Don't mean to crib content from Christopher Hume today. But this is an informative update from the Toronto waterfront.
Ridding Toronto of transit
The opening statement of Christopher Hume's latest column on the break down of Toronto's transit debate:
By now, Toronto’s transit failure is all but complete.
Read the Midwest
Anna Clark highlights 13 stand out books that capture "the sense of place in the mythic Midwest." Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, born and raised in Indy, helps explain the connection:
All my jokes are Indianapolis. All my attitudes are Indianapolis. My adenoids are Indianapolis. If I ever severed myself from Indianapolis, I would be out of business. What people like about me is Indianapolis.
Lansing don't want none of that regional tyranny
The city mayor called for a committee to study what that regionalism thing is all about. After reading that news the village idiot typed the comment below. Notice another 5 "recommend."
MikeSears wrote:
Rochester, MN frames the future for downtown
The City of Rochester recently adopted a new downtown master plan. The design principles, which are quickly becoming universal across forward-looking Great Lakes metros, express the city's aspiration:
- Create a vibrant, economically healthy downtown that is walkable, livable and promotes human interaction
- Create strong connections between major activity centers including the central business district, University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic
- Promote mobility options that reduce dependency on automobiles
- Create pedestrian friendly streets that balance use by people and automobiles
- Build upon historic buildings and landmarks that contribute to Rochester’s history and culture
- Establish a connected open space system including the river
- Create strong connections between indoor and outdoor spaces at street level, subway, and skyway
- Develop buildings that engage the street, shape the civic realm and minimize energy use
What's wrong with ruin rubbernecking
Noreen Malone makes The Case Against Ruin Porn.
By presenting Detroit, and other hurting cities like it, as places beyond repair, [ruin porn pics] in fact quash any such instinct. Looked at as a piece of art, they're arresting, compelling, haunting ... but not galvanizing. Our brains mentally file these scenes next to Pompeii rather than a thriving metropolis like Chicago, say, or even Columbus.
Measuring open-mindedness across the Great Lakes
Using an interesting methodology that assigns points to incidence of hate crimes, frequency of discrimination complaints, popular support for gay marriage and other relevant measures, The Daily Beast ranks each of the United States on the tolerance scale. Here's how the Great Lakes region scores:
1. Wisconsin
3. Illinois
4. Pennsylvania
7. Minnesota
17. New York
30. Michigan
33. Indiana
46. Ohio
1. Wisconsin
3. Illinois
4. Pennsylvania
7. Minnesota
17. New York
30. Michigan
33. Indiana
46. Ohio
Chicago's next green move
You can see by the Q&A exchange captured in the Green Growth Platform for Chicago's Next Mayor why some say the city's sustainability campaign is a public relations fraud.
I'm not that cynical. But clearly the city's journey to become "the greenest in America" remains in its infancy.
Chicago has yet to deploy basic recycling to all homes. The city struggles to demonstrate any real leadership on keeping the carp outta the Great Lakes. Then there's the basic issue of water quality:
I'm not that cynical. But clearly the city's journey to become "the greenest in America" remains in its infancy.
Chicago has yet to deploy basic recycling to all homes. The city struggles to demonstrate any real leadership on keeping the carp outta the Great Lakes. Then there's the basic issue of water quality:
Q: Will you publicly support disinfecting the sewage effluent that is pumped into the Chicago-area waterways?
A (via Rahm Emanuel): Disinfection is a standard practice around the country and is long overdue in Chicago.
Time to redesign Twin Cities' transit governance
The Twin Cities region has spent $1.7 billion on capital transit projects since 2004. These include rapid bus, commuter- and light- rail service. But the Metro Council, the primary transit provider, lacks credibility and accountability on mobility issues, according to a new report from Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor. Other key findings - many of which could easily apply to metros throughout the Great Lakes - include:
- The Twin Cities region’s transit system has performed well on most measures of efficiency, effectiveness, and impact in comparison with 11 peer regions.
- The governance of transit in the Twin Cities region is complex and fraught with distrust
- Coordination among the many transit organizations in the region has been difficult.
- There is no agreed-upon set of priorities for transitway development in the Twin Cities region, and existing Minnesota law prohibits consideration of all potential transitways in the region.
- Scarce resources for transit are likely to become scarcer as the state confronts a significant budget deficit.
Will Cleveland's Medical Mart exemplify good urbanism
Hard to tell from the latest rendering of the facility, which is now under construction. Steven Litt gently wonders if the ultimate design will give rise to a great civic building that anchors a great civic space.
President Kennedy at the Michigan Union
Fifty years ago today President John Kennedy delivered his only inaugural address. Three months before that he spoke on the University of Michigan campus about an idea that ultimately would become the United States Peace Corps. Listen to the crowd razz him after the "go to bed" comment.
Milwaukee River plan
The Milwaukee Common Council formally adopted the Milwaukee River Greenway River Master Plan: A Vision for Recreation and Restoration. Here is the plan in PDF.
Greater Great Lakes gaining talent
Over at The Atlantic, Richard Florida concludes his latest column with some good news:
One of the subtler and perhaps more important trends brought on by the Great Reset is the improved and improving performance of older Rustbelt metros from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo to Milwaukee and St. Louis, which appear to have turned the tide in terms of their ability to attract and retain young adults and college grads.
Bizzaro energy politics in Michigan
The left-leaning Center for American Progress has high hopes for the energy platform of Michigan's new Republican governor.
The 2010 midterm elections ushered dozens of new climate science deniers into state houses and the U.S. Capitol. Michigan may buck this trend, however. Freshly inaugurated Gov. Rick Snyder supported clean energy policies during last year’s race. Michigan could turn out to be a clean energy bright spot in a disappointing election season if Snyder stays true to his campaign.Meanwhile, Michigan's Democratic leadership called for the construction of a new coal plant, effectively thumbing their nose at the past eight years of soaring alternative energy rhetoric from former Governor Granholm, a Democrat.
Kasich's compensation kerfuffle
Plunderbund is all over Ohio Governor Kasich for "inflated" staff salaries. His chief of staff, among others, certainly will collect a nice check. The political blog questions the Governor's shaky rationale for the salaries.
One more important question though is will performance match the pay. There's plenty of work to do rebuilding Ohio and positioning the state for 21st century prosperity. Whether taxpayers will get their money's worth from Team Kasich remains to be seen. What's more, how will Ohioans measure success?
One more important question though is will performance match the pay. There's plenty of work to do rebuilding Ohio and positioning the state for 21st century prosperity. Whether taxpayers will get their money's worth from Team Kasich remains to be seen. What's more, how will Ohioans measure success?
When King came to Detroit
Before The Speech, Dr. Martin Luther King rehearsed after marching on Woodward Avenue.
Does Toronto care about its history
Kenneth Kidd doesn't pull any punches in his feature about Toronto's surprising lack of concern for preserving historic buildings, and he delivers the blows backed by a forceful quote from a local developer.
There is probably no other western metropolis of the size and stature of Toronto that has less collective interest in its heritage and, until recently, less admiration for the finest architecture of any vintage.
We are a city of immigrants, of course, but so are New York, Chicago and London, all of which venerate their pasts.
Toronto almost deliberately turns its back on all that has gone before. Unlike other great cities, we still have no museum dedicated to our own civic history, nothing to inform us fully of the legacy we inherit.
Instead, we’re prone to a kind of self-flagellation, in which our own past achievements are deemed slight, and current efforts thought to be inherently inferior to anything elsewhere. It’s an equation of self-defeat.
“We live in what surely is the greatest civil society on the planet and we’re building one of the least attractive, least efficient modern cities in the world,” says (developer) Paul Oberman.
Detroit comings and goings
Artist Jennifer Quigley tells the Detroit Free Press that "people who want art and culture are gravitating [to Detroit]."
But a story by Ben Schmitt, interestingly a former Detroit Free Press reporter now living in Pittsburgh, illustrates that people who want a family are sometimes repelled.
But a story by Ben Schmitt, interestingly a former Detroit Free Press reporter now living in Pittsburgh, illustrates that people who want a family are sometimes repelled.
When I heard my daughters' screams that evening, I knew I was gone. No more compromises.
For now, Great Lakes power is not waning
The census revealed the Rust Belt is losing people, which ultimately translates to less political clout. But George Will reports that, for the moment, the region's influence is ascendant in the nation's Capitol.
Michigan's power is waxing in Washington, with Upton's boon companion Dave Camp, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. They are part of a Midwestern ascendancy in the House, which also includes Ohio's John Boehner (speaker), Michigan'sMike Rogers (chairman of the intelligence committee), Wisconsin's Paul Ryan (chairman of budget), Minnesota's John Kline (chairman of education and the workforce), and Missouri's Sam Graves (chairman of small business).
Milwaukee's Mad Man Michaels
Bobby Tanzilo's OnMilwaukee column about streetcar nostalgia turned me on to disc jockey Mad Man Michaels. They certainly don't tell stories on the radio like they used to.
DNA survelliance on the Asian Carp
In a paper published in the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, a team of scientists describe the fascinating ability to scoop a water sample from, say, a lake or river, take it back to the lab, wade through all the swimming genetic schmutz and determine what kind of critters lurk. The process already has detected the Asian Carp closer to the Great Lakes than previously thought. Daaa dum... daaa dum
Why is Illinois so corrupt
Shane Tritsch isn't the first to ask the question. (Politico, for one, did awhile back) But his thorough investigative piece in Chicago magazine relays a reasonable array of factors that inform the answer. Apparently the graft really started to get thick with Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna in 1869. All downhill from there:
Over the past 40 years, about 1,500 people—including 30 Chicago aldermen—have been convicted for bribery, extortion, embezzlement, tax fraud, and other forms of corruption, according to Dick Simpson, head of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Three former Illinois governors have gone to prison, and a fourth soon could be locked up if a jury convicts Blagojevich in his upcoming retrial on corruption and conspiracy charges.
In hindsight, Jim Doyle's transit agenda was whack
Charlie Rosenberg explains his view of how former Governor Jim Doyle failed to advance modern mobility policy in Wisconsin:
Looking back, Doyle's administration took isolated, tentative, steps that went nowhere, casually discarded concrete measures that could have been critical building blocks, failed to work with even members of his own party in the legislature, and never made clear to voters his vision of how a southeastern Wisconsin regional transit agency would improve their lives.
Bankruptcy please
City of Hamtramck Manager William Cooper's money quote was first reported last Monday in the NY Times. Then the paper recycled his determined fightin words in the popular 'Chatter' sidebar of yesterday's business section.
We're going to pursue bankruptcy until the door is shut, locked, barricaded and bolted.
Thank you Geraldine Hoff Doyle
She only worked the metal press for a minute. But her likeness reportedly inspired iconic World War II propaganda and ultimately came to personify the American feminism movement. Mrs. Doyle was born and lived in southeast Michigan. Surprisingly the LA Times - not the Detroit News or Free Press - owned the obit.
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