Billions of dollars of infrastructure investment are needed to stop untreated sewage from Great Lakes cities that flows into the Lakes, according to a study released earlier this month.
From January 2009 through January of this year, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Gary, Indiana, discharged 41 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water into the Lakes, according to data analyzed by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
“The Great Lakes are under siege from sewage overflows,” Jeff Skelding, campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, …

Take a look at this CNN article about a Chinese firm with plans to build a “Chinese-style mega shopping mall” in Milwaukee.

“The cost of doing business there is very low,” Wu Li, president of Toward Group told CNN. “The people are friendly, the environment is peaceful and the pace of living is slow. It is a good place for Chinese enterprises to go abroad.”

The story explains Wu’s company recently purchased a dormant shopping complex in northwestern Milwaukee that was built in the 1970s, for $6 million. It will open the mall, renamed AmAsia, in August, according to CNN, part of a growing trend of Chinese investment in US real estate. That trend has mostly been in cities outside the Rust Belt –until now.

After spending a few days in Chicago and Milwaukee recently, I noticed how great a job both these cities do of utilizing their lakefront.
In both Chi-town and Milwaukee (pictured above) people have tons of direct access to Lake Michigan: miles of beautiful lakefront parks and trails for biking, walking, or just general enjoyment of the water.
It especially made me notice how poor a job Cleveland does at utilizing a similar space.
What’s on Cleveland’s lakefront? There is the beautiful Edgewater Park, but there’s also a power plant, highway, the shipping port, …

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 …

As this story points out, it seems like cities in our region suffer more in a recession.
This story focuses on Milwaukee, but I know the same thing seemed to be true when I worked in Lorain, and Toledo.
Sadly, it seems like gains that take a long time to build up can be wiped away so quickly.
-KG

On Friday, myself and a number of other GLUE conference go-ers were able to tour the Menomonee Valley, a redeveloped former brownfield in Milwaukee.

This area was formerly home to heavy industry and manufacturing, such as stockyards and railroads. The site is now touts itself as a national model in economic and environmental sustainability.
Laura Bray, Executive Director of Menomonee Valley Partners gave us a tour of the site, highlighting its sustainable design, public park and bike trails, the Harley Davidson Museum, Miller Park, a Native American casino, and a number of …

We’re here in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange Conference).
We took a few hours to explore the city:
Along the Riverwalk:

Stunning historic architecture:
The Milwaukee Public Market and the Historic Third Ward area:

We capped off the evening with a great meal at the Sprecher Brewery!

Hard figures beginning to shake out of the President’s stimulus bill. What does this mean for Rust Belt cities? Money. Lots of money.
More than $417 million is being sent to Ohio by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
$475 million has been earmarked for Great Lakes clean-up, 10-times larger than any previous award.
$23 million will be delivered to the Gary, Ind. area.
Milwaukee is getting $22.6 million.
The Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority will receive $35 million.
The Erie Housing Authority: $4.6 million.
Minneapolis is getting $20 million for light rail, plus a great …

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 …