Green industry hub rises from Rust Belt ruins  

PBS has an interesting look at a rust belt city in the US trying to rise from the ruins and reinvent itself as a green technology centre, led by Braddock, Pennsylvania Mayor John Fetterman.

PAUL SOLMAN, NewsHour Economics Correspondent: Here's a question that may never have occurred to you: Can a region of the Rust Belt become an eco-showcase, a model that could be exported around the country, even globally? Can going green, that is, become a new American way to prosper, even confer a competitive edge in the global economy?

Consider an extreme case of decline. Just eight miles east of Pittsburgh, the once thriving steel citadel of Braddock, home to the very first Carnegie steel mill, the very first Carnegie library. At its height in the 1950s and '60s, Braddock's downtown was bustling with businesses, a town with visitors from everywhere, and more than 20,000 local inhabitants. How many today?

JOHN FETTERMAN, Mayor, Braddock, Pennsylvania: Around 2,800. It's probably the single most dramatic decline of a town that I'm aware of in this country.

PAUL SOLMAN: Mayor John Fetterman's vision is to turn things around with a new competitive strategy for the global age: going green for health and profit.

Fetterman, from York, Pennsylvania, came here in 2001 with a Harvard degree in public policy and an instinct for sympathy. He found a population so desperate they were killing each other for pizza money. The dates of each violent death in town since his election in 2005 are etched in memoriam.

JOHN FETTERMAN: This is the zip code here. [Shows a tattoo on his arm]

PAUL SOLMAN: 15104?

JOHN FETTERMAN: 15104, which, again, really just, again, for me emphasizes the level of commitment that I have for the community.

PAUL SOLMAN: Fetterman lives in an old warehouse, has added a penthouse of shipping containers. To Mayor John, as he's now known, the near-ghost town is an eco-experiment in Rust Belt renewal.

JOHN FETTERMAN: The attraction I think is the overall malignant beauty of Braddock and the history involved. And what's left, I think, is a community that has to reinvent itself.

Locovores of the future

PAUL SOLMAN: Reinvent itself environmentally. For starters, Mayor John wants to turn this 130-acre brown field into a site for eco-friendly businesses: biodiesel, wind, urban farming, the once-blazing Carrie Furnace itself into a museum.

Another rust belt city that is considering some novel green development is Detroit, which is looking at buildings constructed using shipping containers. Some of the facts here seem crazy - cheaper to dump shipping containers than reuse them ? Doesn't the US export anything these days ?

The idea of putting people in empty shipping containers hardly evokes images of stylish urban living. But a Detroit-based group hopes to use empty shipping containers to build one of the most unusual -- and certainly one of the most innovative -- residential projects in southeast Michigan. The project would stack empty containers four high, cut in windows and doors, install plumbing, stairways and heating, and add amenities such as balconies and landscaped patios.

If it wins city approvals, the 17-unit condominium project could break ground this fall and open near Wayne State University in 2009. Steven Flum, a Detroit-based architect who designed the project, said it solves several problems at once, including the need to build environmentally sensitive buildings cheaply. The project is going to cost about $1.8 million, about 25% less than a normal condo project of similar quality would run. "It's like building blocks," he said. "From the architect's point of view, the containers allow for creative urban design. They are innovative and modern, but also affordable."

The partners plan to build their prototype on the southeast corner of Rosa Parks and Warren, on lots now vacant or containing burned-out homes. They call their project "Exceptional Green Living on Rosa Parks."

The project will offer condominium units measuring 960 to 1,920 square feet. Prices will range from about $100,000 to around $190,000. Any doubts might be dispelled by Flum's renderings of the project. "People think they're going to be cubbyholes," Flum said. "They're going to be quite large and open."

The developer, Leslie Horn, chief executive of the Detroit-based Power of Green Housing organization, said using empty shipping containers is not a new idea. "It's been done in Europe and, to a limited extent, in this country. But no one has looked at organizing the process on a larger scale incorporating a range of recycled materials and efficiencies that could save a homeowner as much as 60% annually in energy costs," she said.

Horn and Flum said they would use special insulating paint inside and out, high-efficiency water heaters and other energy-saving methods. But by far, the most environmentally friendly aspect of the project is the use of discarded shipping containers. They estimate there are 700,000 empty shipping containers piling up near U.S. ports around the country, including at a yard near Fort and I-75 in Detroit. The containers tend to be cheaper to build new than to return to their country of origin, so once delivered here and emptied, they pile up by the thousands.

Some container buildings can look quite cool - and there are plenty of examples (search Inhabitat or TreeHugger and you'll find lots).