Today, the Great Lakes Cities: Urban Laboratories conference kicks off in Cleveland. The program promises a mix of policy discussions, neighborhood tours of Cleveland and lots more.
Read what Bruce Fisher has to say about it in his column in Buffalo’s ArtVoice. He’s very enthused about “the hopeful, the engaged and the talented” who will convene in Cleveland. And he gives Rust Wire a shout out!
-KG

Cleveland residents,
The Great Lakes Urban Exchange is hosing its third annual conference in Cleveland this year.
The group, which aims to share ideas and best practices for revitalizing Great Lakes cities, has a survey about how how the conference can best be used for “ACTION, rather than agendas.”
The group is “issuing this preemptive survey to help us plan conference activities that will be immediately actionable, useful, and effective in answering the needs of the ‘do-ers’ who are making Cleveland a healthier, more sustainable, more equitable and successful city.”
Find out more and …

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 Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Global Midwest Initiative have launched an new blog to talk about the future of our region.
These folks should be familiar to you if you heard Richard Longworth speak at the Great Lakes Urban Exchange conference earlier this year or have read his book Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.
Welcome to the conversation!
-KG

Our friends at the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (aka GLUE) are bringing their “I Will Stay If…” party idea to Pittsburgh.
“Every party results in photographs of participants holding signs that tell what it is about their city that would make them stick with it. The photos will be data for GLUE to play a part in reviving and setting urban policy,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explained in today’s paper.
This idea may sound familiar - we wrote about the party in Detroit a few months ago (see photo above).
For more information about …

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 …

All you members of GLUE - Great Lakes Urban Exchange- may remember hearing (and seeing!) Will Allen and learning about his amazing urban farm, Growing Power, in Milwaukee.
In fact, we at Rust Wire featured some photos from Growing Power back in March.
Now, The New York Times has noticed Allen and the work he is doing.
For those of you not familiar with the project, Growing Power is  “14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing …

Our friends at Great Lakes Urban Exchange (aka GLUE) are featured this story in Artvoice, Buffalo’s alternative weekly paper.
GLUE-sters will be in Buffalo this week for their summit, “Great Lakes Metros and the New Opportunity: Remaking Policy and Practice in a Time of Transformation,” on Thursday, June 18 and Friday, June 19 at Buffalo State College.
“The goal of the conference is threefold: to identify ways to filter federal stimulus money into Great Lakes cities; to develop policy that nurtures the region and helps urban areas grow into sustainable units; and …

Our friends at Great Lakes Urban Exchange (aka GLUE) always have interesting and innovative ideas bouncing around their web site. (It must be all those cool young people they have involved in their organization…)
Last week, they explored one of my favorite topics, deconstruction - that’s when instead of just tearing down an old building, the building is taken apart and much of the material is salvaged.
Thanks, Sarah, for this interview with Buffalo ReUse!
-KG