Discuss: Beautiful Ruination

This is such a timely article for me. My debut novel THIRSTY is being published on October 1 by Swallow Press. THIRSTY is the story of a Croatian immigrant family in Pittsburgh steel town at the turn of the twentieth century. I’m a native Pittsburgher (currently living in Shanghai, China) and I grew up in the shadows of the smokestacks on the Monongahela River. My grandparents lived in Clairton, another town deeply affected by the demise of the steel industry. There’s a short section of THIRSTY I cut from the final draft that speaks directly to what’s happened in Braddock. If you’re interested, take a look. (http://www.thirstythenovel.com/book/cutting.php) Thanks to Ginger Strand for bringing this story to light; I just may give Mayor Fetterman a call when I get home for the book launch in a few weeks.

Thanks to Ginger Strand for such an evocative portrait that can only arise from seeing more fully than most Americans.

I am reminded of arriving in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood in Atlanta in the summer of 1969.  “Hot-lanta” was already will along its sprawling expansion into the city created by cheap gas and relatively inexpensive land.

Atlanta’s and the GA DOT’s vision included ever increasing numbers of freeways.  The next on tap was the first stage of a new one from downtown up to GA 400.  Wonderful, close-in neighborhoods of well built houses would be split and destroyed.  Scare tactics and demolition was their strategy.

Fortunately for Atlanta, a coalition of young adults who came of age in the 1960’s and well established middle agers who saw the looming danger to their residential neighborhoods just north of this project fought the established powers to a standstill and then won a complete victory.  We stopped the arsonists, the crime wave that had hit the area and the urban removal form of redevelopment.  The Great Park was created and became the home of the Jimmy Carter Library.  New houses filled in empty lots, public schools stabilized and empty storefronts became successful businesses.

Of course, it has ultimately gentrified but this time with intact neighborhoods and and the huge gains in property values accruing to risk taking homeowners not developers.

My life called me away a few years after it was clear to everyone that we had won.  And now, my backyard garden cut into the kudzu of those days has evolved into a second career.  The farmers tailgate market we began participating in and coordinating in 1995 is part of the huge revival of local agriculture in and around Asheville, NC.  That has led to our year-round store for local food (the Black Mountain Farmers Market) and the creation of several local market oriented farms.

I can see a synthesis of my
Atlanta and Black Mountain experiences arising in Braddock!  Best wishes to Mayor Fetterman and those who are committed to a new Braddock for those who choose to make it their home.

The best article I’ve read in Orion by a pound.  Ginger is a peach.

Obscurae Gallery is having another Art Lottery and Exhibition this Saturday, Sept. 19!  Visit obscuraegallery.org if you’re interested.

Thanks all for commenting.  Harry Hamil, if you read this, please contact me (email on my web page.)  I’d love to talk to you about your Atlanta experiences; right now I’m very interested in freeways that destroyed neighborhoods and freeways that were stopped.

I love this article.  I’m really taken with the idea of celebrating the ruins of Braddock in the way European countries celebrate the ruins of former empires and not just paving over them. 

I’ve been reading everything I can about modern Braddock this year since I discovered Thomas Bell’s 1941 novel Out of This Furnace.  The novel follows 3 generations of one Braddock family from immigration in the 1880’s until unionization after the Great Depression. Not only was it a great story, but it’s a great document of a period of our history that we are in danger of forgetting.  I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the ‘backstory’ of Braddock.

This is a great story. Love the fact that the mayor came to town as an Americorps member and stayed. This is a familiar story, and an important outgrowth of this program: its members’ commitment and service to the areas they serve often goes long after the 1 or 2 years of their original service.

Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

How do we move forward from behavior based upon political feasibility and economic expediency to actions driven by practical requirements of biophysical reality?  At least to me, it appears that the “window of opportunity” in which restoration of balance between unsustainable, distinctly human overconsumption/overproduction/overpopulation activities on one side and Earth’s finite resources and frangible ecology on the other is rapidly approaching its closing time.

Perhaps necessary change is in the offing and comes soon enough.

Is it a conflict of interest for the mayor to sit as President on a municipal committee or organisation.  Is this something that commonly happens.  I am aware that mayors often sit on various committees, but what type of role do they usually play?  Do they have a vote?
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