Pittsburgh is an amazing city with amazing folks doing amazing work; Emily Anderson, a project manager for the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group (PCRG), is no exception! Check out this great conversation we had with her during the 4th Annual Great Lakes Urban Exchange Conference.
To learn more about Emily and the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group visit PCRG.org
To learn more about the Great Lakes Urban Exchange Conference visit gluespace.org
I am a recovering selfish prick. On this day, ten years ago, I was eating Lucky Charms in my sweatpants watching cartoons, deciding whether or not to skip class at Lakeland Community College. I was living day-to-day as an aspiring musician with moderate skill and an overfed ego. I hadn’t seriously thought about what this country meant to me – or to the countless millions that call America home – at any point in my young adult life. I never once thought about Freedom as a privilege. At 19, my only real “experience” with Patriotism had been my father’s service in United States Armed Forces; something I saw as an evil that took my dad away from me whenever they felt the need.
As I sat there, comfortable and lazy in front of the television, I changed the channel four times before letting it be and paying attention to the images on the screen. Even then, I only stopped flipping because it seemed a fruitless endeavor; every station was airing the same thing. One tower stood smoking from its midsection, while the other stood as it always did. It wasn’t until I watched that second plane that I realized what I was watching. That moment will live in me forever, as I’m sure it will with all of us.
The mix of emotions literally startled me. I was terrified, confused, and angry. I was immediately concerned about people I had never met. I felt something burn in my gut unlike any sensation I have had before or since. For the first time in my life, I was feeling what it meant to be an American. And not unlike a deadly disease that brings an estranged family back together; tragedy had reminded me, instantly, how lucky I am to live in the greatest country in the world. There isn’t an anniversary that goes by that I don’t recall that feeling, and the pang of guilt it still causes when I think it had to be something so monstrously devastating to show me the light.
The point of this rant is this: when I woke up on September 11th, 2001, I was a rebellious, lazy, and selfish child who stood on one side of a fence shouting obscenities at the people who disagreed with me; I went to sleep that night an American. Let’s not forget that, while we replay this terrible moment in our minds, we have wavered from our commitment to stand together, united. It already took one major tragedy to get us back in the same room, let’s not wait for another to start talking again.
If not for ourselves, then for the thousands who gave their lives on this day ten years ago, and the countless thousands that have died protecting us and our rights since. We’re not Blue or Red. We’re not Left or Right. We’re Americans, so let’s start acting like it.
I will preface this post by saying that in no way am I a connoisseur of art, by any stretch of the imagination. I do however know that art in some way, shape or form impacts everyone’s life on a daily basis – whether positively or negatively, consciously or subconsciously. There has been a great deal of talk in Buffalo and in other Great Lakes cities about the role that art can play in the resurgence of a city. Proponents point to places like Belfast and Berlin as well as the Soho neighborhood of New York City as prime examples of how art has influenced and contributed to the revival of these post industrial places. The Buffalo Expat Network and other organizations in Buffalo are supporting the arts by introducing echo: Art Fair – an annual event that will showcase emerging artists from Buffalo and beyond.
While art alone is not going to bring a city like Buffalo back to its glory days of the early twentieth century, I think it is a very important aspect. Art, both public displays and private exhibitions, energizes, inspires and engages communities. Such simple things as murals on the sides of decrepit buildings or decorative bicycle posts on the sidewalks of the city can change the atmosphere from one of depression and despair to upbeat and intriguing. Art allows and calls for reinvention, something that Buffalo and other cities like it can definitely use. Read more…
“The Wonderful Future” was an idea for band name that I scribbled on a piece of scrap paper nearly ten years ago. I never did anything with it, but the name never left me. When I was trying to think of a title for this short call-to-action essay, I couldn’t think of a more fitting title. Also, I have to provide fair warning for pessimists: this is an obscenely optimistic work.
It’s no secret that our country is going through some interesting “growing pains” (or “shrinking pains” depending on who you ask). I won’t throw fuel on the frustration fire by recounting it all, but I would like to address the single most critical issue that I believe will act as the catalyst to the rebirth of the American Dream, and a whole lot more: the price of oil.
Now, it would be ignorant of me not to lay down the very intense, very real downsides to this price rape we’re experiencing; I will do so as quickly and succinctly as I can.
1.) We are broke, individually. The most publicly obvious effect of the price hike is how hard it hits us at the pump – and at home. I’m pretty sure most of us have noticed that work – and thus money – isn’t as readily available to us as it once was. There’s no denying that we’re about to go through one of the worst experiences that Main St. has had to endure in a long, long time.
2.) We are broke, nationally. Less obvious, but no less true; we are in no position, as a country, to “bail” our citizens out of this. We’re running on the last fume of fumes, and unlike the past, we’ve used up all our credit. Even during the Great Depression, FDR had access to enough funding to create public assistance programs like the Civilian Corps. It wasn’t much, but it was far more than we’re in the position to provide now.
3.) We aren’t friends. This seems irrelevant, but I don’t think it is. Our political hatred for people who prefer other parties is so vile and so intense that an issue like this will only serve to make it worse. An uneducated mass of angry people can do a lot of damage, especially when they already have a predetermined target. Our lack of willingness to compromise, politically, is going to cost us a lot more than just $6.00 a gallon.
4.) The cost of goods and services. Probably the least obvious to the general public (and one I assume politicians are going to try and avoid like the plague), is the simple fact that rising oil costs means a rise in the cost of goods nationwide. Essentials like food still have to get from Point A to Point B – which is still the same distance it was yesterday – only today it’s going to cost them considerably more to get it there. Inevitably that price burden will be passed to we, the consumers. It might not happen overnight, but expect that it will start having a major impact within well under a year.
So those are the big four concerns – from my point of view, anyway. But there’s silver lining, perhaps the shiniest of silver linings, in all of this. Again, none of these positive effects are going to occur tomorrow, but I feel strongly – based on history and faith in our people – that we will come out stronger and much smarter because of this. Let’s jump in…
We aren’t a very proactive society. I don’t think I’m shedding light on anything new here, but we’re terribly resistant to change and intentionally ignorant of obvious trends. This hurts us, but it also plays in to one of our greatest strengths: Reactionary Innovation. It is what this country was founded on, literally. America is the nation of the underdog; the weak, the poor, and the unwanted. We paint each other as overindulgent pigs, racists, sexists, idiots, uneducated slobs, and much worse; but we all know that when it matters most, we are all Americans. When it counts, our people are tough, resilient, innovative, and intensely motivated – it just takes a major event to shove us in to action.
I believe this unavoidable price rape will act as that major event. I believe that the impact will be so dramatic that we won’t be able to ignore it as citizens. It will put us in a corner so tight that we won’t have any other option than to fight our way out, and damn if we aren’t scrappy fighters.
Impossible solutions, that I’m certain we will develop in garages and abandoned warehouses, are going to come faster and more affordably than we ever thought possible. People overuse the term ‘Frontier’ all the time, but this will actually embody that concept from front to back. This unfortunate situation will provide the backdrop for the rebirth of the American Dream. It has the potential to bring out the side of our nation that hasn’t shown itself since the early days of the Industrial Revolution.
We will work, and work hard. We won’t have an option, and that’s exactly how we like it. America was founded by a small group of intelligent and passionate rebels who fought against an impossible scenario – because they had to. They created the greatest country in the world, despite every single adversity, and despite a complete lack of resources. They built what had never existed, using what little they had, and stood by it as it found its way (even when they didn’t know if it would/could work). We aren’t Americans because we have Freedom; we have Freedom because we’re Americans. These inalienable rights were given to us by us; I fully believe we will live up to that precedent, and create a bright new path for our future generations and ourselves.
As difficult as I know it is to see the end of a dark tunnel, I implore you to look for that light. It’s there in our neighbors, our friends, our family, and in us. This problem is only as big as we let it become, and the solutions are only as small as we dream them. Don’t forget that not so long ago we didn’t have running water, electricity, or automobiles; we didn’t know what Industry could be or what Technology would become. There weren’t microchips and social networks until we built them in garages and dorm rooms without money, blueprints, or crystal balls.
Trust that we will build again, bigger and better. Have faith in the foundation of this country, It’s history, and most importantly, It’s people. Impossible odds are the only ones worth betting on, and I know Americans will take that bet with open arms.
Today, I say, “I will claim this place as my home.”
We assert ourselves to be members of an evolving force, a process of urban change and progress – the self-evident resolve of transformation. In our attempt to become active participants in something greater, larger, and more sublime, we’ve often projected those positive attributes onto the subject our action – the sudden transubstantiation of the American city. I talk not in the religious sense, but the capacity for some bold individuals to see decrepitude as an asset, who function as an agent of optimistic urban sophistry – who see beyond the beyond. It is, in fact, critical that those personalities pervade the urban discourse, that those ideas emerge strong and capable, with the resolve to battle back the naysayers and policy potentates that believe history is a greater metric than potential. There must be an unflappable entrepreneurial spirit if cities are to emerge once again, if they are to rise from rust. It is a spirit that should be nurtured in all who are stewards of cities. We can be better at being better.
Our cities are systems of abandonment and resultant urban mausoleums – supposedly incomplete spaces where injured/incomplete people struggle with conceptualizing definitions of their own belonging. Built environments can be ruined, but the people are not. Dismissed as vacuous urbanists, naive advocates, and attention-driven opportunists, our actions often become innocuous in the face of towering establishments – we become rocks tossed into the sun. So, we say bigger rocks, more rocks, more arms for throwing, surprise attacks, negotiation, shrink the sun…but the sun is still there – still pulsing and blinding and consuming the priceless elements we need to survive and sustain. We are rendered obsolete before having a chance to be relevant. Is it time to ignore the sun? Is it time to dump the discussion of incompleteness/injury dominating urban development…to be so daring as to say we can live without the sun? The answer, of course, is no…not really, but we can begin to find resources elsewhere – internal and external founts of possibility.
Our options are limited, because our resources are limited and constrained. However, our ideas never have to follow the rules of possibility – there is fight in us, because there are places to fight for. The slums and sanctuaries, the naysayers and the neighbors. We are allowed to suspend our disbelief, allowing us to move forward when the inclement conditions would seem impossibly contrary. But, when we should be renaming the world, we still subscribe to internal and external policing, of calling a particular few the idea people and framing the others as the active agents – we do this because we’ve been programmed to silo ourselves, to discard potential capacities because they don’t fit into our frame of plausibility…into some professionalized mindset. The creatives, the businessmen, the intellectuals, the residents. Discard those definitions; the city can belong to those ready to fight for it.
It’s time to think big, but to think big in a way that reconciles the city with the people who call it home, who believe in the right for real people to live, work, and play and play. Transforming cities should be our practice of freedom, and it is mitigated when we believe that our role should be explicit and uncomplicated. Our urban environments are designed to be monumental, and we perceive them to be monuments and memorials to the ideas, people, and progress that surged past their limits. The beautiful city that we honor everyday, that we strive to preserve and protect – the urban cosmos. Yet, the city also beckons to be the chronicle of the present and future, of the need for community and sharing and interdependence – where the scale is delicate and crafted for human use. We are at a moment when we are required to take stake in the future of our city, required to do so because we live there and desire the best experiences, the greatest quality of life – but also the most meaningful change. We do so because we are committed to something bigger than us, but something that we are the architects and builders of – a universe that bears an inviolable human element. People matter. Buildings, streets, bikeways, and neighborhoods are irrelevant without intersecting minds.
Cities are the physical documentation of our common humanity. They belong to us, both as place and idea. It’s time to tell that story, the story of people. Today, I choose to forfeit the 1904 Worlds Fair and the Olympics. I pass on the relevance of Lewis and Clark. Instead, I choose a vastness that is at the core of each individual, an intimacy at the heart of all cities. I want to fight on all fronts for the people of St. Louis. I want to be a neighbor.
I hope you choose to do the same in your city.
This week a couple of us here at Saving Cities attended the 3rd Annual Rust Belt to Artist Belt Conference. The event took place, for the first time, in Detroit, and was hosted at the very lovely College for Creative Studies. And while the event was well organized, and the location was very cool, I keep coming back to one main issue: the conference was severely tilted towards Detroit, with almost no true emphasis on the rest of the Rust Belt.
I understand (and even advocate) having a small lean towards the host city, but when an event is titled Rust Belt to Artist Belt – and you have people traveling from all over – I feel like the focus should lie heavily on the whole region. Speakers at the event were extremely intelligent and spoke on interesting topics, but almost all that I personally attended spoke only on Detroit and/or Michigan based initiatives, opportunities, and statistics. Slightly frustrating at the cost of $55 – $80 a ticket + travel costs of over $200.
Again, the event was well organized, nicely presented, and well attended. I can’t say enough about the Inside Detroit team who really pointed out some great locations for us to visit during the off time, and really made us take a second and third look at some of the “lesser attractive” areas in the city. We also met several amazing Rust Belt Revivalists who were in attendance, and for that, any price is justified. I certainly don’t regret going to this conference, but will have to seriously weigh the options when it rolls around next year.
All that aside, I urge you to take a look at the College for Creative Studies, the Detroit Creative Corridor, and the Art X Initiatives currently taking place in Detroit. They are all amazing assets to an inspiring community of passionate revivalists.
I began my tour as almost any tour of the Buffalo area begins – with a quick stop at Niagara Falls, just a 20-minute drive up the I-190. While I’m always excited to show visitors my favorite spots in the actual city of Buffalo, the Falls is something that most do not want to miss. That’s why on Saturday, when I picked my friend up from the airport, we drove straight there in order to tick it off the list. After less than an hour of walking around looking at the blocks of ice still sitting at the base of the American Falls we made our way back to Buffalo.
We had the evening in front of us and the whole day on Sunday, but I felt like that would not be enough time to fully share my home city with this friend on his first visit to the area. But, by early Monday morning when I dropped him back off at the airport, I think we covered as much as one person would really want to see in such a time frame. Dinner and drinks in Elmwood Village (one of the America Planning Association’s 10 Great Neighborhoods); tour of the inner harbor and the former terminus of the Erie Canal; a drive down Delaware Avenue (or Mansion Row as it is known) and other parts of the city to point out some of the architecture and history including Michigan Avenue, City Hall and the Inaugural Site of Theodore Roosevelt; and of course chicken wings (Buffalo Wings to those of you outside the area) at two of my favorite spots.
While I know the last one on the list will bother some hardcore Buffalonians who are tired of only being known for wings, I think it is something to be proud of. One of our own was industrious enough to utilize a part of the chicken that otherwise would have been wasted; and then turn it into a global craze – I have yet to visit a country that I didn’t find some sort of “Buffalo style wing” on a menu. Last year, the price of wings in supermarkets actually surpassed the price of chicken breasts. Yes, I realize this creative breakthrough was not a cure for cancer, but actually, that is being worked on in Buffalo as well, right around the corner from where Buffalo Wings took flight. But I’ll save that for another post.
My name is Tim Delaney, a recently returned Buffalo resident and a co-founder of the Buffalo Expat Network. As much as I enjoy showing visitors around my home city, I also enjoy talking (and writing) about it as much as possible, so I will be posting to Saving Cities blog on occasion to help keep a connection with those of you working in other Great Lakes cities and share some of the positive things happening in Buffalo. Together I know we can make a regional change that will improve the images and economies of all of our homes.
St. Louis has, like many others, been the story of those that left. The difference is, we built a monument. Yes, we’re that Rust Belt city that everyone seems to have forgotten – that industrial cosmopolis that had rivers instead of lakes. My name is RJ Koscielniak and I will be providing some perspective on my home, the nuance and complexity of situating/locating the struggles of this city (currently 33% of its peak population) into the narrative of urban transformation, and how St. Louis is slowly re-imagining its responsibility to its residents, region, and the rise of urban reason. Read more…
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