Why not Detroit? Or Cleveland? Or a more compact, less-sprawled out city like Pittsburgh?
This Reuters story says Houston, the “petro metro” is aiming to be the electric car capital of America.
Stories like this make me so mad.
A city in the Great Lakes region would be much better suited to this, yet some folks in Houston are showing more leadership on this issue. For instance, Houston has signed a deal to build public charging stations. “Such agreements are key to easing skeptical consumers’ fears of running out of juice if their …

USA Today is carrying an article about Declaration Detroit, an online campaign by a group of activists to revitalize the city.
The group has published a manifesto based on 12 principles, in graphic form below:

The group is asking visitors to sign a pledge to support these policies and get involved by helping spread the word. About 2,100 people have signed, according to USA Today.
-AS

Good Magazine is reporting that four Detroit High Schools will begin training students to work at Wal-Mart.
Students will receive 10 credits for 11 weeks of job readiness preparation with the retail giant.
Advocates say it’s a good opportunity for students, given the city’s staggering unemployment rate.
Advocates for the poor say the students are being trained for dead-end jobs and lives of subserviance.

-AS

The Associated Press has conducted an inventory of the 128 auto plants closed by the Big Three since 1980 and the results are discouraging.
Only about three in five has been repurposed for a new use. Those that have been reopened are employing far few workers at lower wages.

“The cost is going to be borne by the next generation,” said James Rubenstein, a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who has studied U.S. auto plant closings and openings. “It’s the children and grandchildren of the laid-off workers. They won’t have …

Rust Wire readers know that Detroit frequently makes headlines for all the wrong reasons - crime, corruption, poverty, the list of negatives is long.
But this story from the Dallas Observer lavishes praise on at least one aspect of The Motor City — its farmers’ market, Eastern Market.
Having been to farmers’ markets across the Midwest, I can say that Detroit Eastern Market is unparalleled — it basically encompasses a whole neighborhood and is full of bustling market stalls, shops and restaurants.
The Observer article is bemoaning the state of farmers’ markets in …

We’ve all heard and read plenty about how Rust Belt cities can use their vacant lands as space for urban farms and community gardens.
This article from the Los Angeles Times says some folks believe they could even make a profitable investment. Michigan native and financier John Hantz has invested an initial $30 million of his own money toward purchasing equipment and land in Detroit, according to the article.
-KG

Interesting article about the state of General Motors from Scripps Howard.

Despite the car maker’s highly publicized reorganization this year, GM still leads the nation in market share with about 20 percent of the total, down from 22 percent in 2008.

Consumers seem to have shrugged off the auto maker’s reorganization, according to tis article. This is particularly true of Chinese consumers who have revived the popularity of the Buick.

Meeting Chinese demand will be critical because the country surpassed the US as the biggest consumer of automobiles this year.

Aaron Woolf, director of King Corn, is back with a documentary about transit in America, appropriately set in the Motor City.
In his 90-minute documentary, Woolf explores the rise and fall of Detroit, as a commentary on how Americans get around and what it means for equality and sustainability.
Check out this preview:

For more information visit http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/beyond-the-motor-city/video-preview/861/
Thanks to Rob at Extraordinary Observations for the tip off.

-AS

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.

Reading this Wall Street Journal piece about “pranksters” causing “mischief” in Detroit’s abandonded buildings totally pissed me off.
It sounded more like wanton destruction for the sake of destruction to me.
The article details how this group used sledgehammers to break down this wall and push a truck out of a fourth story window in the old Packard plant (a site we’ve previously highlighted on this blog). They even videotaped their caper.
I don’t fault people for wanting to go inside and explore these old structures - I’ve done it myself. But wrecking …