Can cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio, make a comeback? Reed Kroloff, director of Michigan's Cranbrook Academy of Art, thinks so.

In the shadow of the recession, a great migration of sorts has occurred in the suburbs. Though, since the rows of houses were first built outside America's city limits, this population turnover has been a long time coming. A Brookings Institution preview of the 2010 Census released last year shows that the nuclear family out in suburbia with its kids and white-picket fences and two-car garages has been a misscharacterization for at least the last decade, if not longer. Racial and ethnic minorities now account for a majority of the population in 17 metropolitan areas, most in the South and Southwest, but regions like New York in the Northeast will soon follow. Also, since 2000, the number of 55to 64 year olds nationwide grew by nearly 50 percent. This past January, the first baby boomers turned 65. Brookings demographer William H. Frey talks to Blueprint America about his findings, and what all of it means to a new kind of suburbia.

America is on the brink of a massive demographic shift as the first of the baby boom turned 65 this New Year. Already, an estimated 39 million people across the country are 65 or older -- just over 13 percent of the population. By 2030, when all baby boomers will be over 65, there will be 72 million seniors -- about 20 percent of the population. And our suburbs -- where half of all Americans live today -- will be hardest hit. Elinor Ginzler, AARP's Director of Livable Communities, talks to Blueprint America about how Americans can live in suburbia as they age. Already, the suburbs are a tough place to get around. Getting older won’t make it any easier.

In hard economic times, it's difficult to believe that two states are together rejecting over a billion dollars in federal money. Ohio and Wisconsin will not undertake high-speed rail projects that were in development as late as last November. New leadership in both states claimed the rail projects would forever burden their state budgets. In the morning light, however, their objections may face fresh scrutiny.

A look back at an interview with then-ranking minority leader of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.), as he is set to take over as Chair next year.

After making headlines for weeks, yesterday New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made it official: He's killing the commuter rail tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey. The project is too expensive, he says, and his state doesn't have the money to cover its share of the costs. The demise of the largest public works project in decades illustrates the stark political choice many voters will make next week: either spend our way out of the Recession with big projects like high-speed trains and tunnels or save our way out with good old fashioned belt-tightening.

If there's a positive from the recession, it's been the fact that U.S. households are lowering their debts and getting their finances back in order. What hasn't changed is that the majority of a family's income still goes to covering housing costs, and the affordability of where you live doesn't always equal the amount you pay in rent or on your mortgage -- it's often times higher, meaning the cost of housing is even more of a majority.

It’s so easy to get on the bandwagon: lower my taxes, smaller and more efficient government, don’t touch my liberties, throw the bums out, etc. But what if that bandwagon has to cross a bridge? And what if that bridge hasn’t been maintained in years? An Op-Ed from Gridlock Sam.

The average family in America today spends 52 percent of its income on housing and transportation. In this Blueprint America interview, John Larson talks with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan about how transportation adds to the true cost of housing.