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The Not-So-Secret Secret About Growing A Healthy City [Next City]
Greater investment in school infrastructure, construction and upkeep correlates positively with economic health. (And, as we’ve seen in Detroit, the lack of investment in school infrastructure has dire consequences.)

The True Cost of Living in America: Cincinnati [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
While the city itself has a modest population of 300,000, down almost half from its heyday in the 1950s, the surrounding metropolitan area (including parts of Kentucky and Indiana) includes 2.2 million, making it a top 25 market in the nation.

Engineers Struggle To Put Streams Back Into The Urban Landscape [Environmental Health News]
Regions and cities most prone to overflowing sewers — such as Detroit, Chicago and others throughout the Rust Belt—long ago buried over streams and creeks that provided connections to larger waterways and did a lot of the dirty work now overwhelming wastewater plants. Researchers say the lesson is simple — at least in principle: work with the natural environment instead of fighting it.

Too Many Flints To Count: America’s Infrastructure Is Rotting — And Poisoning Our Children [Salon]
A series of decisions by state and local officials turned Flint’s chronic post-industrial crisis into a total public health disaster.  If clueless, corrupt, or heartless government officials get all the blame for this (and blame they do deserve), the larger point will unfortunately be missed — that there are many post-industrial Flints, many other hidden tragedies affecting America’s children that await their moments in the news.

RudeBoyz Artworks Opening First Store On West Utica In Buffalo [The Buffalo News]
The building housing the store was purchased by PUSH Buffalo’s Buffalo Neighborhood Stabilization Company in 2012 and has undergone extensive renovations. Because the new location used to be a well-known Buffalo club, and Rudeboyz was also the name of a club, the store gives a nod to that history by using a bar for its checkout counter.

Steelworkers’ Stories Of Disappearing Jobs Come To Life Onstage In ‘Sweat’ [PBS NewsHour]
I encountered a group of steelworkers who had been locked out of their factory for 92 weeks. This was a group of sort of burly, sturdy people who normally, given where I live and given what I do, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to sit down with.  But we’re sitting in a circle, and they began to tell their stories. And the majority of them had been working in the steel factory for between 25 to 30 years.

Banner photo of Rouge River by Dustin May.

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