Skip to content
  • logo
  • logo
  • Home
  • Solutions
  • Agriculture
  • Water
  • Cities & Suburbs
  • Nearshore
  • Recreation
  • Wildlife
  • Energy
  • Waste
  • About
  • Contact

Great Lakes Echo - Environmental news of the Great Lakes region

Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/urban/page/4/)

  • Home
  • Solutions
  • Agriculture
  • Water
  • Cities & Suburbs
  • Nearshore
  • Recreation
  • Wildlife
  • Energy
  • Waste
  • About
  • Contact
Subscribe

Urban

bats

Neighbors, not nuisances: Advocates explore refuge for bats in cities

By Steven Maier | August 8, 2017

As bat populations dwindle nationwide, the Organization for Bat Conservation is seeking refuge for them in cities.

Homepage Featured

Driving trends shifting gears

By Jack Nissen | August 3, 2017

Study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute says city driving is on the rise.

Homepage Featured

Connecting blighted Great Lakes cities to boost economy

By Abigail Heath | July 14, 2017

Great Lakes cities could benefit from domicology.

Homepage Featured

Once a hub for building cities, Muskegon could become one for taking them apart

By Lucy Schroeder | July 13, 2017

Local officials investigate city’s potential as the center of a deconstruction industry. It’s deep water port could play a role.

Homepage Featured

Recycling your home: Can structural wood be reused for the same purpose?

By Lucy Schroeder | July 12, 2017

The average abandoned home in Michigan contains about enough lumber to fill two school buses.

Homepage Featured

Reclaim Detroit finds treasure in blighted homes

By Lucy Schroeder | July 11, 2017

Detroit hosts 75 percent of all vacant houses in Michigan. Each of more than 183,000 vacant homes holds treasures to be reclaimed.

Homepage Featured

Defining domicology: Study of practices and consequences of abandoning buildings

By Darien Velasquez | July 10, 2017

What’s in a name? For domicologists it signifies dawning awareness of a wasteful culture–and an emerging industry.

Endangered wildlife

Wastewater deadzone kills mussels

By Steven Maier | May 1, 2017

An extreme example in an Ontario river shows these mollusks are more sensitive to pollution than we knew.

Detroit

New book highlights Detroit’s overlooked streetcar history

By Ian Wendrow | March 30, 2017

Southeast Michigan author Niel Lehto digs through old case files and newspapers to deliver a book detailing the rise and fall of Detroit’s streetcar industry and its impact on the city’s historical development.

Forests

Emerald ash borers may increase crime, study says

By Max Johnston | March 22, 2017

Researchers say tree loss plays a role in street crime.

Load more articles

About Great Lakes Echo

Environmental news of the Great Lakes region from the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.

  • How seeds from the past are saving a unique flower of the Great Lakes

    By Kyrmyzy Turebayeva More than 30 years ago, a group of scientists planted just 4,200 seeds of the rare Pitcher’s thistle in the sandy dunes of the Great Lakes. At the time, no one knew if the new populations would survive. Today, three decades later, the restored populations are thriving and spreading.

  • Henderson holding a swan
    From otters to butterflies: How Minnesota became a pioneer in nongame wildlife conservation

    By Kyrmyzy Turebayeva In the late 1970s, when most wildlife conservation programs in the United States focused almost exclusively on game species, a quiet but historic shift began in Minnesota. It was here that one of the nation’s first state programs dedicated to protecting so-called nongame wildlife emerged from butterflies and bats to bald eagles and river otters. That story is now told in detail by Carrol Henderson in his new book, “A National Legacy: Fifty Years of Nongame Wildlife Conservation in Minnesota."

  • Michigan’s water infrastructure sees improvements, work still needs to be done

    By Clara Lincolnhol The U.S. would need to invest nearly $3.4 trillion over the next 20 years to fix and update drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, says researchers from The Value of Water Campaign. Much of that infrastructure was built 40 to 50 years ago and shows its age. Michigan’s is no exception. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the state a D+ for its drinking water infrastructure, a D in storm water management and a C for its wastewater infrastructure. Funding is a major problem. Proposed data centers would put more stress on the infrastructure.

  • Mussels in a green net.
    Endangered spectaclecase mussels reintroduced into the Chippewa River

    By Ada Tussing To combat the population loss of spectaclecase mussels, researchers with both the Minnesota and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources released over 177 mussels into the Chippewa River in Northwest Wisconsin.

  • Michigan allocates $77 million to clean thousands of contaminated sites

    By Clara Lincolnhol Michigan is pouring $77 million into clean-up of contaminated abandoned real estate such as former factories. The director of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy says the goal is to make the cleaned-up sites safe for housing, commercial developments and other uses.

  • Winter makes curved roads dangerous; researchers seek solutions

    By Eric Freedman Flashing light on warning signs near curves can slow drivers and reduce the odds of a crash during winter weather conditions, says a new study by Michigan State University engineers.

  • The cover of “Dead Moose on Isle Royale: Off Trail with the Citizen Scientists of the Wolf-Moose Project." The cover is moose antlers on the ground.
    Great Lakes books for your holiday gift list 

    By Eric Freedman   Looking for a holiday gift for a reader who loves the Great Lakes? Here are five prospects to consider – and what our reporters learned from interviewing their authors this year.

  • A side-by-side of the historic Portage Canal and modern Portage Canal from an aerial view.
    Restoration of historical site improves quality of life for Portage, Wisconsin residents

    By Joshua Kim Following the completion of segments 1 and 2 of the Portage Canal, local residents and visitors can use the historic site and its amenities following years of disrepair.

  • What herring gulls tell us about plastic pollution

    By Victoria Witke Christina Petalas, a doctoral student McGill University, studies herring gulls to learn about plastic pollution near the St. Lawrence River. Across two studies, she found plastic additives in every bird sampled, which could have human health consequences.

  • Scientists update geological map of northern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 

    By Kyrmyzy Turebayeva The U.S. Geological Survey has began large-scale low-level airplane flights over Michigan's Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin to obtain high-resolution data on subsurface mineral structures and bedrock composition. The data will be used to create two- and three-dimensional maps to better understand the geological structure at depths of about 10,000 feet.

  • Great Lakes Echo

Contact Us

Email: GreatLakesEcho@gmail.com
Phone: 517-432-1415

Search This Site

Browse Archives

© Copyright 2026, Great Lakes Echo

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑