Enlightened Discourse

I know many readers don't bother with the comment section, but you really should check out the feedback on my post about three seemingly mild-mannered, well-intentioned architecture students visiting Flint on bikes. It's fascinating to see how a rational discussion of reinventing post-industrial America can quickly segue into claims that rabble-rousing Ann Arbor types almost handed World War II to the Nazis.

On the Road for Architecture

Three architecture students from UM-Ann Arbor. On bikes. In Flint, Detroit and Saginaw. What could possibly go wrong? Follow their progress and offer suggestions on their Rusty Mitten blog. Here's a sample:

"Many of the sites we’ve visited are now nothing more than vast, empty and windswept concrete fields dotted here and there with small heaps of garbage. Of the abandoned buildings we’ve visited, nearly all of them are in such a state of decay it’s hard to imagine any kind of re-development or renovation being possible.We know, from our own observations, as well as from the various interviews we’ve conducted so far, that these sites are heavily contaminated by years and years of pollution from industrial processes. The clean-up costs for any one of these sites would be considerably high. So the question I find myself asking now is: What should/could be done with these post-industrial sites that have accumulated throughout the Rust Belt?"