Dive Brief:

• Design is only part of the story in comparing near-twin buildings that have had two different fates in two cities hundreds of miles apart.
• In Nashville, Tenn., the 21-story Parkway Towers is a success, occupied and vibrant, while the Genesee Towers in Flint, Mich., is 19 stories waiting to be blown up next month.
• It is a story, a commercial real estate agent says, of "deterioration by neglect," with the Nashville building being renovated the same year that the Flint Building lost its last major tenant.

Dive Insight:

The sister buildings were constructed in 1968. Part of this story has to be the different economic fates of the two cities, with Flint falling along with U.S. automakers and Nashville finding a resurgence. But there seems to be more to the story, with allegations of poor construction in Michigan and a slab of concrete falling from three stories up when the building was 13 years old.