Human Interest

Erica Farmer and Marc Whitacre are doing a massive reno: Their home is 35,000 square feet, a historic abandoned post office in Montana.

In Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood there is a decaying, graffiti-covered building that holds a mysterious resident. Ducks. Hundreds of rubber ducks.

A preserved dance hall in Australia, once buried under 100 tonnes of droppings and a secret canal used by Olympic swimmers were part of what is a decaying power station, set for a billion dollar overhaul.

Biddeford’s 35-acre mill district is at the center of a downtown revival, housing an array of startups and small businesses -- from manufacturers to a distillery to an art school -- that together employ more than 400 workers.

Here's just another example of how an innovative Detroiter is turning the negative problem of blight into something positive.

One-third of enclosed shopping centers are failing, so developers are getting a bit more creative.

Just outside Havana, in the childhood bedroom of illustrator Edel Rodriguez, a washing machine engine welded to a boat propeller has become a makeshift fan. This kind of cobbled-together contraption is common in Cuba.

An international design competition called Reanimate the Ruins challenged competitors to "rethink and reshape" Detroit's crumbling Packard Plant. The question, basically, was...