Today on Stateside:
- When it comes to keeping American industry up and running, it’s hard to overstate the importance of the Soo Locks. Detroit Free Press Capitol Hill reporter Todd Spangler joins us to talk about what’s been a worrisome year at the locks.
- College football begins this week. The University of Michigan kicks off the Jim Harbaugh era at Utah tomorrow night, and Michigan State will play Western Michigan in Kalamazoo Friday night. John U. Bacon gives us a peek at the upcoming NCAA season.
- The tiny city of Hamtramck celebrates its 36th Labor Day festival this weekend. Mayor Karen Majewski and City Clerk August Gitschlag tell us about the first few days of the festival and how the local tradition has withstood tough economic times.
- The battle to save Detroit’s Park Avenue Hotel from demolition got writer Amy Elliot Bragg thinking about the woman who is hailed as the founder of Detroit’s historic preservation movement: Beulah Groehn Croxford.
- Just as Michigan drivers are starting to get more familiar with roundabouts, a new type has appeared: the urban roundabout. Mark McCulloch joins us today to ease your roundabout fears.
- Since the 20th century, the auto industry has built the American middle class alongside cars and trucks. But many autoworkers have watched as their jobs disappeared. Sociologist Victor Tan Chen talked to former autoworkers, hearing about their struggles to stay afloat, and tells their stories in his new book, Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy.
