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Dorms for Grownups [CityLab]
… no other startup has combined shared space and microunits. Yet what makes Commonspace truly different is its goal of helping revitalize the downtown of a Rust Belt city that struggles with some of the highest rates of poverty in the nation. In cities such as Syracuse, Evans explains, people moved to the suburbs at an alarming rate, abandoning the downtown. Young professionals moved to the suburbs, too, because there wasn’t much happening downtown after dark.

Belt Publishing Is Accepting Submissions For Flint Anthology Book [MLive]
^ hey, that’s us!
Award-winning former Flint Journal reporter and current University of Michigan-Flint instructor Scott Atkinson will edit the anthology. He will accept submissions until Feb. 1, 2016.

The Republican Class War [The New Yorker]
[Ohio Governor John] Kasich, who has positioned himself as the capable, reasonable, experienced “grownup” on the G.O.P. stage, is a supply-sider at his core. As long as Republicans cling to the warped logic of trickle-down economics, their efforts to help middle-class Americans will be largely rhetorical.

Destination Mansfield [WOSU Public Media]
[Mansfield] continued to prosper into the 20th century, but like many cities in the Rust Belt, the decline of heavy manufacturing closed factories that led to fewer jobs and greater blight. But things are changing, thanks to a community of dedicated individuals who are determined to bring cultural vibrancy back to downtown Mansfield.

‘Buffalo’ Workplace Comedy Produced By John Hamburg Set At Fox With Penalty [Deadline Hollywood]
Written by Shawn Wines, Buffalo revolves around dysfunctional members of a workspace collective, set in the emerging Rust Belt paradise of Buffalo, NY.

Stephen Henderson: Through The Doors Of 7124 Tuxedo [Detroit Free Press]
I have begun to understand what can be done. And the journey to figure out what can be done has sent me along a path that, while deeply personal, mirrors Detroit’s broader struggle to discern the futures for thousands of houses, in dozens of forgotten neighborhoods.

Don’t Turn The ‘New Buffalo’ Into The Old Suburb [The Buffalo News]
Developers and decision-makers, blinded by dollar signs, branding campaigns and disingenuous slogans promoting such chilling Orwellian notions as “The New Buffalo,” have been quietly working to homogenize Buffalo’s culture and streetscape in deference to suburban sensibilities.

Watch an Enormous Power Plant Implode Into Glorious Oblivion [Gawker]
The Mighty Marysville, a 93-year-old plant in Marysville, Michigan, tooted its last toot on Saturday. The giant, which was closed in 2001, spewed dust across the St. Clair River.

Banner photo: Richland Carrousel Park by Bryce Glass

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