Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City examines how Detroit, a symbol of America’s diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America.

In documenting the Great Rescission, not many images are used more than those of a broken down Detroit. A city hit even harder by the financial struggles of the big three automobile companies, it has emptied -- built for 2 million people, it now has half that number. Nearly one-third of the land is unused, and some 80,000 homes are vacant. Still, one local couple sees potential. They are building the 'Power House'.

With carbon emissions caps on the Obama Administration's agenda, coal is at the center of the energy debate. NOW's Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa goes to Wyoming to report on the state's coal industry, and its assertion that it can produce "clean coal" -- coal that can be burned without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

Blueprint America -- with Weekend America -- in a report on modern day gas prospecting in the hills of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Gas exploration has been happening in Pennsylvania since the 1800s. However, a new technology and new price incentives have made possible the exploration of the Marcellus shale. It is a geological formation – the size of Greece – stretching from New York to West Virginia and holding what could become the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir.

Will green energy happen? Blueprint America -- with NOW on PBS -- looks at the reality of renewables -- energy generated from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, and rain.

A journalist who uncovered potentially fatal design flaws in the connections between natural gas pipes - and revealed that state regulators, along with local power companies, had known of the flaws for nearly thirty years.

Similar to Brett Shipp’s investigation on the ignorance of state regulators to design flaws in Texas' pipeline infrastructure, another local Texas television reporter, Will Ripley (NewsChannel 5), further explored faulty natural gas pipelines in the Rio Grande Valley.

America's crumbling infrastructure will pose significant problems for the next president. Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr interviews advisors of both campaigns on how a President McCain or a President Obama would address four major infrastructure issues: roads versus rail; the fraying electrical grid; poor internet service; and whether or not the federal government should invest heavily in infrastructure as part of an economic stimulus package.