Can (insert your city’s name here) Ever Come Back? By Anthony Armstrong, Buffalo, NY

On Friday, April 18th, noted Harvard Economics Professor Edward Glaeser will be in Buffalo as part of a panel to discuss his take on Buffalo and what can/should be done with our city (Resurrecting Buffalo). If you haven’t heard about Glaeser before, well then he probably hasn’t written a controversial article about the fate of your hometown.

Published in the New York Sun and in City Journal , the article — “Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?” — came out in Autumn 2007. Ok, fairly objective and intriguing so far, but then the City Journal version tacked on the subtitle: “Probably not — and government should stop bribing people to stay there.”

Though he was invited here by the University at Buffalo Regional Institute, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, and the Buffalo Branch of the Federal Reserve, it may seem to some like Glaeser is attempting the journalistic equivalent of insulting your mother and then coming over to have dinner with you and all of your siblings at your parents’ house (FYI, Prof. Glaeser: I have four brothers).

As to the content of the article itself, though, aside from some broad assumptions about human wants, a somewhat ham-handed approach to local history, and the obligatory misinformed Buffalo-weather insults, there are some kernels of insight embedded that would serve to spark productive discussions on the plight of our city.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve ever thought we would be better off if the oft mis-appropriated quip “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” was applied instead to headline writers. But when the opener is so far over the top that finding the article’s merits is more difficult for most Buffalonians than finding an Ottawa Senators fan at the Anchor Bar (FYI: if you do find one, it’s probably one of my brothers, so be nice), you have a problem.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to read this article. Why? Members of the GLUE network will see pretty clearly that Buffalo herein serves merely as a trope for any Great Lakes (f/k/a Rust Belt) city. So how would you respond (in a productive way) if this article had been about your city instead, and if you had been asked to represent the ‘younger leader’ contingent here in a public forum? I have. Please post your thoughts here or get in contact with me to discuss.

I certainly have my own take on the situation here in Buffalo, but would like as much as possible to inject the perspectives of all of you out there who are not only trying to make it in the Great Lakes cities, but trying to make the Great Lakes cities better in the process.

Contact: aarmstrong@lisc.org

What would you ask a candidate?

If you had ten minutes with the presidential candidates, what Great Lakes Region specific question would you ask them?  Do you want to know how they’d fund Great Lakes restoration, and on what timeline?  Or how they plan to turn our urban schools around?  Will they prioritize urban infrastructure repair?  Would they incentivize the creation of green jobs in our cities?  How would they work with Canada to develop a bi-national agenda for our region?

Post a comment with your question for the candidates.

My Mega-Regional Easter Basket: Pittsburgh IS a Great Lakes City!

I have had several recent conversations with some of Pittsburgh’s self-identified regional taxonomists who disagree with GLUE’s categorization of the burgh as a Great Lakes city. I will be the first to admit we are not dealing with a cut and dry categorization here.

The term “Rustbelt” is pejorative and anachronistic but attractively gritty in certain circumstances.

Alternatively, I’ve taken to experimenting with a “Midwest” tag. With only anecdotal evidence available, I’ll tell you that it hasn’t been pretty. I’m not sure exactly what the fuss is all about, but there seems to be general agreement amongst Pittsburgh natives I know that it simply will not fly.

One protester of the “Midwest” stamp went so far as to say that Pittsburgh is the capital of America’s “Middle-East” region. Does that mean we will need to start naming, and re-pronouncing, places in Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi in addition to the Pittsburgh-ization of French names (think North Versailles, or Ver-sayles)?

Then of course there’s the “Mid-Atlantic” distinction. OK, I haven’t really given it a chance. The term wants to be followed by “Sales VP” or “Regional Manager” - an org chart classifier, perhaps, but not much else. I do not anticipate legions of Pittsburghers rallying around a call for Mid-Atlantic revitalization.

Jim Marczak did not put the taxonomy issue to bed in yesterday’s Post-Gazette, but he did proudly associate us with our freshwater oasis to the north, Lake Erie. My ardent hope is that his piece marked the beginning of a sincerely felt Great Lakes identity in Pittsburgh.

Among my favorite passages:

“Let’s face it, the Pittsburgh area is not really competing against Cleveland and Buffalo and Toronto. The entire Great Lakes region is competing for the next international investment dollar with Shanghai and Mumbai and Dubai, and we must work together to make it more attractive to investors.”

Making the region more attractive to international investors may not be the only reason mega-regionalism rings my chimes, but it’s a big one. As Erie’s twenty-something green-trepreneur Lucas McConnell said to me in January, “There is no reason industry can’t be responsible for the reemergence of this region as a global force. It will just be a different kind of industry.” Hear, hear!

If we exclude cities that don’t literally abut the Great Lakes from our regional concept, we severely undercut the potential power of cooperation.

Go to Cleveland on May 14th

As costs rise and Williamsburg feels more and more like the Upper West Side, older industrial cities in the Upper Midwest are becoming increasingly attractive to artists of all stripes. Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Detroit - you name it. Sticky cities are making waves with industrial space that has been adaptively reused by artists who want to live and work there.

Are we the new Brooklyn?

GLUE enthusiast, Cleveland lover, and arts advocate Seth Beattie put together “From Rustbelt to Artist Belt” to answer just that question. OK, it’s a little less simple and lot more substantive. Seth and hundreds of artists and arts advocates (like you) from across the region will spend the day discussing strategies to attract and support artists in our hometowns. If you are a fan of GLUE, you are a fan of this event. You must not have known it’s two for the price of one.

From Seth:

“From Rust Belt to Artist Belt and Pop Up Arts District will both be taking place in Cleveland on Wednesday, May 14th … the conference from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the Pop Up from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Both will focus on the unique challenges (and, more importantly, the unique opportunities) that industrial cities face in integrating artists into community revitalization efforts. We will have a series of nineteen speakers lined up (including representation from Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Syracuse), a couple of whom are members of the GLUE family.

Participants will also weigh in on an agenda for moving forward artist-oriented community development throughout the industrial Midwest, in preparation for a second convening next year. And we’ll be closing it all out with a fun and really thought-provoking event in the evening.”

Are you not familiar with pop up events? In short, they are optimistic manifestations of spatial ‘what if’ scenarios.

What if the vacant properties in this neighborhood were suddenly occupied by thriving local businesses that employ neighborhood residents?

What if this stretch of empty storefronts was a series of galleries?

What if this poorly designed waterfront access could have a do-over?

An overview of the program is available online.

See you in Cleveland!

Calling All Great Lakes Filmmakers

Inspired by Chris Ivey’s work here in Pittsburgh, Jacob David and Joel Washing’s work in Toledo, and Sultan Sharrief’s work in Detroit, it seems clear to me that GLUE needs to amass information about all the independent filmmakers choosing to do their work here in the Great Lakes region rather than in NYC or LA. If you are a film maker in a GLUE city and have a work premiering this Spring or Summer, let us know!

We will do our best to compile a comprehensive list and directory for GLUEspace.

In the meantime, do you want to SCREEN a Great Lakes-produced film in your hometown? We’ll do our best to hook you up with the right people. Leave a comment here or email glueteam@gluespace.org.

GLUE Scores “Quick Hit” Editorial in Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Thanks to Sonya Jongsma-Knauss for tipping Milwaukee readers off to GLUE

GLUE Network Member to Premiere Feature Film in Detroit

“Bilal’s Stand” debuts at the Michigan Theater April 3rd

From Writer, Director, and GLUE-er Sultan Sharrief… “Bilal’s Stand” tells the story of an inner-city high school student who works at his family’s long-owned taxi stand. ‘The Stand ‘ has been the source of all money and activity for the family for sixty years, and it looks like Bilal is about to carry the torch. But after secretly getting accepted to the University of Michigan, and taking up ice sculpting in order to win a scholarship, Bilal is forced to decide whether he’ll continue to work at the family business, or if he’ll take a chance at social mobility. The film addresses issue familiar to many inner-city youth such as peer pressure, unequal education, race, class, religion, and the notion of “selling out”.

This is the 2nd feature film from producer/director Sultan Sharrief. The first, “The Spiral Project,” was nominated for a 2006 MTV Movie Award. It was one of five finalists of over 500 entries. He hopes “Bilal’s Stand,” his writing/directing debut, will do as well.

The film was produced as the pilot film for the Student EFEX (Encouraging the Filmmaking Experience) Program, a new community film project and course created by University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff in collaboration with Beyond Blue Productions.

The film debuts April 3rd at 7:00p.m. at the Michigan Theater after an introductory remarks by writer/director Sultan Sharrief and Professor Terri Sarris, the film’s producer. Tickets will go on sale at the Michigan Theater box office at 6 PM on April 3rd. Tickets are $6.00 for students and $8.00 for general public.

For more information, go to http://www.bilalsstand.com/. To watch behind the scenes footage, go to www.studentefex.net. EFEX combines filmmaking with service learning and community engagement, and serves as a new model for interaction between academic units and their surrounding artistic communities.

Sponsored by the UM National Center for Institutional Diversity, Screen Arts and Cultures Department, Office of Academic and Multicultural Initiatives, Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs Council, Michigan Student Assembly Minority Affairs Commission & FOKUS

Detroit FREEP: Again with the Federal Policies!

On Tuesday, the Detroit Free Press published an Op-ed by GLUE friends John Austin and Bruce Katz of The Brookings Institution arguing that a change in federal policies could have a real and lasting benefit to Detroit and Michigan. But their assessment is by no means limited to one state.

All of the things Detroit and southeast Michigan are trying to do — largely unaided — to transform the regional economy could be significantly helped by a federal government that was a partner, not a delinquint.

Check out the examples they give, ranging from transportation policy to next generation energy investments to Great Lakes restoration — and others.  In addition to having partners in other GL cities and states, we should have a partner in the federal government — which will only happen if we demand it of our next president.

Advice from Milwaukee on How to Get Published

The following email helpfully reminded us how important it is to be original when we contact the press. The sample letter we provided in our toolkit is only a sample. Thanks, Sonya! May all Great Lakes city newspaper staff be so responsive!

From Sonya’s comment:

We letter editors tend to pass over obvious letter-writing campaigns that are pure or even primarily form letters. There’s nothing wrong with a letter-writing campaign, but letters are more likely to get attention (and publication) if writers use their own words and arguments.

Smart, succinct letters, especially if they include some humor or a great analogy, are always a good bet.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Thanks,
Sonya

Sonya Jongsma Knauss
Letters Editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Hungry for a List of GLUE City Letters to the Editor Pages?

Fear not.

In the interest of making resources available to any and everyone who wants to revitalize our cities, we’ve created a mega-region-wide list for your use in our toolkit.