News of the Rust Belt from around the world, brought to you weekly by the staff of Belt.
Hundreds of Readers Ridicule Syrians-to-Detroit Idea [Deadline Detroit]
They show tone-deafness about the “New Detroit” hot button by daring to propose “small business and home-ownership loans . . . [so] the refugees would have a financial incentive to remain” — support that would provoke legitimate howls from longtime Detroiters who also could use a financial incentive to remain.
Will Cleveland Riot If A Police Officer is Found Not Guilty? [Washington Post]
So far, the city has seen few signs of trouble. Only a handful of protesters have answered calls to march outside the courthouse downtown where the Brelo case will be decided. Still, “it just takes one copycat to say, ‘Let’s just turn a car over because they did it in Baltimore,’ ” said Vernon, the pastor at the Word Church. Earlier this week, more than 600 people filled his pews to discuss the upcoming verdict and other business.
Allee Willis Is The Most Interesting Woman You’ve Never Heard Of [Washington Post]
Called “The D,” [for Detroit] the creative process surrounding the song has been characteristically over the top. No booking comfy sessions in one of Los Angeles’s many recording studios. Instead, Willis has taken her crew on the road, recording about 5,000 — that’s not a typo — vocal tracks, from regular people crooning in pizza places and high school stadiums to celebrities with a link to the city, including Ray Parker Jr., Supreme Mary Wilson, Martha Reeves and Maejor. It is, naturally, a bear to mix.
The Unsung Hero of Urban Planning Who Made It Easy To Get Around Chicago [WBEZ]
Today Chicago is known for having one of the simplest street systems of any big city in the world, with every address emanating out from a central origin point at the intersection of State & Madison Streets. It wasn’t always going to be that way, though, and many people fought the change. But Edward Paul Brennan, an unsung hero of urban planning, spent much of his life taming the navigational chaos of Chicago’s adolescence, and his legacy lives on more than a century later — even if few people know his name.
Taking A Look Back At Youngstown in 2014 [Defend Youngstown]
In September, the U.S. Census Bureau released figures which indicated that Youngstown’s poverty rate remains exceptionally high at 40.2%, placing it among the top six cities in the nation in that category. Not surprisingly, it was also reported that the child poverty rate in the Youngstown School District was double the national average…However the revitalization of downtown Youngstown continued to take major strides in 2014. The Kress Building and Wean United were lost to the wrecking ball but other major projects such as the redevelopment of the Wick, Wells and Gallagher buildings took big steps forward. Some if not all are scheduled for completion in 2015.
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