In 2009, the wasting steel town of Braddock, Pennsylvania hit international newspapers as an example of how post-industrial ruins could be transformed into utopian spaces after the mayors' plea for dedicated urban homesteaders to relocate to Braddock's abandoned houses. Braddock left behind a model of redevelopment pursued elsewhere, a model of urban clearances and arson that required the eviction of the urban poor. In contrast, Braddock and its mayor, John Fetterman, were lauded as pioneering a new model, based in community gardens, interracial collaboration, and public art.<br /><br />Scholar Jo Guldi and activist Simon Strikeback traveled to Braddock to see the evidence of artist-directed redevelopment in the landscape. What they saw raised questions about race and economic flows in American cities.<br /><br />This conversation, recorded on the road in western Pennsylvania, offers an on-the-fly description of three different models of economic regeneration in Rust Belt cities. The interlocutors compare corporate redevelopment in Homestead, PA; land-bank community gardens in Flint, MI; and community regeneration through the arts in Braddock, PA.<br /><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="350" height="24" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.commercial-3.0.5.swf" w3c="true" flashvars='config={"key":"#$b6eb72a0f2f1e29f3d4","playlist":[{"url":"http://www.archive.org/download/RustBeltTour09BraddockPaAndRadicalUtopianism/Braddock_vbr.mp3","autoPlay":false}],"clip":{"autoPlay":true},"canvas":{"backgroundColor":"0x000000","backgroundGradient":"none"},"plugins":{"audio":{"url":"http://www.archive.org/flow/flowplayer.audio-3.0.3-dev.swf"},"controls":{"playlist":false,"fullscreen":false,"gloss":"high","backgroundColor":"0x000000","backgroundGradient":"medium","sliderColor":"0x777777","progressColor":"0x777777","timeColor":"0xeeeeee","durationColor":"0x01DAFF","buttonColor":"0x333333","buttonOverColor":"0x505050"}},"contextMenu":[{"Item RustBeltTour09BraddockPaAndRadicalUtopianism at archive.org":"function()"},"-","Flowplayer 3.0.5"]}'> </embed>