12/4/14 - 12/10/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Cleveland

Cleveland officer who shot 14 year old considered unfit for duty by another police department (PBS Newshour)

National questions about police hit home in Cleveland (New York Times)

Cleveland Police evade Ohio's mandatory DNA collection law (Jurist)

Major expansion of The Cleveland Institute of Art nears completion (Cleveland.com)

Pittsburgh

Port Authority drivers ordered to stand trial for Pittsburgh bus crash (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Pittsburgh mayor stars on reality TV show, "Undercover Boss" (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

LBPC to unveil plans for a more walkable, bikeable Lawrenceville (Bike Pittsburgh)

US Steel keeps headquarters in Pittsburgh for a price (Pennsylvania Independent)

State liquor laws hurt young musicians (Pittsburgh City Paper)

Pennsylvania

Why 2015 could be the year for medical marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Independent)

Climbing employee pension costs squeeze state budget (Pennsylvania Independent)

No escape from pension math in Pennsylvania (Bloomberg News)

Harvard study ranks Pennsylvania among top 5 most corrupt states (CBS Philly)

Philadelphia regional transit system, SEPTA finally ditching tokens and paper tickets (NBC 4)
 
Other Urbanism and Architecture News

Can different training make police officers guardians, not warriors?

Do federal stats undercount police killings? (PBS Newshour)

More than 1000 people have been killed by police in 2014 (Reason)

Houston police chief calls drug war a "miserable failure", says Feds need to lead reform (Huffington Post)

Walkability vs. affordability (Washington Post)

More Americans are behind on car payments (CNN Money)

How a train station offering no new service cost $4 Billion in NYC (New York Times)

"Latino Urbanism" influences a Los Angeles in flux (Los Angeles Times)

Why the Da Vinci fire has L.A. urbanists rethinking downtown's future (Los Angeles Times)

Tech Culture and rising inequality: A complex relationship (CityLab)

Why Nashville is still America's music city (Next City)

Detroit artist: Actually Detroit isn't so cheap (Next City)

Copenhagen plans to expand by building artificial islands (CityLab)

Late-night transit service to expand from San Francisco to East Bay (San Francisco Examiner)

Other Arts and Archeology News

Pioneering Brooklyn Art space, Galapagos moves to Detroit (Detroit Free Press)

How Mosaics are shaping Haiti's future (Hyperallergic)

Miami graffiti artist in critical condition after cop runs him over (Hyperallergic)

Photographers irked as Flickr profits from creative commons images (Hyperallergic)

Museums and market finally warming to works on paper (The Art Newspaper)

A documentary traces the history of video game graphics (Hyperallegic)

Can satellite fairs give artists their first big break? (The Art Newspaper)

Old Vs. New Pittsburgh: Let the War Begin (or at least the argument)

Well, you might know by now, Pittsburgh is no longer really shrinking. New people are comming in, others are returning and more students are trying to stay. We now have one of the country's most educated populations. (In recent years the migration from Pittsburgh has been to the next world as the older steel generation passes on)

The nirvana everyone said they wanted just might be arriving but my guess is many politicians and old city insiders won't like it.

PG's Ruth Ann Dailey, wrote a good piece about an emerging cultural conflict that's only now broken towards the surface. Whatever, one thinks about the Mellon Arena's fate,(IMHO, it has to go) something really stinks about the way things are done here. Now a critical mass of people is talking about it.

But over the past four decades, with the collapse of the steel industry, Pittsburgh's economy has been slowly and painfully transformed to one built on health care, research and technology, financial services and high-tech manufacturing -- fields which, as that Pitt report points out, "recruit and retain ever more educated workers."

Workers in these fields put a greater emphasis on communicating, exchanging ideas, collaborating and reaching consensus. They expect the same from their government, quasi-governmental agencies like the SEA and powerful private entities like the Penguins that so greatly impact our city's quality of life.

They're right to expect this -- it's what American democracy was always supposed to be. Not top-down, but organic, meritocratic and open to all comers.

They're not going to just roll over without protest when the same old, same old goes down -- the backroom deals and nepotistic appointments that are the enemies of transparency and accountability.

Some good aternative viewpoints can be in places like...

Pittsblog
Null Space
Pittsburgh Comet
Bike Pittsburgh
Burgh Diaspora
Tube City Almanac
Utterly Opinionated
Reimagine An Urban Paradise

Mostly pretty tame stuff.

As well as the trusty City Paper and occasionally even The Post Gazette. Pop City also moves past the chearleading role more commonly than it used to.

Also, things are a bit more complicated since inside old money power players and some local foundations have put money into many grass roots efforts. Still, this is a place where one feels most of the big checks are endorsed by the same 20 folks or people who know them.

Back with more thoughts later.

Cleveland Ranked Most Miserable: How The City Is Haunted By Corruption

OK, we are starting with one of those irritating Forbes lists again from last month. Mostly it's reasoning is a subjective joke. Snow and cold are listed as big negatives, even though many people love it. Is the heat in Houston and New Orleans counted the same way?

But, digging underneath one gets to a bunch of things like unemployment rates, foreclosure rates, crime and public corruption that few can dispute are bad.

In fact, public corruption seems to have been the key to making Cleveland this year's winner. Cleveland Scene has an article about the way the city is still scarred by past mistakes and the deep perceptions they have left. It's filled with stories one really finds hard to believe.

"The Justice Center was the largest public project of its time and was ripe with cost overruns and rumors of corruption. I remember sitting in the old Pewter Mug on Public Square while politicians and businessmen handicapped the payoffs and the recipients. No major investigation was launched, but street talk spoke of sums of money so large that retirement from public office was a possibility. There is no doubt that the failure to install light switches was a byproduct of corrupt and incompetent management."