Laws passed to prevent terrorism and identity theft have made it harder to get the state-issued ID needed to escape poverty. A peek inside the poverty trap.
Joel Kurth
As Executive Editor of Impact, Joel oversees newsgathering, investigations, partnerships and coverage strategy at Bridge Michigan. He joined Bridge in 2017 after 17 years as an investigative reporter and editor at The Detroit News. Over his career, he has led or produced investigations that led to numerous reforms in government and health care, including policy changes about water shutoffs and surgical instrument sterilization, as well as criminal charges of government officials. In addition to authoring Bridge’s popular weekly News Quiz, he and his teams have won more than 60 state and national awards. During his 30-year career in Michigan, he also has worked at newspapers in the Upper Peninsula and Saginaw. He lives in West Bloomfield with his wife and two children. You can reach him at jkurth@bridgemi.com
Posted inUrban Affairs
Slideshow: Gorgeous postcards offer valentine to bygone Detroit
Architecture buff turns postcard collection into picture book. Take a peek at the fabulous and familiar with 11 images from Detroit’s colorful past.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Are there two Detroits? A new report says yes, but…
Downtown and Midtown Detroit get more tax breaks and investment than neighborhoods. Why? That’s where the good jobs are.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Arson finally on decline in Detroit. Now for the bad news.
A popular rewards program is set to vanish at year’s end. Homeowners, firefighters and insurers could feel the effects statewide.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Botched elections. Missing ballots. Is this any way to run a democracy?
Michigan’s failed presidential recount last year wasn’t an aberration. It’s part of a pattern that has some concerned about the integrity of elections.
Posted inUrban Affairs
He became famous defending ‘Algiers Motel’ cops. Deal with it.
With the release of “Detroit,” director Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the killings of three black teens during the 1967 unrest, the lawyer who successfully defended several infamous white Detroit officers looks back with indifference toward his critics.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Can Detroit find salvation through demolition?
Mike Duggan is the latest Detroit mayor to measure success by tearing down homes. Two scholars debate whether the strategy works.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Detroit is razing thousands of homes. It won’t fix much.
An urban planning professor argues that Detroit has knocked down more homes than any other city in past 50 years – and has little to show for it.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Bulldoze away: Some Detroit neighborhoods need thinning out
An urban policy expert says the city needs to ask difficult questions about which areas can be saved in era of diminishing revenues.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Sorry we foreclosed your home. But thanks for fixing our budget.
Counties across Michigan profit from selling foreclosed homes and charging fees on back taxes to down-and-out residents. No place does it more than Wayne County.