National

For many years — perhaps even decades — Detroit has been the poster child for economic malaise. Adjusting for inflation, per capita income in metro Detroit dropped more than 20 percent between 1999 and 2010.

Some analysts say regional cooperation might have helped keep Detroit above water when the car industry sank, but that entrenched divisions that pit the city against its suburbs, and blacks against whites, have hindered that.

A Deeply Entrenched Regional Divide

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

A different take on city as melting pot now, in this City Life Snapshot from Austin, Texas.

BALDOMERO FRANK ALVAREZ CUELLAR: I'm Baldomero Frank Alvarez Cuellar, and that's a mouthful. And I am one-half of the owners of Rancho Alegre Radio.

BLOCK: Back in the '70s and '80s, Conjunto music was everywhere in Austin, and Alvarez is trying to bring it back.

The strike going on in Chicago is serious: 350,000 students are locked out and we brought you the news in a post from this morning.

We'll get back to real news in a little. First, here's a bit of levity:

There is a picture from the picket lines on Monday that had Daniel Strauss, who tweeted it, saying, "Civility has disappeared in Chicago Teachers Union protests."