Thomas Sugrue

In December 1978, Cleveland, Ohio became the first in the United States to default on its debts since the Great Depression. In the next few days, Detroit will decide whether to appoin...

Earlier this week, the City Council of Topeka, Kan. voted to decriminalize domestic violence. That surprising decision came as part of a budget stand-off between the city and the county: After the county cut the District Attorney’s budget, the DA stopped prosecuting misdemeanor domestic violence cases from Topeka. To send a message, the city voted to take the local law against domestic violence off the books — forcing the county to handle all domestic violence cases.

Two years after The Great Recession officially came to a close, housing prices have dropped to their lowest levels since 2006. A Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller report showed the home price index dropping 4.2 percent last month, aided in part by the growing number of foreclosures, and a reluctance on the part of new buyers. 

Later today, a philanthropic collaborative called Living Cities will announce $80 million in grants, loans and investments that it will split among five cities: Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Newark, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Considering the size of major American city budgets, an average of $15 million isn't actually a ton of money, considering some of the systemic problems facing each of those cities. Living Cities hopes to use the cash as seed money, aiming to to stimulate self-sustaining urban renewal projects that will help each area for years to come.  

So has Living Cities found a way to get the most ameliorative bang for their philanthropic buck?

Most histories of the civil rights movement focus on the South. Find out how activists and organizations in the North shaped the movement too. Thomas Sugrue is author of Sweet Land of Liberty.