Cook's Tools & Gadgets

Politicians and citizens alike are struggling with the decision to bail out the under-performing American automakers. But what will happen to the cities and towns of the Midwest if the automakers fail? Flint, Michigan provides an interesting template. In the 1960s and 70s, Flint had a population of 200,000 and was home to some 80,000 autoworkers. Today, after many plant closures, relocations, and worker buyouts, only 8,000 autoworkers remain. So, what are we to do with cities like Flint? There have been lots of ideas, like demolishing dilapidated houses, renovating brownfield sites like Chevy-in-the-Hole [pdf], downtown business renovation, and increasing community participation by giving ownership of vacant lots to local homeowners.
Some progress has been made through the efforts of the Genesee County Land Bank, an organization that, "provides six services: demolition, foreclosure prevention, rental management, housing renovation, property maintenance and a side lot program, through which empty lots are sold to adjacent homeowners. It also has developed a Web site to provide quick access to real estate listings and maps, and to allow visitors to communicate with staff through e-mail."

However, not everybody likes what the Land Bank is doing in Flint, including its mayor, who threatened to sue the organization for, "driving the price of real estate down dramatically. They're creating places for rats and prostitutes."

The central question for those interested in the future of Flint seems to be best posed by the authors of the Chevy-in-the-Hole proposal: should developers try to renovate old buildings and build new ones in order to attract new residents and business? Or should developers realize that the people aren't coming back, and in turn tear down abandoned commercial spaces and houses, rid the ground of pollutants, and turn brown sites into greenspace and municipal/state parks, thereby creating a less dense but more appealing city in which to live?

Reimagining Chevy-in-the-Hole blog and more proposals [pdf] for renovating the Flint River District.

The Mac community this week found itself debating an updated Apple Inc. Knowledge Base article that urged users to run antivirus software -- until the document was yanked. Computerworld's Michael DeAgonia breaks down the brouhaha down for you.

Ted Shelton: "Frankly I felt that BlogOn was a waste of time and money."

I think the BlogOn conference was overproduced. In the name of professionalism the organizing firm turned off potential speakers, oversubscribed sponsors, etc.

I would have liked a debatable topic (aside from *blogging = journalism*. Two people slugging it out. Or a devil's advocate taking challenges from the floor.

I would have liked more hard numbers. Facts. Charts. Diagrams. We have the analytic tools to BS-check them; harder on vague opinions and single-points-of-observation.

I found it disturbing how much money was being commanded (from both attendees and sponsors) for a conference at a university. Maybe it was because it was at Berkeley? Maybe we should have taken over a community college or a Cal State or a DeVry. The facilities costs would have been cheaper at least. I heard an organizer apologize and say the next one would be at a hotel, like that would have been better.

Cost wasn't the whole problem. We're at a stage where early adopters are meeting folks who want to leap the chasm. Huge gaps in knowledge, experience, context, culture, vocabulary. It's the gap.

There are huge ideas to be explored, even in the world of applying blogs to media strategy and the enterprise. And most of the big ideas weren't even on the agenda at BlogOn. Probably because it was catering to those who want to commercialize, fund, and otherwise exploit (excuse me, "get in on") the emerging medium.

Let's fork these conferences so advanced topics on business and technology and culture fit the participants. 

[a klog apart]