Throwing salt on Windsor’s wounds, the Toronto Star, March 8, 2009

WINDSOR – In the midst of an enduring slump by the Big Three automakers and a main street already pockmarked by empty store fronts, the last thing bordertown Windsor needs is to see its number one source of local television news go silent

Auto Town on Path to Takeover by State; via Planetizen Radar

The state of Michigan is getting ready to institute an emergency manager to effectively take over the financial operations of the auto industry city of Pontiac, which has struggled economically for more than a decade.

Full story here: New York Times, March 5, 2008

Spain’s High Speed Trains Faster Than Planes … NPR .. Listen [4 min 27 sec]

Main’s red light row to get a makeover; Montreal Gazette; Developer sees museums, galleries, boutiques. I wonder where our developers are? Probably outstanding in a green field somewhere, with the city’s blessing!

Biggest Little Cities, scale models of cities are increasingly used for urban and design applications

The Living…The Built..The McDonald’s Parking Lot; Where blog via Planetizen Radar

You may not agree with TS Eliot’s statement that every age gets the art it deserves, but it’s hard to argue that we don’t—to some extent—get the cities we deserve. In fact, a city may be human culture’s most perfect expression of collective will, a direct and tangible product of millions of individual decisions multiplied by thousands of days. Certain forces, people and institutions tend to exert disproportionate influence on the way cities evolve, but by and large the masses make the cities, and without all those people cities would not even be cities.

So Where Should We Plan on People Living in the Future via Planetizen

A new national survey by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project finds that nearly half (46%) of the public would rather live in a different type of community from the one they’re living in now— a sentiment that is most prevalent among city dwellers. When asked about specific metropolitan areas where they would like to live, respondents rank Denver, San Diego and Seattle at the top of a list of 30 cities, and Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati at the bottom. 

Neighbors work to protect vacant homes, Detroit Free Press

First, she bought the foreclosed house from the bank. Then she poured tens of thousands of dollars into a new kitchen, lighting and other improvements. She sold it recently for a modest profit to a young family who are now her neighbors.

In this way, Bruhn plugged one hole in the fabric of regional life.

Across southeast Michigan, people are fighting back against a foreclosure crisis that has touched about 60,000 residences in Detroit alone, and many more in suburban areas, according to estimates from government, nonprofit and real estate experts.

In Warren, Mayor Jim Fouts drives the city to note examples of blighted buildings, then gets the owners or his city workers to take action. In Dearborn, the city offers free trees to residents to beautify their front lawns.

In Pontiac, the nonprofit Lighthouse Community Development has built or rehabilitated more than 100 houses in recent years to fight blight.

For Sale: The $100 House … in Detroit; OP-ED, New York Times, March 7, 2009

A local couple, Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert, started the ball rolling. An artist and an architect, they recently became the proud owners of a one-bedroom house in East Detroit for just $1,900. Buying it wasn’t the craziest idea. The neighborhood is almost, sort of, half-decent. Yes, the occasional crack addict still commutes in from the suburbs but a large, stable Bangladeshi community has also been moving in.

But the city offers a much greater attraction for artists than $100 houses. Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished. From Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project (think of a neighborhood covered in shoes and stuffed animals and you’re close) to Matthew Barney’s “Ancient Evenings” project (think Egyptian gods reincarnated as Ford Mustangs and you’re kind of close), local and international artists are already leveraging Detroit’s complex textures and landscapes to their own surreal ends.

A group of architects and city planners in Amsterdam started a project called the “Detroit Unreal Estate Agency” and, with Mitch’s help, found a property around the corner. The director of a Dutch museum, Van Abbemuseum, has called it “a new way of shaping the urban environment.” He’s particularly intrigued by the “luxury of artists having little to no housing costs.”

With artists and musicians abandoning Toronto for Hamilton, what should Windsor do to attract these creative people!

In a way, a strange, new American dream can be found here, amid the crumbling, semi-majestic ruins of a half-century’s industrial decline. The good news is that, almost magically, dreamers are already showing up. Mitch and Gina have already been approached by some Germans who want to build a giant two-story-tall beehive. Mitch thinks he knows just the spot for it.

Brownfield sites reborn; Reinventing former industrial properties requires proving environmental risks minimal; Calgary Herald. A possibility for Windsor’s future, with all the empty factories coming on the market, we won’t need new green field development for what, fifty years?

Urban gardens gain popularity as economy stumbles

FLINT, Michigan – Record numbers of tax foreclosures are looming all across Genesee County this year. The Genesee County Land Bank has 2,477 vacant residential lots in the city of Flint, with city officials planning to knock down another 500 abandoned houses this year — double last year’s number.

But a growing army of urban agriculturists is putting a green lining on all that empty inner-city landscape, filling it with gardens that can feed the hungry, create new business opportunities and enrich people’s lives.

It’s a great way to turn eyesores into resources, said Jeff Burdick of the Genesee County Land Bank.

Vancouver latest municipality to allow urban chickens and Vancouver mayor eyes city hall lawn for vegetable garden

Sty in the sky rethinks how we can farm in city, Christopher Hume, Toronto Star

Arts to the rescue! via National Post (not in Windsor, if city hall has anything to say!)

Bought by a French company in the 1990s and killed by overseas competition, its story would likely resonate from Windsor to Syracuse, N.Y., to Erie, Pa. But rather than be left to linger as a reminder of failed industry, St. Catherines wants the building to become an example of economic renewal.

The city’s Brock University intends to refurbish the factory as a home for its school of fine and performing arts. If the $97-million plan comes to fruition, a 900-seat concert hall, a dance venue, a studio theatre, cinema and cabaret hall would all “join the school in an arts district for a city of just 132,000 people.”

Elect better people for a better council; Ottawa Citizen, I’ll let you read it and make your decisions!

Deja vu after last week’s city council meeting!

The Living Landfill and Deliver Us From Food Deserts, a problem that has been discussed on Scaledown

Soft infrastructure is more important to our future than hard infrastructure: Upgrading literacy skills imperative, of which Windsor is a prime example of ignoring literacy and education among its population.

In a deepening recession, greater numbers of Canadian adults are looking to upgrade their skills to find new employment or hang on to their current jobs.

For those Canadians struggling with low literacy, the challenges are far greater.

More than 40 per cent of Canadian adults struggle with everyday tasks involving reading and writing, and one in six Canadians cannot read the headline of a newspaper.

They struggle with tasks that many of us take for granted: Writing a cover letter to a prospective employer; understanding new workplace or safety instructions; comprehending prescriptions or schedules, and even sharing bedtime stories with their children.

According to the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey, half of all unemployed adults in Canada are below Level 3, the internationally accepted level of literacy required to cope in a modern society. The Canadian Council on Learning’s 2008 report Reading the Future estimates that by 2031, “47 per cent of adults aged 16 and over (more than 15 million people) will continue to have literacy skills below the international adult literacy and skills survey Level 3.”

This is so cool! The (Toronto) Star unveils unique map of (Metro Toronto) neighbourhoods! Comprehensive map of Toronto neighbourhoods. Alas I can not go home! In the sixties, I lived in the Keele / High Park area on a tree lined street with single homes and duplexes, with a one block walk to streetcars and High Park. Zooming in on Pacific Avenue north of Bloor, whole blocks of homes are now condo towers! When you find the area you are interested in click on Satellite for the view.

Are the Big Boxers sweating this economy? via The Detroit Free Press

The Future is Grey; By the 2020s demographic trends may threaten the economic and geopolitical climate.

London, Ontario is on a roll: London Transit, Retirees on the move to Florida north, Prime-time ads promote community to all ages

Las Vegas: How we’ll live post-sprawl

Peter Newman: The Place-Based City, worth the time to read!

University often a waste — there, I’ve said it from the Ottawa Citizen

The current economic crisis may force a rethink of the value of post-secondary education, but first we have to get past the fear of being verbally stoned as heretics for daring to show doubt.

But doubt is starting to show. On Jan. 22, John Stossel of ABC’s news magazine show 20/20 did a special report titled Is College Worth It? The answer was no. In a survey of graduates, 40 per cent said they wouldn’t do it again.

Point of Sale: The fare box; Financial Post Magazine

But don’t forget: Buses, streetcars and subways are just about the cheapest way there is to get from A to B other than walking, with none of the stress of driving. 

Tags: arts, big box, brownfield, chickens, council, detroit, Downtown, Education, High Speed Rail, Ikea, Landfill, Las Vegas, literacy, london, McDonalds, Michigan, Montreal, neighbors, Pontiac, public transit, redevelopment, Spain, Urban gardens, Vancouver, Windsor Ontario