Goethe said, “Few people have the imagination for reality”. And that is why we make stuff up. Like reality shows, and the illusion that the state of the union is strong. That last bit was said for much of the last ten years. The words hung hollow for those in the Rust Belt, particularly its cities.
Because while many were popping bottles at the economic house party inside a house of cards, most in these parts already had morning-after eyes. It was hard not to—the reality, and the commonality of the …

I love TV’s The Wire. When I heard about this self-guided, Wire-themed tour of Baltimore, I thought, “That’s the self-guided tour of Baltimore I’ve been waiting for.” But I read something a few days later that paralyzed my ambitions. Christian Lander, author of the blog and book “Stuff White People Like,” explained in an interview:

When and how did you get the idea for the site?

January 18th. A friend and I were having an IM conversation about The Wire. He said, “Not enough white people watch The Wire.” I said, “Don’t worry, they do.” We started talking about what they’re doing instead of watching The Wire : therapy, getting divorced, going to plays…

Ohio’s cities are dying. That is the simple truth. In fact there is practically no other state in the union whose major cities have experienced the same amount of population loss. This hard truth was driven home when the results of the 2010 Census came out. The six biggest cities in Ohio, save Columbus, all experienced population loss. Cleveland, which has lost over half of its population, saw a 17 percent decline. Dayton lost nearly 15 percent. Youngstown, once home to 170,000 people, is now smaller than the city of Parma. Cincinnati, Akron, and Toledo also registered losses.

One of the main drivers behind this, well known to many of you, is sprawl or decentralization. This is a problem with a very long history. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, Ohio already had over 784 different municipalities, with 31 just in Hamilton County. This plethora of municipalities grew with little or no guidance from long term and sustainable planning.

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.

The Rust Belt is no stranger to America’s drug war. Nor is the story of the three decade long mobilization against illegal narcotics a new one. However in her recent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, former Stanford Law professor, civil rights lawyer, and current Ohio State University faculty member, Michelle Alexander convincingly paints the war on drugs as far more than just a failed multi-decade policy that has resulted in America becoming the prison capital of the world. Instead, she positions the drug …

This video was sent to us by filmmaker Sean Dougherty.

Poet of Poverty is based on letters written by Father Michael Doyle. It is narrated by Martin Sheen.
According to the filmmakers:
“This is a film about one man’s words. These are the words of an Irish priest who came to Camden, New Jersey, forty years ago and never left. They are the extraordinary words of a natural-born poet, Father Michael Doyle, the Poet of Poverty.
Father Doyle’s words bear witness to a horrendous crime: the total neglect of America’s poorest city, Camden, …

This is seriously the most awful thing I have ever read.
In Camden, New Jersey, according to this article in The Nation, the local homeless encampment is the most orderly neighborhood. Unemployed residents smoke a drug called “wet,” marijuana soaked in embalming fluid. The only white people are hookers, many of whom are infected with AIDS, Hepatitis C and other STDs.
Is this the future of all our post-industrial cities in the United States, The Nation asks.
“The poor have to help the poor,” an elderly resident says, “because the ones who make …

Thanks to Kevin Leeson at the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission weblog for pointing out this depressing fact:
The National Resources Inventory, conducted by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, shows that every state lost farmland between 1982 and 2007. Ohio had the second-highest amount of prime agricultural land converted to developed land, losing 585,100 acres from 1982 to 2007.
That’s all the more senseless when you consider Ohio’s population has been essentially stagnant over the last few years. For those who wonder where everyone from Ohio’s cities went, check your local cornfield-turned …

The disappearance of jobs, the decline of schools, social isolation, and the rise of the drug trade took a frightful toll on inner city areas. Youngstown fared among the worst. Youngstown’s murder rate—which remained unexceptional for decades—skyrocketed during the 1990s. In 1991, the homicide rate for Youngstown was 60 per 100,000, whereas the country as a whole averaged only 10 per 100,000. In 1995, Youngstown had more homicides than the city of Pittsburgh. Though the crime has widely fluctuated, the city remains known for its high crime and murder rate.

Sociologist William Julius Wilson’s work has outlined the importance of historical data when examining inner city violence: “Unlike the present period, inner city communities prior to 1960 exhibited features of social organization

The New York Times is carrying an interesting article about the city of Memphis and the shrinking ranks of the local black middle-class.
As a result of predatory lending and job loss, residents the majority-black city have seen decades of economic progress reversed, The Times reports. The article focuses on the role played by Wells Fargo, and outlines the mortgage lender’s targeted efforts to sell high-interest loans in black neighborhoods. The results are hallowed out neighborhoods and declining wealth for blacks and latinos in metro Memphis.
According to the article, the weath …