John Fetterman has this thing about smiling. The thing being that he doesn't do it a whole lot. At least not when someone's taking photographs of him – and lately, that's been happening a lot.
It's not that Fetterman never smiles. It's just that when you're the mayor of a tiny town teetering like a tipsy tight rope walker above oblivion, you don't want to act like nothing's wrong. You don't want to seem like the emperor fiddling while your town goes up in flames.
Fetterman puts it another way: "When I smile… it seems almost like I'm not paying attention."
And this 6-foot-something, 300-plus-pound brick wall of tattooed grit is paying plenty of attention. He's all too aware that his little town of Braddock, PA, is sliding further into ghost town status, that it's lost 90 percent of its population since the mid-20th century, that it's lost most of its main industrial sector, that most people see it as little more than the sad, ugly little sister of nearby Pittsburgh.
And on a balmy night in early April at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, John Fetterman knows his little town is both a cautionary tale and possible civic laboratory for cities in Southeast Michigan.
Despite his appearance – dressed in black, goatee, shaved head, long arms inked black with his city's zip code (15104) and the dates of the five murders that have occurred in the town since he became mayor in 2006 – Fetterman in person is a bit shy and very polite for a tough-ass. It's as if his conviction propels his growing celebrity even if his proclivity is to shun the spotlight. Born in York, PA, he earned a master's degree from Harvard and moved to Braddock in 2001 to run a youth program in the community. His appearance on the Colbert Report in February, as well as in newspapers and magazines across the country, has further cemented his image as the pissed-off avenging angel of the Rust Belt.
"At what point do cities in the Rust Belt say, 'How do we get ahead of this curve rather than get steamrolled by it?'"says Fetterman.
Cities like Braddock have a lot of catching up to do: The town, a former bustling center of the American steel industry, was once home to 20,000 people crammed into less than one square mile, upscale shopping districts, restaurants and breweries.
Today, there are 2,500 people occupying homes lower in value than most neighborhoods in Detroit. There isn't a single restaurant inside the city, and nary an echo of the wealth that played here before the steel industry up and left beginning in the 1970s.
Cities in the southeast region of Michigan aren't unfamiliar with this phenomenon of golden histories of affluence and commerce giving way to job layoffs, falling home values and sinking population numbers.
"Braddock is not atypical," says U-M professor Larissa Larsen. "This is the story of a lot of cities in the Northeast and Midwest. How do we re-imagine better futures for them?"
But whether Braddock is the municipal Ghost of Christmases Yet to Come for Southeast Michigan is a matter of perception. Its extreme story has certainly struck a chord with the architecture and urban planning professors at U-M's Taubman College.
Jonathan Levine, chair of the urban planning school at Taubman College, says Fetterman has garnered a lot of attention not just for Braddock, but also for similar cities in the Midwest. "I think he's thinking about novel ways to revitalize his town," says Levine.
Part of what U-M's urban planning program aims to do is teach its students to be able to confront the decline that's being seen in Southeast Michigan. "Urban planning concentrates on issues of growth and growth management," says Levine. "Much less visible in urban planning is what do we do about decline? It's no less important."
If you can tie Braddock and Southeast Michigan cities like Flint, Detroit and Warren together, it's in their shared heritage as being part of this region known derisively as the Rust Belt: Communities that owe their existence to manufacturing, only to find that existence threatened once the product being manufactured is no longer in demand.
"You have a community that made something that changed the world," Fetterman says of the region. "Cities in the Rust Belt are taking it on the chin."
It's a situation Fetterman likens to a human rights crisis. The federal government's avoidance of dealing with the declining manufacturing sector is, according to Fetterman, both an economic deathblow and a moral injustice.
"Why is investment banking more important than making cars?" he says. "It's a ridiculous double-standard."
Maybe, but the reality of the situation is what it is, and Fetterman has his own ideas about what to do about it. Which is what brings him to this crowded lecture hall on a spring night. He drove in from Braddock, and is shaking off the fatigue from both the drive and of being a new father to Karl, born six weeks earlier.
This trip to share his thoughts and ideas with a Michigan crowd is indicative of the passion he feels for his mission, though he makes it clear that his ideas are simply that -- ideas.
Fetterman explains that small cities like his own are viewed as "throwaway cities. That's what we do with cities in this country." And so, he's decided to repackage his community, in an attempt to attract what he sees as the two things that can save it: The green industry and the art community.
And for someone who looks like he's more likely to fight you, he's surprisingly optimistic about Braddock's prospects. The loss of business and population, he says, provides plenty of space for companies and artists looking to relocate. Like the Detroit area, the infrastructure for green factories is already there.
He's set up a web site, www.15104.cc, devoted to attracting such groups to the town. Visitors to the site are greeted with images that seem post-apocalyptic in their starkness. Visions of abandoned factories rise against alien skies while the word "Braddocc" looms at the top of the page. Braddocc, the site explains, is the unofficial new name of the "malignantly beautiful" town - the "k" dropped for a "c" by disenfranchised youth for its "crip allegiance."
A mayor heralding his town's "crip allegiance?" It's all a part, says Fetterman, of attracting those artistic types wanting a more "authentic" experience with large loft buildings that can be easily utilized as studios.
He invites the "artists, misfits and urban pioneers" to come to Braddock and be part of an experimental civic effort. He calls the abandoned buildings and boarded up houses "ruins."
"I think that stuff's beautiful, I really do," he says. "I refuse to ever feel it's blight. You can say it's blight," says Fetterman, "or you can say, ‘Wow, this town has gone through so much and what do we do to get it in the right direction?"
He's pushed efforts to create a major public art project in the town and build a community center for youth. A large overgrown lot is now an urban garden.
If similarly disenfranchised cities around Detroit could take one thing from Fetterman, it may be to work with what you have, leverage and re-imagine your assets rather than start over from scratch. Cheap real estate, interesting architecture, and old-school downtown planning contrast starkly with the inauthentic, impersonal sprawl of the suburbs. More importantly, they appeal to members of the younger generation, who are developing tastes and habits that are more European in nature - that is, dense walkable communities in an interesting urban setting. Furthermore, Fetterman is inviting them to get in on the ground floor of an experimental renaissance, to repurpose and remake his city in their own image.
"You have to embrace and love what's best about your city," he says. "I fundamentally believe a good life is where you find it. If you want a more authentic and participatory community, then communities in the Rust Belt are where you want to be."
Megan Pennefather is a Royal Oak-based freelance writer. Her previous article for Metromode was Dancing As Fast They Can.
Photos:
John Fetterman portraits -
Photos by Dave LewinskiAerial maps - courtesy images