Come to the opening of The Big Urban Photography Project’s first show

Rust Wire is proud to present The Big Urban Photography Project art show, featuring photographic interpretations of Rust Belt cities as seen through the eyes of their young residents. The show is the result of a multi-year collaborative media project that called on the region’s best documentary and fine arts photographers.
Over two years, we asked for open submissions of photography highlighting the unique blend of despair and hope in a number of cities. Dozens of amateur and professional photographers submitted images of Detroit, Youngstown, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago, Grand …

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Posted on Friday, April 1st, 2011 by Special K
Categories: architecture Art Featured Photography Pittsburgh regionalism Rust Belt Blogs Rust Wire RustWire.com The Big Urban Photography Project The Brew House The Media Youngstown

Video: Youngstown’s Bridge Movement, Skateboarders Give Back

This is seriously the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

The Bridge is a video about a movement started by DeKorda Jackson and his efforts for the push of getting a public skate-park built in the city of Youngstown, Ohio.

The video was produced by Stuck in Ohio, a Northeast Ohio creative studio.

Skateparks are a great way for cities to demonstrate their youth friendliness and also boost their hip factor. Plus it’s better to get kids off the street where they could get killed by a car. This is what you call a win, win. A no brainer. I hope this effort is successful.

Video after the jump …

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Posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2011 by schmange
Categories: Good Ideas Headline Sports

Pro-Sprawl, Anti-Transit Policies Help Make Milwaukee the Most Segregated

Among the myriad insights from the new Census is another blow to Milwaukee. The metro region was once again rated the most segregated in the country, beating out notoriously divided metros like Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and LA.

We’ve written before about how metro Milwaukee’s development policies encourage sprawl, isolating people of color and the poor in the city (while degrading the environment in the suburbs). In its analysis, Salon takes another tack. Anti-transit policies, like the ones endorsed by former Milwaukee County executive and current governor Scott Walker, serve to further isolate the region’s disenfranchised populations. Salon elaborates on the local atmosphere:

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 by schmange
Categories: Featured Race Relations sprawl

Cleveland ‘Highway Removal’ Looks Awfully Highway-Like

It is an oft-lamented fact, both locally and nationally, that the city of Cleveland hasn’t taken full advantage of its position on the shore of Lake Erie. The national media, in its seemingly boundless enthusiasm for stories about the declining fortunes of the city where I live, is quick to point out that we haven’t taken advantage of what may be our best asset.

Whether the publication is Forbes (Most Miserable City, Sixth Fastest Dying City) or Portfolio Magazine (Third Most Stressed City), the attention can start to feel like a cheap shot. Inevitably, they turn the blame for the city’s problems onto itself with observations like this one: Why hasn’t Cleveland developed its lakefront into an asset like the city of Baltimore or San Francisco?

Now NPR has run a story on the “teardown” of the West Shoreway freeway, highlighting plans to turn it into a tree-lined boulevard and break down a major barrier to the lake.

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Posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 by schmange
Categories: Featured Public Transportation

Cleveland Plain Dealer takes a Myopic look at the Imperial Avenue Victims

For weeks now, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has been running biographies of the 11 women who were found murdered just over a year ago by serial killer Anthony Sowell in a house of the east side of Cleveland.

This week, they profiled Amelda “Amy” Hunter, a “bookworm” from Chicago, that eventually got mixed up with men and drugs. All of the stories, more or less, follow the same pattern: A young woman, loved by her family, full of promise, falls prey to older men, crack and a life on the streets, and her life meets its tragic ending at the hands of a sociopath.

It’s all, of course, terribly sad.

A friend of mine pointed out, in all these stories, in all their coverage, sympathetic as it may be, the Plain Dealer never raises the bigger issue.

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Posted on Monday, March 21st, 2011 by schmange
Categories: Crime Headline

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