developer tackled zoning issues in artists housing today at the second annual Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference being held in Cleveland through Friday.

The city of Cleveland updated its comprehensive plan a few years ago to include special live-work space overlays that allow artists to make their homes in areas zoned for light commercial activity. Arts promotion of this type is considered to be important to the local economy because Cleveland has a surplus of industrial space that is well-suited to conversion for artists. Furthermore, the arts have played an important role in revitalizing a number of Cleveland neighborhoods.

Readers of Rust Wire (and citizens of the Rust Belt in general) may know that some of Buffalo’s strongest assets are its spectacular architectural treasures.
The city is wisely trying to capitalize on these structures for tourism and economic development purposes.
Take a look at this video from The Buffalo News about efforts to restore the Richardson- Olmsted complex (formerly the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane).
I’ve driven by this building before, I’m eager to see what the inside is like.
What asset or piece of unusual architecture do you think your city …

For the last two days, Cleveland State University has been hosting Lessons from Europe: Regional Governance and Economic Transformation in Older Industrial Cities.

The workshop is being put on by The German Marshall Fund of the United States with support from the Ford Foundation. On Friday, the group will be traveling to Detroit’s NextEnergy to do the whole thing again.

I had the opportunity to sit in on a speech from Professor Dr. Valentino Castellani, the former mayor of Torino, Italy, a city that has been called the Detroit of Europe.

The city was once the industrial capital of Italy, a one-company town where the economy centered around Fiat, the Italian car-maker which is headquartered there.

Detroiter and Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE) leader Sarah Szurpicki has an interesting blog post this week, highlighting the Dequindre Cut, a walking/ biking path in Detroit.
Sarah interviewed Tom Woiwode, the Director of the GreenWays Initiative of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.
She writes, “Tom emphasized that, to him, bike lanes are important–but not in and of themselves, so much as potential triggers to a culture change.  The “greenways” are about inspiring “green WAYS” of living. They are also about the development of a community asset that Detroiters can be proud of and …

The Infrastructurist has an interesting post on seven major, urban, old-school freeways that should be torn down to improve aesthetics, neighborhoods, or even traffic.
Topping the list: Cleveland and the West Shoreway. Rust Wire (and many other observers) have complained that Cleveland does a very poor job of utilizing one of its strongest assets – its Lake Erie waterfront. One big reason: there’s a highway there preventing people from having easy waterfront access.
As the Infrastructurist points out, removing a big highway has been done before, notably in Milwaukee.
Other cities of interest …

Christopher Steiner’s new book $20 Per Gallon is an interesting read. The book’s thesis is that oil and gasoline prices will appreciate over time. Not just to $4 per gallon like we saw last summer, but significantly higher as supply dwindles and demand continues to pick up steam. It’s not all bad news, though. One potential revival that Steiner points to is the resurgence of Rust Belt cities; some of the same cities that have been badly struggling over the past few years.

Admittedly, it’s a plausible theory. Rust Belt cities …