the Koch brothers have gotten involved in the bridge issue in Detroit/Windsor, coming out in support of the privately owned Ambassador Bridge (because they oppose all public infrastructure projects). They expressed this support by terrifying Detroit residents with fake eviction notices.

excellent essay examining the discourse around Detroit: ruin porn, "the lament", etc.

TorStar looks at the Detroit art scene, includes mention of BCL in Windsor.

update on Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert, the artists who are buying up cheap homes in Detroit (via <a href="http://brokencitylab.org">BCL</a>)

Details of, and ideas for, Detroit's plan to sensibly shrink itself. The plan involves renaturalized zones, urban farming, and light rail. "The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Mobile Homestead enacts a reversal of the 'white flight' that took place in Detroit following the inner city race riots of the 1960s.

It's a strange time when a boot company covers an issue better than any media source. A three part doc where Johnny Knoxville tours some sites in Detroit, showing the hopeful creative development going on as well as the fabulous ruins.

who did a photo series of Detroit that stayed away from the ruin porn. (via <a href="http://funkaoshi.com/">Funkaoshi</a>

"We can’t have a truly prosperous and sustainable America with only a dozen or so superstar cities that renew themselves from age to age while others bloom like a flower for a season, then wither away." (via <a href="http://www.scaledown.ca/">Scaledown</a>)

art installation with abandoned house

"A plan for solving America’s greatest urban disaster."

poor Detroit.

Broken City Lab in Windsor tests out their projector for sending messages to Detroit

The Guardian's Big Detroit Article is a lot better than Time's was

missed this when it first came out

deep responses

far too brief and pretty middle-of-the-road, but the first result of Time's year-long commitment to covering Detroit. Strange fact: this author invented fantasy baseball

a situation that would not occur in Toronto

photos of labor monument in Detroit with incredible quotes

question is (in my mind): are there enough jobs in the local "creative economy" to support a city? How about all cities? (seeing as this is a form of the Richard Florida formula that's prescribed to every city nowadays)

optimistic but nonetheless fascinating vision of Detroit as "the Cuba of the rust belt"

has to do with Detroit, artists, gentrification, and Richard Florida

a week in Detroit through the eyes of Mitch Cope, one of the artists featured in the recent news pieces about $100 houses in Detroit

"Isn’t it outrageous that a GM production worker can make $28 an hour, including benefits, and that he or she can retire in some comfort after decades on the assembly line? Isn’t it terrible that GM is contractually obliged to take care of its workers?"

pyramid made of floor tiles in an abandoned factory

"it's not so simple"

people moving back into Detroit. hmmm.

December article on how the recession has made things even worse in Detroit - even though that barely seemed possible.

I'm still fascinated by Detroit's return to nature. Here are some great articles about it from the POV of one city block