NPR, 20/20 and Anderson Cooper put spotlight on Detroit, Design 99

Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert have been busy since Toby Barlow's piece found its way into the New York Times. Here's a round up of the pieces that have made their way into the national media.

Excerpt:

"Our idea — instead of putting it all back and connecting to the grid, we wanted to keep it off the grid and get enough solar and wind turbines and batteries to power this house and power the next-door house," Cope says.

He thinks he can make the whole place operate "off the grid" for around $60,000, a cost he hopes to help cover with grants. And, since the whole point of the project is to better the neighborhood, Cope wants to turn the first floor of the Power House into a neighborhood art center. The second floor will be a bedroom for visiting artists; Cope believes that if he can just get artists to visit the neighborhood, they'll want to stay. And he hopes the cheap real estate will lure them there.

Read the NPR article here... and the ABC 20/20 article here... and Anderson Cooper filming from Warren (about Detroit) here.


Also, Detroit blogger Supergay drops in on Anderson: "So Keira and I arrived and it turned out the only two seats remaining were at a table right in front. Like seriously front row. Let me be explicitly clear right here: I sat for three hours with an unobstructed view of Anderson Cooper's backside. It did not suck."

Read more about Anderson Cooper's posterior here.


Oh... and one more interesting piece about this topic and urban sustainability here.