The second largest economy is investing vastly in the African continent.

(Washington Post) — When Somera Capital Management announced the redevelopment of Laurel Mall in 2007, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based firm was confident the project would be wrapped up by this year. Then the recession hit. Financing dried up. And the chances of turning the ailing, enclosed mall into a thriving mixed-use town center became slim. […]

(Amsterdam News) — The Department of Transportation plans to engage more Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises (MWBE) for the rebuilding of the Kosciuszko Bridge that connects Brooklyn and Queens. At a workshop held earlier this month in Long Island City, nearly 150 community stakeholders, construction trade organizations, contractors and government services gathered to learn more […]

(Atlanta Journal Constitution) — The Georgia Department of Transportation will meet with five developers in early November to get their ideas and questions for a long-proposed but never built transit hub in downtown Atlanta.  GDOT released the list on its website late Thursday. Three Atlanta-based development firms will have meetings. Jacoby Development, which bought the […]

(International Business Times) — The key to kick-starting the U.S. economy and create hundreds of thousands of desperately-needed jobs lies in developing America’s one-hundred largest cities, according to a report from Bruce Katz, Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.  “If we unleash the […]

(Washington Post) — When Greer Johnson Gillis met with reporters on the west bank of the Anacostia River in December tooutline construction plans for the new 11th Street Bridge, we could see a few workers in mid-river preparing to remove wood pilings. From the same shoreline today, it’s hard to tell there’s a river out there. […]

(Washington Post) — When the glass doors at Wegmans in Prince George’s County glide open at 7 a.m. Sunday, shoppers will be stepping into a place that symbolizes the county’s continuing transformation.  For a county without any other high-end grocers – no Whole Foods, no Trader Joe’s, no Harris Teeter – officials and residents describe it […]

South Africa hoping to sustain economic success set by World Cup.

(TG Daily) —One of the less inspiring parts of Sony’s E3 presentation today was the introduction of a $50/year subscription service that gives gamers access to a handful of special and exclusive content, but there’s nothing super exciting about it. Called “Playstation Plus,” it brings back memories of the PS3’s Qore, a “digital magazine” on the […]

(Fast Company) — Twitter‘s march to earn a dime or two from its millions of users and billions of tweets per month is picking up speed. Now we’ve learned that the plans for advertising include paid “promoted trends” among the more usual trending topics. We know Twitter’s in the process of maneuvering its advertising systems into position, […]

Detroit is a microcosm of Black America and now, more than ever, its survival is critical.