As I search out businesses that are Made in America for my focus on Build America, today's New York Times has an article about the new birth or re-growth of American manufacturing thanks to Government subsidies. The subsidy comes from New York State, which supplies, at cost, the electric power that Revere uses to produce copper sheets and slabs. It recently opened a factory near Detroit that is producing the first televisions made in the United States by any company in years. Manufacturing By LOUIS UCHITELLE ROME, N.Y. percent from 11.7 Biden Jr. Never.” MORE >>

And he argues that cities even those in downturn - such as Detroit - serve too significant an importance to be overlooked when it comes to creating Sustainable cities. In every year from 1992 to 2009, Phoenix granted permits for two to three times as many new homes as did the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas combined. The world’s richest places tend to be dense, with well-educated residents and a free-market-orientation (or tax havens or oil-rich) — think of New York and the Bay Area, of Singapore, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. And that is happening. MORE >>

But ironically what no one wants to do is look at these cities that are so badly decayed - such as Detroit, Cleveland or St Louis and turn them into growing space. reprint an Article from the American Prospect on the declining availability of land for our new urban farmers. No Land to Lease New farmers inspired by the local and organic food movements can't find the real estate. Like many new farmers, Fraver and Deikis were drawn to agriculture by activist calls to reform the country's food system. Many are corporate farms simply greenwashed. million acres of U.S. MORE >>

This week marked the grand guignol (oops, I mean opening) of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's new superior Eco Friendly Mega Green,Mega Crystal Church of all things "venture philanthropy"home I am not going to get into my often frustrations with the Gates Foundation, their work or even this new 21st Century concept of "Venture Philanthropy" but instead discuss the actual building itself, its design, its purpose and its overall aesthetic to the community at hand. They’re a new paradigm for the 21st-century workplace. How do you enable a great new idea to take root? MORE >>

Cities from Detroit to Des Moines have been pushing the gentrification of their downtowns, with generally positive results, and the results are well documented. The primary explanation of the migration is the availability of low-cost housing on the suburban fringe in Maryland and Virginia; though lodging is still relatively cheap in many of the eastern parts of the District, suburban homes are both cheap and new. In this context, Celia Dugger’s recent article in The New York Times about Johannesburg, South Africa’s new bus rapid transit system seems particularly relevant. MORE >>