How do you know a city that takes pride in itself? It's often the littlest things. Consider this stop sign from the city of Chicago. At first, this looks like any ordinary stop sign. But take a closer look at the bottom and look at what we see. The people who make street signs in the Chicago care enough, put enough pride into their work and their city, to sign the city's name at the bottom of every sign. This tells us something very powerful about the that place. Think it is an accident of geography, luck, or history that made … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2008
An American Commonwealth
A commenter in my Detroit posting said, "The Feds absolutely should not get into the game of helping turn around Detroit or Cleveland or Michigan or Ohio or anywhere else. It is the competition for jobs, talent, investment, and population that should be protected. The problem with usurping that natural competition among locales is that you fail to address the poor leadership and local inertia that contributed to the urban decline in the first place." I agree with a lot of this. People and businesses have choices about where to locate, and … [Read more...]