From Chopin to Craft Beer : A Buffalo Skeptic Sees the Light
Stately, plump houses and maple trees line Porter Avenue en route from Buffalo’s Peace Bridge to Symphony Circle. The homes are old, but they are lived in and cared for.
You Must Be This Tall To Ride In Detroit
You live in New York and you’ve seen a billboard encouraging you to move to Detroit.
Money Does Grow on Trees: Canopy Cover Reflects Income Inequality
An enormous tree engulfs my front lawn. I do not know what kind of tree it is.
Going Off To College? Will It Still Be There?
Financially, a college is considered to have perpetual life. Auditors evaluate it as a going concern, trustees are not allowed to spend the amount originally contributed to the endowment, and money managers assume an infinite time ...
The Rise and Mysterious Fall of the Prehistoric King of Cleveland
Lurking in the dark corners of Cleveland history: the Dunkleosteus. (From 2015).
The Legacy of Redlining in Rust Belt Cities
In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) set out to evaluate mortgage lending risk in American cities. The resulting maps codified and legitimized the racism of the day ...
Long Lines at the Pantry: Hunger and Need on the Rise in Ohio
For the past five years, I’ve been a reliably imperfect member of a plucky church that serves a lot of poor people on Cleveland’s West Side. I’m consistently un-punctual at board meetings and have volunteered at the church’s ...
Introducing The Rust Belt Bestiary
I grew up in Akron in the 1980s – the decade the Rubber City lost 8,000 factory jobs and the Ohio exurbs swallowed 13 acres of farmland per hour. Despite growing up in nadir of the Rust Belt’s environmental health and biodiversity ...
Michigan’s Great Leap Backward
The word “vagina” first brought national attention to Michigan’s conservative state legislature. It was uttered by Democratic state Rep. Lisa Brown during a debate on a bill to regulate abortion clinics by requiring doctors to screen women ...
Manufacturing Consent: Chicago’s Oldest Steel Mill Will Soon Be Demolished. What Will Replace It When It’s Gone?
Until last year the A. Finkl & Sons Co. furnaces glowed orange at night. A lonely car might have breezed past on the darkened street, or the No. 73 bus, ferrying bleary-eyed workers to homes on the west side of Chicago.
The Gritty Realism of Genre Artist David Gilmour Blythe
In the 1940’s, a Pittsburgh steel baron named G. David Thompson began collecting the paintings of an obscure 19th century artist, David Gilmour Blythe.
The Complications of Our Deteriorating Inner Ring Suburbs
When controversy erupted in August over the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, race was at the very center of it all.