Forbes: visit my regular blog, Voyages, and sign up for daily or weekly updates. I’m writing stories about reinventing American communities, about the automobile industry, sports and food topics.

Jalopnik: each morning through Christmas, I’m writing The Morning Shift. It’s Jalopnik’s first daily post on late breaking auto news, with some of my commentary mixed in.

The Atlantic Cities: I’m contributing regular pieces on urban topics across the United States, Canada and some international perspective, too.

The New York Times: you’ll find an archive of my stories here plus fresh reports on sports and other subjects.

Gadling: This summer, I took a 4,000-mile road trip on The Southern Road for Gadling, the travel narrative Web site that’s hosted by AOL.com, visiting the new car plants built by foreign companies, and taking a look at their communities and food. I’m going to be doing more work for Gadling in coming months.

Along with my regular media outlets, I’ve been a guest professor, scholar and lecturer. Take a look at the Reinventing Reno project that Reynolds J-School students at the University of Nevada, Reno put together. I spent time this fall as a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where I enjoyed meeting Graduate School of Business students and roaming the campus. (I learned to Fear The Tree.)

I’ve been appearing before groups like the West Michigan Policy Forum, the Michigan Council of Foundations and the Detroit chapter of the Women in Restructuring Confederation. I’ve got more appearances coming up this fall and winter, and I’m happy to hear from journalism, non-profit and corporate groups (click on Contact for more info).

Of course, you’ll often hear me as a guest on public radio programs like Marketplace and Here and Now, television programs like Power Lunch and PBS NewsHour, and you can find me on Twitter @mickimaynard or my alter ego, @culinarywoman. Check out my Facebook page, too.

Last but not least, this winter I’ll be a Reynolds Visiting Professor of Business Journalism at Central Michigan University. I’m looking forward to life in Mount Pleasant and meeting the Chippewas who’ll be journalists in the next generation.

So, not a single rose but a bouquet – and always a new adventure.

Voyages will help you put the automobile industry in a context that you understand. I’ll give you useful information about cars, car shopping, the auto companies, and the people who run them. We’ll explore the latest auto sales trends, environmental issues, and look at how cars fit into your daily lives – or not. I’m especially interested in alternatives to automobiles, and how the importance of cars and trucks is changing.

Come check it out and let me know what you’d like to know. In the meantime, keep listening to Changing Gears and reading my work in The Atlantic Cities.

In late December, I talked to Minnesota Public Radio about the closing of Ford’s St. Paul truck plant. Ford built vehicles in St. Paul for 89 years, and the St. Paul plant escaped closure time and again. But Ford is consolidating much of its business, focusing primarily on Michigan, Ohio and Ontario (with plants still in Kentucky and Missouri).

I also had a little fun in Atlantic Cities with a story about my home town, Ann Arbor, Mich. Citizens are in a polite uproar over a recently implemented pedestrian ordinance. The city council is at work to come up with a revision of the ordinance, which has strained nerves, caused car crashes and resulted in tickets.

I recently became a contributing writer to Atlantic Cities, and I’m looking forward to more reports on urban America. You can read all my Atlantic Cities stories here.

Stay tuned for some news about another writing project. In the meantime, wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Chicago

Now, they’re both dealing with huge problems. Detroit now looks like it could wind up in default by next summer. It might end up under the supervision of an emergency manager. Chicago is facing a $635 million budget deficit, which people here say is the 12th year in a row it’s run in the red.

On Wednesday, the city’s two mayors saw developments related to their crises. In Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing asked for $40 million in union concessions, said he wants to raise the corporate tax, and proposed a series of other steps.

“City government is broken,” he said in an early evening speech.

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel got a big political victory. Aldermen voted 50-0 to approve his budget, which has fee increases, service cuts and all sorts of changes from Chicago’s status quo. There was immediately concern that city council might be giving Emanuel the same rubber stamp that it used to give his predecessor, Richard M. Daley, although Daley was losing popularity just before he left office in May.

Detroit is limping and has yet to be healed; Chicago has accepted the doctor’s prognosis and begun treatment. It’s a comparison worth watching as both cities try to solve their financial crises.

My family has been visiting New Orleans for years. My brother Frank lived there for a couple of years when he worked in radio, and we all love the city’s architecture, music, and of course, its food. It’s one of those cities that is permanently mapped in my head. New Orleans is among a handful like London and Paris and Tokyo and Toronto where I’d happily go live. 

Hurricane Katrina broke my heart. I was sleepless for weeks, haunted by the scenes at the convention center and the Superdome and on the overpass. And then I did what I felt I could to help. I gave money to the Red Cross and Music Rising. I bought CDs from New Orleans artists, went to their concerts, and shipped boxes of clothes to our friend Kay Danne, the owner of On the Other Hand designer resale. I bought books by writers like Julia Reed, Dan Baum and Tom Piazza and cookbooks by John Besh and other New Orleans chefs. I watched every minute of every episode of HBO’s Treme.

When it came time to pick a theme song for the Changing Gears project, I deliberately wanted someone from New Orleans to sing it, and I picked out Right to Complain by Trombone Shorty.

But I just couldn’t bear to go back. I didn’t want to see things for myself. I canceled a trip to the Jazz Festival and another to watch my friends at Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

For whatever reason, I spontaneously made a decision a few months ago to head down. It was ostensibly a girls’ weekend — I was meeting up with Tess Vigeland, the host of Marketplace Money on NPR. And after a long 18 months in public radio, I wanted a complete change of scenery.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find. And the answer was: not what I expected.

The city has a budget deficit of $637 million, and Emanuel is trying to get Chicago’s city council to approve a full slate of reforms. He’s had to give up for now on one of his signature demands: a longer school day for Chicago’s school children, who have the shortest school day of any big city in the Midwest.

I wrote about the new mayor and the city’s problems recently for The Atlantic Monthly’s new AtlanticCITIES page, and I’ll be keeping track of him as he tackles his wishlist.

Here’s my story. What do you think of Mayor Emanuel thus far?

Last week, Chrysler paid back the money it borrowed two years ago from the United States and Canada. Or more accurately, it refinanced the loans at lower rates than the interest of up to 20% that it was paying them.

I discussed the bailout on a couple of programs. I appeared on PBS NewsHour, and also was a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

My sense is that the bailout was as much a political decision as an economic one. Unions backed President Obama during the election campaign. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and other states with GM and Chrysler plants gave the president a lot of votes. It is industrial policy of a sort, and the full implications have yet to be truly understood.

So let me ask you: would you have bailed out the companies? Why, or why not?

Now, do me a favor: please extend that same interest to Changing Gears. It’s our public media project looking at the reinvention of the industrial Midwest. You can find us on Michigan Radio WBEZ in Chicago and ideastream in Cleveland.

Come to ChangingGears.info.

“Like” us on Facebook.

Become a follower on Twitter @ChGears

Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.

And let us know your thoughts for story ideas, people to interview, events we should know about. In January, the podcast will re-launch in a weekly format. We can’t wait to get you involved.

For the next few years, Changing Gears will take an in-depth look at ways to revive the Great Lakes region, everywhere from Duluth to Buffalo. Our sponsors are Chicago Public Radio, where I’ll soon be based, Michigan Radio and ideastream in Cleveland. Read more about Changing Gears here and I’ll be back soon with updates.