With the unlikely help of a group called the Mayors Automotive Coalition, down-at-the-heels towns are reinventing themselves - in various shades of green.
Reporter Christopher Weber talks with Kris Ockomon, mayor of Anderson, Indiana, and one of the founders of the Mayors Automotive Coalition, or MAC:
"A six-foot-three former police detective, Ockomon got together in 2008 with a handful of other mayors to found MAC, aimed at helping their communities deal with the litany of woes -- unemployment, declining populations, the polluted and abandoned industrial sites known as brownfields -- that had resulted from the crisis. The coalition now serves more than 50 communities, working to secure federal funds by developing proposals and drafting bills with the help of a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm and then descending on Capitol Hill to make the case in person."
Weber says these mayors, despite being primarily conservative, are finding themselves in alliance with groups like the EPA to clean up their towns and encourage brownfield development.
Thanks to Scott Dodd
Read the full story: Rust Belt Rising
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