Flint, Michigan - Rebirth of Vehicle City "Urban Land Reform-Genesee County Michigan"
You may have seen the infomercials on late night television. You know, the ones that claim you can get rich by buying up property that is in tax foreclosure. Well, there is another side to that story. It's a tale of communities devastated by the abandoned properties left behind by speculators and absentee landlords.

Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors, was once a vibrant community. But then the jobs went away and thousands of people fled the city. Homes were abandoned, property taxes went unpaid, and speculators stepped in and acquired the property through the tax foreclosure process.

The result is a phenomenon called contagious blight. This happens when one or two abandoned properties on a block diminish the value of the remaining homes, setting off a cycle of decline and abandonment that turns a once beautiful neighborhood into a wasteland.

But the folks in Flint wondered what would happen if they took the money that would otherwise go to speculators and used it to rebuild the city in a way that reflected the new economic reality. Could a once proud city reclaim its soul and build a future even brighter than the past?

Fighting Global Warming, One City at a Time "Climate Protection Initiative - Seattle, Washington"
There is an old adage that says, any really big job is just a lot of little jobs rolled into one. That is how the folks in Seattle view the issue of global warming - a big planetary problem that is the result a lot of smaller problems in the cities of the world.

It all started in 2004 after a particularly warm winter when very little snow fell on the Cascade Mountains outside Seattle. The city depends on the melting snowpack for drinking water and to generate hydroelectric power.

Suddenly, global climate change was a local issue and the folks who lived in the city decided to confront the challenge head on. What they soon discovered was that tackling energy conservation, sustainable development, and environmental protection wasn't about sacrifice or doing without. It turned out that every step taken to address global warming on the local level was also an action that improved the quality of city life.

Sunday, 8/31/08 from 2:30-3 p.m. ET