About 30 miles east of Cleveland, in Painesville, the largest outdoor free music festival in Ohio runs on July 17-19.  Sponsored by the Great Lakes Brewing Company (maker of one of my favorite beers, the Burning River IPA, yum), the Painesville Party in the Park features a range of genres–from blues to indie to Afro-Carib-Americana Funk (which would probably be new for me)–in Veterans Park, is family friendly, and looks like a great couple of days.

The event is put on by a non-profit, the Painesville Community Improvement Corporation, and, beyond providing fun for residents of the region, showcases the downtown.

Mandy at the Metropolitan Planning Council sent over news of this contest.  I love (1) all things participatory and (2) recognizing the assets the make our communities feel like communities.  So you can imagine how I feel about this contest.  (And can I get a “totally exportable idea alert”?)

Metropolitan regions are made up of thousands of great neighborhood places that define our lives by inspiring us, relaxing us, and encouraging us to sit and talk awhile with our friends and neighbors. To find the best places in Chicagoland, Placemaking Chicago, a project of the nonprofit Metropolitan Planning Council, is taking submissions for the “What Makes Your Place Great?” contest now through July 27, 2009. Entrants can e-mail original photos or videos showcasing their favorite public places across Chicagoland, along with a 250-word-or-less description, to placemakingchicago@metroplanning.org. Complete rules and submission criteria guidelines are available at PlacemakingChicago.com. Learn more by contacting MPC Associate Karin Sommer, at 312-863-6044 or ksommer@metroplanning.org.

The Center for Michigan has been hosting Community Conversations as part of its “Michigan Defining Moment” campaign to build a new agenda for Michigan.  Several conversations are coming to Metro Detroit this month:

The Detroit Orientation Institute is partnering with other organizations to offer an opportunity to lend your voice to “Community Conversations” occurring all over the state facilitated by The Center for Michigan.

The Center for Michigan hopes to have 10,000 Michigan residents participate.  The sessions include opening background remarks, a short video and a facilitated meeting with hand-held technology to capture results of voting on possible strategies and action steps for our state.

Each participating organization will host a conversation.

• The DOI will host on Wednesday, July 15 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at WSU’s Oakland Center, Room 156 at 33737 W. 12 Mile Rd , between Farmington and Drake. There will be light refreshments and free parking available.
• Leadership Macomb, July 28, 6-8 pm, University Center, Contact: Karen Smith, smithkj@macomb.edu
• Leadership Oakland, August 4, 2:30 – 4:30pm, Automation Alley, Contact: Wendy Weiss, wweiss@leadershipoakland.com

This week I am very pleased to announce that the GLUEster being featured in our weekly “Who’s GLUE?” feature is our new Policy Intern, Emily Knoll, a rising sophomore at the University of Michigan.  Emily is going to be working primarily on the “Urban Innovations Guidebook” this summer, but, like any GLUEster–and any intern–is going to get her feet wet in all facets of GLUE’s activities (including a little blogging!).  So look for her byline and please join me in welcoming Emily to the team…

Title, organization: Student, University of Michigan; Policy Intern, GLUE!

Describe one of your favorite places or things to do in your city: There are so many new, exciting places to eat and spend time at in Ann Arbor; I love going to shops and restaurants that feature items grown and made in the area. It’s worth getting at 6am to get a taste of the produce at the farmer’s market!

What are the short and long-term goals of your work?  This summer, I’d like to learn about the agendas being used to combat problems facing the Detroit area, and use that knowledge to get University of Michigan students interested and involved in being a part of these initiatives in Ann Arbor and Detroit. The University of Michigan has tons of resources that would enable student groups to help renew and revitalize Ann Arbor and partner with Detroit groups to do work downtown.

What does Ann Arbor need to do to be successful in the 21st century?  Generally, Ann Arbor has been pretty receptive to the changes that need to be made in the GL region, and is making good progress on many fronts. To be successful in the long run, though, Ann Arbor should extend its progressive initiatives to struggling neighboring cities. Our transportation, recycling, and alternative energy programs would be more effective as part of a larger network.

Is there an area in which you could serve as a resource to other GLUEsters?  If so, what?  I’d love to get in contact with other students in the Detroit/GL area and talk about ways to get interested student groups involved in greening projects and initiatives.

What do you like about another GLUE city?  Chicago is such a great combination of calm and crazy; one day I can eat exotic food and go to beautiful galleries and museums and the next I can spend on gorgeous lake Michigan.

Every Thursday, GLUE brings you a profile of an active GLUEster.  We like to showcase the range of activities, interests, and passions the GLUE universe contains, and the innovative work that GLUEsters are doing.

Our weekly update from the Rust Wire bloggers:

More beautiful and amazing pictures on our web site this week: a photo essay of the Cuyahoga River by contributor Greg Ruffing.

Why do so many of our cities seem to have problems with corruption and graft in city government?  This great post by Angie features two recent high-profile cases in Detroit and Cleveland

Our cities are struggling to redefine their traditionally manufacturing-based, industrial economies, let alone at a pace that satisfies the needs of the community.  Economic development strategies vary, but supporting new, and especially homegrown businesses who remain likely to stay home, is always a worthwhile goal.

We start our July series on new business supports with a new, if self-described “traditional” business incubator, the Erie Technology Incubator.  Russell Combs, the Executive Director and a long-time business incubation specialist, spoke with GLUE today about how business incubation works at ETI.  Especially if you aren’t well-versed in business development (I, for instance, have almost exclusive experience in non-profits), this interview is a great “incubation 101,” because Mr. Combs was such a clear instructor.  He describes what he does as traditional, tried-and-true business incubation for scientists and technologists–and in fact, feels it’s important to distinguish between the practiced strategies of business incubation and other organizations that call themselves incubators but are actually just tenant facilities with shared services.

While he may describe himself and the Erie Technology Incubator as “traditional,” I think Mr. Combs might be surprised by how his passion about new technologies, his understanding of the interconnectedness of the Great Lakes region, and his willingness to view some of our region’s challenges as assets are not always matched by our leaders, in and out of the business community.

I kept asking questions after we concluded the official interview, and was particularly enthused about one story.  ETI is in talks with a new, foreign, petroleum recovery technology company about coming in to the incubator.  What is (hopefully) convincing this company to move to Erie is the fact that, in Erie, there are around 500 potential test-sites for the company.  Our challenges are assets–especially for companies developing in the growing industries of pollution remediation.

Mr. Combs also uses the regional assets, not just those of Erie, to draw entrepreneurs, listing medical ceramics at Alfred State in New York, biomed in Buffalo and Cleveland, life sciences in Pittsburgh.  In a global economy, appreciating and utilizing our mega-regional interconnectedness is essential.

Listen here.

Every Wednesday, GLUE will bring you information and interviews on that month’s issue focus.  July’s theme: New Business Supports.

I found this piece of happy little graffiti in a bathroom stall at the Corktown Tavern last year (a stop on the Detroit Synergy Corktown pubcrawl), and it’s serving as the inspiration for this week’s photo contest.  What I’m expecting in return, though, is a range from similar city love notes to graffiti-as-art or protest.  It’s often the only artistic expression you’ll see in certain communities in our cities.  So please send along photos of graffiti that express hope, humor, anger, despair–or make demands for change.

To enter this week’s contest, add your graffiti photo to the GLUE Flickr group and tag it #gluegraffiti, or email it to glueteam@gluespace.org.

Every Tuesday, GLUE announces a photo contest based around a simple theme.  Photo entries should be of scenes in a GLUE city, and you’re free to interpret the theme broadly.  Each contest will be open for one week, and the winner will get to choose a local business or non-profit that GLUE will feature in a short write-up the following week.  It’s a great way to win some attention to your favorite local organization! 

Faygo.  Better Made.  Vernors.  Sanders.  Detroit has a number of nostalgia-evoking food producers (though many of them no longer operate out of Southeast Michigan), but Dave Iannuzzi, the winner of the “windows” photo contest, loves one best.  “My grandmother had so many jars of this stuff under her sink.”  (Dave’s grandpa also worked as a sales rep for the company for some time, though Dave thinks it was the deliciousness of the product, and not a salesman’s discount, that kept their home stocked.)

Velvet Peanut Butter: fresh, pure, delicious.  Velvet was founded in Detroit in 1937 by Paul Zuckerman, and after three expansions and a merger, the brand was discontinued around 23 years ago, after Mr. Zuckerman’s death.

Recently, Kim and Eric Bruce, Michigan natives currently living in Georgia, decided to re-start the brand.  Over the course of just the past few months, Velvet PB began reappearing on the shelves of a number of grocery stores in Southeast Michigan.  While the PB is currently manufactured in Georgia, the Bruces claim to be planning to begin manufacturing Velvet here in Michigan.

Let’s offer a word of encouragement that they follow through on those plans!

Weekly photo contest winners get to choose a local business or organization to be featured with a short write-up on GLUEspace.  Dave Iannuzzi won the last photo contest, themed “windows.”

The Great Lakes are really the glue that tie us all together.  And while at GLUE, we focus on the cities in this mega-region, there’s no doubt that many of us love living here because of the unparalleled access to the sands and waters of the Great Lakes (Michigan alone is second only to Alaska in length of coast).  This week’s photo contest winner shared a photo from Weko Beach, on Lake Michigan and about equidistant from Chicago, IL, Grand Rapids, MI, and Fort Wayne, IN.

While I don’t know the identity of mystery flickr user hbeaupre, I hope to share his or her favorite organization from whatever Great Lakes city he or she calls home next Tuesday!  Thanks for entering!

Every Monday, GLUE brings you an update from the GLUE HQ.  What we’re thinking about and working on this week, and how you can be involved.  This is Week #12 of telling GLUE’s own story.

In addition to logistical clean-up–bills to pay, reports to file–from the Great Lakes Metros and the New Opportunity Summit that took place in Buffalo on June 18-19, GLUE and our co-convening partners are currently working on a clean-up of the mind.  We’re developing a way to share some outcomes of this meeting, starting simply by sharing powerpoint presentations given at the Summit.  While there are only four presentations up so far, the page is already a wealth of information.  You can check out the presentation page for the following (and more to come!):

• Barbara Burnham’s thorough and precise overview of the ARRA and FY2010 budgets; she focuses on where the money is and what it’s supposed to be doing.
• While Arlo Chase was unable to ultimately make it to Buffalo due to weather, he has still shared his presentation, an overview of the foreclosure crisis in the Great Lakes region, the Federal and New York State response to it, including the Neighborhood Stabilization program.  He also introduces the NYS block-by-block program and provides some recommendations for future thinking on tackling these challenges.
• David Cowgill’s overview of the various Great Lakes funding opportunities, including the Great Lakes Legacy Act, the Stimulus, and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, including the allowable project types, goals, and process for each.
• Jeff Jones’s introduction to the Apollo Alliance, the Workforce Development Institute, and Apollo’s guidelines for evaluating Stimulus investments.

 Enjoy, and stay tuned for more.