Cleveland's Future

A couple of years ago, I met with a Medina developer, who had some interest in Tremont. An older guy, he was giving me his history and casually mentioned that he was originally from Cleveland, but then made his mark developing Parma. "Had to move my family from there," he said with no sense of irony; "Parma was just getting way overbuilt."

The weekend before, I had visited Medina's historic town square. While I marvelled at the intact architecture and the strong merchant base, I was dismayed by the tract homes and strip malls that were sprawling over the formerly pristine meadows and farms surrounding the town. How long before this developer leaves Medina for greener pastures, I wondered.

And so it is with American cities. They spring up, grow up and out, and sometime in late middle age, they get flabby, tired and undesirable. And home builders and buyers move out to the edges, until the center begins to show signs of collapse.

Someone recently noted, that as Americans, we tend to view this cycle of development and decline as inevitable. The urban core is expected to fall apart, as growth migrates to the edges. I remember the statement, "Americans like to build things, but, once built, they have little interest in maintaining them."

American visitors to Europe will see that the old, central cities are generally where the action is. The recent 'cartoon' riots in France happened not in the center, but in the suburbs of Paris.

Of course, there is a counter force - renovators, investors, historic preservationists. In Cleveland, there is much vitality in Tremont, which is thriving, along with such downtown areas as the Warehouse District, and pockets throughout the city and the inner ring suburbs. But is it enough?

Sometimes I have this vision of a perfect apple sitting in a bowl by the sun - then one day you notice a small dark spot. That apple's still good, you think. But a day or two later, there's a big rotten spot on the apple, and you pitch it.

But a city can regenerate itself, unlike an apple.

I can't tell what Cleveland's fate is. I feel an increasing pessimism in our town. The feeling abated briefly in the late '90s, but with 9/11, three years of war, and the steady loss of jobs and population from Cuyahoga County, optimism takes effort.

Since returning to Cleveland in 1986, I have: watched the rise and fall of the Flats and the emergence of the Warehouse District; the renovation, grand opening and then steady decline of the Terminal Tower/Tower City complex, and a related scenario for the Galleria; I have seen the rise of the Cleveland Indians and the fall of the stock of Gateway and Jacobs Field; I have witnessed the triumph of Tremont, one of the best little urban neighborhoods in the country (but one that is always threatened by the loss of community unity, security, or 'trendiness'); I have seen people come and go, enter optimistic and leave with bitterness for jobs and lives in other cities; I have seen kids on my street go from bright, charming 7 year olds to hardened drug addicts and criminals.

One day last summer, with a weeks-old baby at home (our first), I flipped out over the sound of a booming bass line reverbrating through our walls. From our porch I could see that it came from an old red Toyota - souped up but still rusty. I approached the owner, a young kid, and said: look, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to turn that down - I've got a baby in the house (and yes I did feel like a middle-aged white guy). He turned to me a second, eyes hard, and then he held out his hand, and said: that's cool, no problem, I appreciate you talking to me man to man. I saw him in that second, decide who he was. One of many times he will do that in a lifetime.

One thing I was but am trying to overcome: being an idealist. And this is in the sense that I think that everyone should think like me, that people ought to behave how I want them to be, that there is a just God and that the good will prevail and the evil perish.

No - I know that "no good deed goes unpunished;" that justice is weak and not always blind, and that religion and patriotism are the tools of many ambitious scoundrels.

But still -

The other day, I stopped into a chain drug store to pick up some cold medicine. In the midst of Near West Side south of Clark dreariness, the chain exudes a sense of order and cleanliness. I walked to the counter, which was empty. The clerk, who was stocking shelves, said, I'm so sorry, I will be right with you. As he approached, I saw - it's the boom box kid. He recognized me too - we both smiled. "How you doing?" We shook hands. "How's the job, how's the family?" He looked good, with his tie on and hair cut, even the dorky store uniform with his name on it. I told him so.

Who knows if this kid will last on this job. Who knows if he will work hard, get promoted, and go to school. I imagined him rising to manager, then going on to college - maybe law school. Maybe not.

But whatever the outcome, this kid has transformed himself. Maybe for a while, maybe forever. Who knows. And perhaps Cleveland can, too.

But it won't be easy.