The Handbuilt City - Dispatches from the Rust Belt

greg mangan and juan gutierrez in the conference room at southwest detroit business association

Real Estate Heavy Industry

Diesel Exhaust, Potholes, and A Vision of Better Commercial Corridors in Southwest Detroit

May 26, 2023May 24, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments conrail, corktown, csx, dearborn, Detroit, DIFT, economic development, freight rail, infrastructure, intermodal, intermodal freight, john kronk, mexicantown, norfolk southern, NSC, rail, Railroad, southwest detroit, southwest detroit business association, springwells, vernor, west vernor highway

Greg Mangan, real estate advocate for the Southwest Detroit Business Association, picks me up at the northwest corner of West

police officer and car

Politics Public Safety Gun Control Michigan

When Did The Police Become So, Uh, Anti-Law?

May 25, 2023May 24, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ar-15, blue lives matter, bootlicking, constitutional county, cops, dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains, fascism, firearm deaths, firearm policy, firearm regulation, firearm safety, firearms, FOP, fraternal order of police, gun, gun control, gun policy reform, gun safety, handgun, howell, joe spaulding, KKK, law enforcement, living in the sprawl, livingston county, macomb county, magazine capacity limits, michigan, militarism, ottawa county, Ottawa County Board of Commissioners, police, police reform, policing, red flag laws, rifle, semiauto, semiautomatic weapons, Sprawl

The latest insanity out of America’s Largest Strip Mall (a.k.a. Michigan) is the bold declaration of some police agencies in

Adventures in Wooster, Ohio

May 24, 2023May 24, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments anthony wayne, arboretum, boo bear's brew, canals, college towns, courthouses, david wooster, e-pak, hampton inn, local roots market, midwestern courthouses, OARDC, ohio, ohio light opera, OSU, second empire architecture, secrest arboretum, The Ohio State University, travel, travel writing, wayne center for the arts, wooster, wooster college, wooster ohio

Last week began what will be the first of a few actual summer vacations. This first adventure took us to

Art & Design Artificial Intelligence

Dreaming In Isometric: Variations on Midjourney Prompts

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ai-generated art, art, artistic process, cold fusion, experimental fusion reactor, fusion, fusion reactor, isometric, isometric art, isometric rendering, iteration, midjourney, midjourney ai, outpost, queen anne, tokamak, victorian

I’ve been experimenting quite a bit with Midjourney, a generative AI platform that produces images based on text prompts (and

ohio smog sunset from smoke from wildfires

Climate Environment

Hazy Air, Coughing? Don’t Worry. That’s Just The Latest Apocalypse!

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments air pollution, air quality, albedo, alberta, aqi, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, danielle smith, environment, forest fires, fort mcmurray, global dimming, greta thunberg, indigenous and first nations, indigenous peoples, outdoor air quality, particulate, particulate emissions, public health, rachel notley, respiratory illness, the texas of canada, think global act local, wildfires

Tuesday morning coffee thoughts. On our long drive back to M*ch*g*n from Pennsylvania/Delaware yesterday, I started reading snippets on the

midjourney ai rendering of a light switch

Art & Design Artificial Intelligence

Midjourney: The Imagination of the Sane, the Insane, and the Unseen

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments AI, AI platforms, artificial intelligence, chatgpt, decorator switch, generalized artificial intelligence, generative AI, gpt, Leviton, leviton decora, light switches, midjourney, midjourney ai, midjourney parameters, midjourney prompts, prompt engineering, prompts

Imagining a better light switch may well first require imagining a better outlet. Or not. We’ll see.

Urban Planning Culture & Language Transit infrastructure Germany

Germans Have At Least 7 Words For Train Stations. Because Of Course They Do.

May 15, 2023May 15, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments angie schmitt, bahnsteig, bvg, db, deutsche bahn, Durchgangsbahnhof, english, german, germany, Gleiswechselbetriebsstelle, Hochgeschwindigkeitszug, Inselbahnsteig, kopfbahnhof, language, linguistics, seitenbahnsteig, Spitzkehrenbahnhof, subway, train platform, train station design, train stations, trains, transit, u-bahn

Fahrkarte, bitte! We’re going on a lingusitic-infrastructural journey to learn about how infrastructure thinking is baked into the very language we use to describe it.

isometric rendering of dewalt miter saw created in midjourney ai

Consumer Products

Bosch vs. DeWalt Power Tools: Customer Service Fail

May 11, 2023May 11, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments bosch, chop saw, consumer protection, customer service, dewalt, dewalt power tools, incra, miter gauge, miter saw, power tools, product reviews, right to repair, right-to-repair, table saw

It’s nice to imagine what it might look like to live in a world where companies assumed liability for their own products when those products break or create an undue threat of grievous bodily injury to the user. One of the two companies mentioned in this article did the right thing. One did not.

greenhouse in spring summer

Environment Parks and Public Space Ecology Parks & Rec

Wishes For A Greener Spring

May 9, 2023May 9, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments bike rides, bikes, bplant, butterflies, city of detroit parks, climate, climate change, dequindre cut, Detroit, detroit greenways coalition, detroit parks, detroit riverfront conservancy, duggan, gas-powered lawn equipment, jefferson chalmers, joe louis greenway, justin fenwick, lawnmower, michigan, mike duggan, mowing, native landscaping, native plants, native wildflowers, native wildgrasses, no-mow may, parks & rec, pollinator habitat, pollinators, rain garden, rain gardens, rukiya colvin, southwest detroit

The advent of warm weather! The return of street fairs! The sniffles from spring allergies! And ever so much more.

Burgerbanism Food

Burgerbanism: Mike Ransom’s Supercrisp Brings Super-Umami to Detroit Fast Food

May 1, 2023May 3, 2023 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments burgerbanism, burgers, cass corridor, detroit food scene, food, gold cash gold, karaage, Midtown Detroit, mike ransom, nashville hot chicken, panko, restaurant reviews, sandwiches, snacks, supercrisp, tempura, umami, wayne state

Living in Southwest Detroit, we are big fans of Ima (今, Japanese for “now”), the brainchild of Detroit chef Mike

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