Awww

A beaver has been spotted in the Detroit River for the first time in 75 years or more, signaling to ecologists that efforts to rehabilitate the river have been successful.
The semi-aquatic rodent has taken up residence in an intake canal at a Detroit Edison plant within city limits, The Free Press reports. A plant employee first noticed signs of the beaver last year. In November, a motion-sensitive camera captured the proof. The story was not made public until last week because of concerns about the beaver’s safety.
Experts say beavers aren’t the …

Awww

A beaver has been spotted in the Detroit River for the first time in 75 years or more, signaling to ecologists that efforts to rehabilitate the river have been successful.
The semi-aquatic rodent has taken up residence in an intake canal at a Detroit Edison plant within city limits, The Free Press reports. A plant employee first noticed signs of the beaver last year. In November, a motion-sensitive camera captured the proof. The story was not made public until last week because of concerns about the beaver’s safety.
Experts say beavers aren’t the …

A startling image of the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland has won the World Press Photo of the Year for 2008. The photo was taken by New York photographer Anthony Suau as he traveled across the country documenting the declining economy. Ironically, I’ve heard he now can’t find work.
The officer in the photo is checking a foreclosed home for vagrants.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/02/_world_press_photo_of.html
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This site is intended to consolidate and develop news and information about post-industrial Great Lakes cities. It was developed by two former newspaper reporters with ties to Cleveland, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio and Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We’ve noted that there is a lot of good information about Rust Belt issues coming from blogs and the mainstream media. We hope to sort out the good stuff and summarize it for problem solvers and concerned citizens from Buffalo to St. Louis.
We also intend to develop some original stories and photography. Any …

Famed urban scholar Richard Florida writes in The Atlantic that the economic crisis will drastically reshape America, dividing cities into winners and losers. Not surprisingly Florida writes, Rust Belt cities, those with economies traditionally based on manufacturing, will be among the hardest hit.
Detroit, he postulates, could reach a tipping point and become a “ghost town.” Although, he says, the exodus could attract some of the “creative class,” (which he extols the virtues of in his book “Who’s Your City?”) seeking to take advantage of low real estate prices. Sun Belt …