The New Metropolis

Here’s a preview of a new pair of films that have just come out about “The New Metropolis”:

The two movies – titled “A Crack in the Pavement” and “The New Neighbors” – document the fate of America’s first suburbs and offer solutions for their revitalization.

Throughout the last half-century, many middle and upper-middle class Americans moved from suburb ring to suburb ring–consistently away from inner city congestion and racial diversity–leaving a wake of abandoned development and poverty behind them.

But as gas prices rise, people have begun to notice the problems with the suburban sprawl that they created.  Driving to work takes longer and costs more.  Car emissions and expanses of pavement are contributing to global climate change.

In a new “smart growth” movement, people have begun to redevelop those first ring suburbs that were struggling not long before.  People want to live closer to their places of work and play, and are moving in next to public transit lines that can usher them into the city.

Here’s a video by CBS that documents the smart growth movement:

Structural Racism and Sustainable Solutions in Detroit

Sustainability: social, environmental and economic justice.

This video shows an interview with Carl Anthony, Founder of the Earth House Leadership Center in Detroit, talking about the problems of structural racism in our urban centers.  Anthony also talks about how groups in Detroit are working to abate urban sprawl through an inner city land bank initiative similar to Cleveland’s “Reimagining a More Sustainable Cleveland” initiative and a statewide proposal for a transportation bill limiting the construction of new highways into existing farmland.  Cleveland could use a transportation bill like that.

Click “Continue Reading” to view the rest of the interview about community empowerment and using federal Stimulus dollars to re-invest in whole metropolitan regions.