The Handbuilt City - Dispatches from the Rust Belt

In This Most Righteous Struggle: The St. Louis General Strike of 1877

July 22, 2021July 22, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 1877, al-muqanna, general strike, howard zinn, khorassan, KKK, ku klux klan, labor, labor movement, labor movement in the united states, labor movements, lalla rookh, long depression, mardi gras, mistick krewe of comus, new orleans, panic of 1893, shamokin, strike, strike of 1877, striking workers, veiled prophet, veiled prophet organization, workers

Today, St. Louis commemorates 144 years since a violent labor struggle that saw widespread destruction and violence in the city and nearby areas, as part of the 1877 General Strike.

Public Safety Cities & Urban Planning Transit infrastructure

MSP: Seat Belt Use Drops To Lowest in 17 Years

July 20, 2021July 20, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments congestion, COVID traffic deaths, helmet laws, highway safety, highway safety planning, michigan, michigan OHSP, michigan state police, mitten, mittentimes, rates of traffic death, seat belt laws, seat belt usage, seat belts, seatbelt, seatbelts, traffic, traffic safety, traffic violence

The Michigan State Police released data from a study today that showed that fatalities are on the rise, while seatbelt usage is on the decline. We look at how this plays out across a few jurisdictions.

Business & Economics Culture & Language Transit infrastructure Travel Infrastructure

The Three-Martini Greyhound: The Future of Corporate Travel?

July 19, 2021July 16, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amtrak, amtrak michigan, corporate travel, flying, greyhound, in-flight wifi, intercity buses, intercity trains, new normal, optimization, productivity, reopening, surplus value, the dog, travel, tsa, tsa precheck, wolverine service

In June, my partner took a three-day business trip– her first since before the pandemic hit- to Chicago. I threw

Climate

Throw out your flood-damaged possessions. And your climate models.

July 16, 2021July 16, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments american society of adaptation professionals, ASAP, basement flooding, climate, climate adaptation, climate change, climate change models, climate modeling, climate models, flood, floods, how to fix basement flooding, NOAA, resilience, resiliency, resiliency and adaptation

Throw the climate modeling out the window with your flood-damaged worldly possessions. It’s time to figure out how to adapt.

the sears tower looms beyond the brutalist campus of the university of illinois chicago, where the summer institute on sustainability and energy (SISE) takes place.

Mobility Public transit Transit infrastructure

Best Nerds Podcast No. 2: Innovation and Equity in Transportation

July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments argonne national lab, best nerds, best nerds on earth, best nerds podcast, bike lanes, bike lanes and gentrification, bike lanes are white lanes, city planning, DDOT, detroit department of transportation, economic justice, equity, ian edward munroe, ian munroe, JCESR, kelsey zlevor, kunal sahasrabuddhe, lisa nuszkowski, Mikki Taylor-Hendrix, mobility, MoGo, mogo detroit, Nat Zorach, public transit, racial justice, summer institute on sustainability and energy, thomas alaan, transit, transit justice, transit organizing, transportation, transportation justice, university of illinois chicago, university of new orleans, Urban planning, wsp

Our second podcast is finally out. I take responsibility for the delay. There were some technical issues I ran into,

mini-split-air-source-heat-pump-space-conditioning

Energy Efficiency Energy Utilities

The Future Is Electric. Mostly. But It’s Complicated.

July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments air source heat pump, beneficial electrification, biogas, decarbonisation, decarbonization, e3, electric resistance heating, electrification, electrification with fuel backup, heat pump, high decarbonized methane, high electrification, larry hogan, maryland commission on climate change, mccc, mini-split, power grid, synthetic methane

Decarbonization is the buzzword du jour in the sustainability movement. Will it make everything more expensive? Maybe– but there are a few caveats to that.

Real Estate Policy Urban Planning Law

The Morouns Tore Down A Warehouse For More Truck Parking. Really. [EDITED]

July 9, 2021July 14, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments BSEED, building department, city of detroit, city of detroit government, climate change, corktown, criminal negligence, david bell, Detroit, drainage, drainage assessment, duggan, duggan administration, enforcement, flooding, hardscaping, impervious surfaces, industrial slumlords, manuel moroun, matty moroun, Michigan Central Station, mike duggan, moroun, moroun clan, moroun empire, municipal incompetence, pervious surfaces, rain tax, Regulation, slumlords, southwest detroit, southwest solutions, ted bundy, west side industrial

Walking from home to Corktown last night in search of food and drink with some out-of-town visitors who were eager

Movements & Organizing Government Law

“I Thought It Would Be Worse,” said a Detroit cop of a protest last year. “I Wanted More.”

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments black lives matter, chief james craig, civil rights, CS, Detroit, detroit east side, detroit mayor mike duggan, detroit police, detroit police chief james craig, detroit police department, detroit west side, detroit will breathe, documentary, federal lawsuit, george floyd, george floyd protests, george gorman, gratiot avenue, james craig, james demps, jon talbert, kate levy, kate levy documentarian, lawsuit, less lethal bullets, litigation, mariah erard, mayor mike duggan, mcnichols rd, mike duggan, police brutality, police brutality lawsuits, police violence, riot control, riot gear, rosa parks transit center, rubber bullets, tear gas, todd bettison

CONTENT WARNING: The 22-minute video and the clips I’ve taken from it below include some disturbing and extremely graphic imagery,

Policy

California Added Five States To Its Travel Ban. Does This Make Sense? Or Is It All Just Posturing?

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments AB 1887, anti-trans legislation, anti-voting legislation, biden, blue state, california state employee travel ban, california travel ban, capitalism, carb compliant, corporate economy, corporate growth, corporate investment, corporations, don't mess with texas, fortune 500, let me be clear obama, prop 65, purple, purple state, state travel ban, ted cruz, texas, trans, trans rights, travel ban, voting rights, voting rights restrictions

We revisited our previous analysis trying to correlate red state regressivism with corporate investment, but this time looking at California’s newly-amended ban on state-funded travel to a number of deep red states.

Energy Utilities

Solar Power and EV’s, If Your Local Grid Is Up For The Challenge

July 1, 2021July 1, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments anacostia, anacostia river, community solar, DC, DERs, distributed, distributed energy resources, distributed generation, distribution losses, district of columbia, exelon, feeder lines, local power grid, microgrid, photovoltaics, power grid, power grid capacity, rooftop PV, rooftop solar, solar power, solar thermal, solar united neighbors, transmission losses, utilities, ward 7, ward 8, Washington DC

Power grids are complex things. Understanding the local grid capacity– as visualized by one mapping tool- can help us plan for things like rooftop solar or electric vehicle adoption.

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