Walter's Web Log

Leverage, Part I

2007-02-22T08:43:00.000-05:00

Yet another chapter in the book that I plan on writing someday will deal with leverage - the concept that investments in distressed city neighborhoods will have a 'spillover' effect and positively influence their immediate neighbors, with perhaps the likelihood that a single key investment can become the 'tipping point' and turn a neighborhood around. Leverage is a key concept, one that is used to justify initial investments, and is cited later as proof that these investments have had an impact. Yet, leverage is a notoriously difficult effect to quantify and to prove. And frankly, its something that is not often subject to rigorous analysis, for fear that it will evaporate or diminish under scrutiny.

Walk through any Cleveland neighborhood, and its easy to find areas of blight - abandoned houses, blocks of vacant land, empty storefronts. Fortunately, it is also relatively easy to find evidence of investment, efforts to counter decline. When you see a tidy yard and well-kept home, a vibrant business, or a new park in areas that are otherwise in distress, it is worth wondering whether these are isolated, stand-alone efforts that will remain disconnected from whatever larger forces lie behind the decline, or whether they are sparks that will catch fire.

Whether the capital for improvements come from government, or private business, or from simple elbow grease generated by a prideful homeowner, ultimately its a form of a bet that things will get better. Not counting the few diehard individuals who will do the right thing regardless, and maintian home, business and community in the face of overwhelming evidence of decline, most people want to be a part of a trend, and hopefully, an upward one. This is the 'enlightened self-interest' that is one of the main conceptual bases for capitalism - we all want to bet, we all want to win, and yet we know, there are going to be winners and losers.

Some folks are risk-averse and will stick with the tried and true - a job with a steady paycheck, a home in the most distant of suburbs, and an aversion to taxes, government and people who do not look like themselves. They tend to vote Republican (this may be my own prejudice - mea culpa). Others are forced to the middle, and work in unstable jobs, live in 'the old neighborhood' even though it is no longer fashionable, and feel there is some role for government, unions, and other counter-forces to capitalism. These folks have tolerated risk, perhaps unwillingly, but they will welcome change when they feel it's positive. They tend to be Democrats. Then there are the idealists, who want to be a part of 'turning things around,' who are the early adopters for neighborhoods, causes and movements. They will take on the most risk, and in fact, welcome it. They tend to be independents, but will vote Democrat when that is the alternative.

OK, there's my cartoon version of America. Nevertheless, regardless of the accuracy of my characterization, here we are - different groups of Americans, engaged in daily living, trying to make the best of things, placing their bets.

There are also exist those, like owners of check-cashing businesses, predatory lenders, phony preachers, crooked contractors, who exploit a downward cycle - but we will leave them aside at the moment. They will exist no matter what we do, and especially when a system in decline exposes weakness and masks corruption.

So, in the midst of these folks living their lives, there are neighborhoods and regions which have declined while others prosper. People from the upper, middle and lower economic rungs make choices where or where not to live, work and pursue happiness - or they are forced to make choices based on circumstances over wich perhaps they have little control. Whatever the micro forces might be, a mobile society like ours starts to look like rough topography - areas of concentrated wealth and poverty, new homes and abandoned ones, massive shopping complexes and struggling storefronts, wealthy schools and poor - and at the margins, newly trendy neighborhoods with artists and entrepreneurs, trying to be part of the next trend. People vote with their feet and move when they can, to bet on what they feel is in their own best interest.

I suppose if you left these forces alone, there would be a natural sorting - the 'destructive creativity' of capitalism. But then you might be left with a third world country, highly polarized between the haves and have nots, shocking wealth and appalling poverty.

Some countries have chosen to intervene - social democracies like Denmark, highly homogenous societies where the social contract exceeds individualism and everyone lives more or less the same, modestly, but with health care, education and housing all provided, generously supported by whopping big income taxes.

Other countries are essentially social Darwinists, with the wealthy explointing the poor, and ineffective or corrupt governments. Mexico comes to mind.

In some, the poor are actually trying to take on the powerful - the popular revolution in Bolivia, where the government attempt to privatize water was met with opposition, and successfully so.

Meanwhile, in the US, we are not sure where we should be, and our efforts to intervene are carried out by ever-changing coalitions of government, non-profit organizations, foundations, and individual activists. We veer to the right and to the left, ultimately ending up somewhere in the middle.

Let's return to leverage. This is what everyone hopes for and points to when projects are planned, dollars are committed, and ribbons are cut. But what does it take for leverage to actually occur?

That will be the subject of my next posting. I am going to have to think about it.

A New Day

2007-02-08T11:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it is the start of something new for me - a lot of changes since my last post in March of 2006. Almost one year ago.

Our first child turned one, and will soon turn two. And we are expecting another.

We moved from Tremont to Lakewood, after a long, hard look at our street and what we wanted for our child.

I started a new job - going from a local neighborhood community development corporation in Tremont to a larger organization that funds a number of these groups throughout the city.

My mother died, after a long illness. She spent her last months at Malachi House in Ohio City under the care of the Hospice of the Western Reserve - I am so grateful.

And so it's one year later and I am ready to post again. I hope to reconnect with the reason that I started this blog in the first place, and even, perhaps, to take it to a new level.

See you soon...

Cleveland's Future

2006-03-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

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.

On Blogging

2006-03-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

It feels funny, to say “I have a blog” or “I’m blogging.” I’m not sure why. Is it because it’s such an ugly word? It sounds a bit more downscale than “I’m writing” or “I’m journaling.” On the other hand, it carries much less cultural baggage than either of those terms. It has kind of a macho, dumb swagger to it.

I first heard the term in regards to Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. Their rendezvous was first revealed in the aptly named Drudge Report, an online blog. At the time, commentators carefully informed their listeners that a blog was a combination of “web” and “log” and was a type of online journal. I didn’t pay much attention; my computer skills at the time were sparse.

Much later, and somewhat more computer literate (or at least able to Google), I came across Callahan’s Cleveland, Brewed Fresh Daily, and our own Tremonter. Curious, I eventually decided to try a blog myself.

Fascinatingly, and perhaps, appallingly, people find it. “Hey, I read your blog!” someone will yell to me across a bar or a counter. At times it’s someone I don’t know. On one occasion, a posting about what I perceived as city inaction got a call from a department head. “There’s this ‘blog,’” he said, as if he was saying something useful but slightly disreputable, like ‘underwear.’ Which I suppose blogging is.

People have lost jobs over blogs - famously, a Washington intern who posted online accounts of her sexual exploits. I won’t do that here.

Mostly, I am writing about issues of community development, but this also secretly lets me be something I have always secretly wanted to be – a writer.

I come from a family of writers. My mother, an English major, wrote her own children’s poems. My favorite is:

“There once was a wise old wizard,
Who raised his wand for a blizzard.
It galed and it blowed, it hailed and it snowed;
And he froze – nose, toes and gizzard.”

Later, in the midst of the stresses of raising three kids in a somewhat dysfunctional family (whose isn’t), my mother would cover reams of yellow legal pads with confessional discourse – mostly diatribes about car-pooling and other drudgeries of family life (I peeked). Eventually she channeled this energy into divorce and then law school. My sister responded by locking herself in her room and writing poetry. She currenlty teaches creative writing, and is a published poet. My brother, the youngest, also became a writer, publishing a book of war reportage to much acclaim (“Generation Kill”). My father will write an essay about George Bernard Shaw at the drop of a hat, and send it on to everyone who might possibly read it.

Alone among my family, I was the non-writer.

Oh, I mean, I wrote, but not for an audience. Or even, much, for myself. My only contribution to a journal had been a sentence fragment that my mother forced me to write when caught in the act of egging a rival’s house (I was twelve, and it was my friend’s idea, I swear). “Last night, Robbie and me…” was as far as I got.

I have always felt self-conscious about writing – it felt pompous to try to write anything beyond a letter or text for a newsletter. I mean, who cares what I think?

But using email loosened me up. I started to use it for work and for personal communication, and writing began to feel more natural.

But a blog is something else. It is public.

With all the concerns about privacy today, perhaps someday I will have reason to regret something I have written. I hope not. What I am writing about is my personal reaction to events in my community, in which I live and work. My main concerns are local, my street and neighborhood, my family and the city we live in.

There are people who think the online communities that arise from blogging and sites like My Space will transform society. Perhaps the social networks that arise will make us better citizens, but who knows. At any rate, it's certainly different from when I was a kid and everyone was fretting that "no one writes anymore." Plenty of people are writing now.

My only fear is this: somewhere deep in a bunker in an undisclosed location, Dick Cheney will come across my blog, and with a shotgun atop his jittering knees, the word “Li-Ber-Al” will form on lips. And like the hapless, wingless quail placed in his path for the thrill of destruction, I fear I will make an easy target. But at least I've had my say.

Walter's Work Day

2006-03-03T08:52:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple of months, I have taken a bit of time from my schedule to act as a 'volunteer' at local restaurants, retail and services. That's the plan anyway. In fact, due to a family bout of seasonal illness, I have only been to three so far - Take A Bite, Studio 11, and Sweet Mosaic at Lucky's Cafe.

The idea is to spend some time with our merchants, elbow to elbow so to speak - and literally. Washing dishes, mixing ingredients, and serving custormers, all part of the daily work of Tremont.

It's been fun. The merchants are proud of what they do, and are pleased to share it with me, an outsider of sorts. Although I have organized merchant meetings, assisted with events like Taste of Tremont, and gone to bat for merchants when it comes to a zoning or design review, I am still on the other side of the counter. Like walking out of the audience and onto the stage mid-performance, it's a bit of a weird experience. By exchanging my typical role of either consumer or quasi-bureaucrat for that of merchant, I gain an entirely new understanding of their process and experience.

By and large, they have fun. These are entrepreneurial folk who are not afraid of hard work, but after all, they are in it because it's not like working for a large corporation. Clothing, attitudes and humor may be casual, but there is a strict sense of professionalism and a pride in doing things right.

What worries me is that the experience of being a small-scale entrepreneur is challenged in our country - due to big forces like globalism, corporate consolidation and the rise of the automobile as the almost exclusive mode of travel for shopping, local retail has lost pharmacy, hardware and even bookstores. So what remains is specialty retail in Tremont, like boutique shopping, unique dining, and art galleries.

These are all high-risk enterprises. Only recently have banks, lenders and the government come to understand their value.

We'd better hope they do, otherwise, 'Welcome to Walmart' may be the only chance we have to express our individuality - not.

Big box retail has it's place, I suppose, although I still believe we have lost more than we have gained. But that's debatable. Even Andrew Young, champion of the poor, has come to sing the praises of big box. I can't dismiss his claims.

In the meanwhile, you can read about my experiences with local retailers here, in 'Take a Bite of Tremont,' 'Yoga Happy Hour,' and 'Sweet & Lucky.'

Odds & Ends

2006-03-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

On the street where I live, there had been some effort to fix up a couple of properties that had fallen into disrepair - one a foreclosure, the other a vacant property whose previous tenants had trashed it, and a third rental unit that had changed hands recently.

Unfortunately, whoever was doing the work on these properties neglected to remove construction debris - they just left them on the treelawn. At first, scavengers took the best of the lot - wooden planks, a set of porch steps, and other useable items soon disappeared. But what was left behind - tree branches, pressboard scraps, rotten wood, toilet tank fragments, garbage - sat there, sloughing off into the street, with loose stuff blowing around. Unbagged, unbundled and unheeded, these piles of trash sat in front of three properties for four months.

At first, I assumed that the sanitation workers had removed what scavengers had left behind. And soon, snow covered them up - for a while. A January thaw revealed that the issue was unresolved. So, I did the following:

Called the City of Cleveland's Building and Housing Department, code division.
Called the City of Cleveland Health Department, complaints division.
Called the new councilman.

The next day, the councilman called me back and confirmed that the complaint had been made with Building and Housing. So far so good.

Then - nothing. The trash was covered with snow and then revealed with the thaw. I sort of stewed about it. My wife and I talked about moving (again). My mother-in-law suggested that we hold my daughter's first birthday in another neighborhood - somewhere nice.

Finally, I decided to just get rid of it. I asked a coworker if I could borrow his truck, and another coworker if she could pitch in. We would haul it to the dump - something a Cleveland resident can do four times a year.

Before the designated day, I called the code inspector. Had she done anything?

Well, she said, she had put a notice on the door, asking them to call her back. And had they called her back? No. Of course, it's a vacant house. Well, she said, I might send them a warning. Great. You could clean it up yourself and put a Mechanic's Lien on it, she suggested. Even the city can do that.

Uh...great.

So - Michelle and I loaded up the truck and took it all to the dump. Between the three properties, it was quite a load.

I know there are more pressing items in the city. I know I should have followed up with the inspector, instead of just trusting that the process would work. Whatever that process is. I could have done more.

Driving to the dump, up Denison from W. 25th Street, I had time to think about the so-called 'Broken Windows' theory. Basically, it states that you fix the little things, like broken windows, then the bigger things, like crime and disinvestment, will take care of themselves. It had been a highly cited theory when I first got into community development and was credited with many improvements in urban policy and even community policing. In fact, newly-elected Mayor Jackson had just referred to it in his recent speech. But Denison from W. 25th St. to Ridge is a jumble of trash-strewn vacant lots, empty storefronts, and deteriorating Cleveland Doubles and once-grand Victorians. There are a lot of broken windows to fix.

On my street today are several homes with broken windows. Some vacant, some occupied, some boarded up. Trash tends to collect around them. Kids loiter. They smash stuff that's left behind, and garbage is their plaything.

It's not like we lack for resources. Grand houses remain. Young people have moved into the neighborhood and are working on rehabs, gardens, community events. The new councilman grew up near here, a community development board member lives next door, there's a church at the end of the street, one a block away, and another on the corner. The police station is a half mile away, fire station up the street, a major hospital anchors the neighborhood, the block club meets regularly.

I'm a booster for the city and I've worked hard on it, and I've put my money where my mouth is by buying property in the city and living in it - no tax abatement for me. I'm not alone in this. But if all our work comes to nothing it will be because we neglected the small things.

Tremont's Annual

2006-02-02T15:22:00.000-05:00

Tremont West had it's Annual Meeting last week. I can think of no other community event which brings together more people from the neighborhood - except for celebrations like the Taste of Tremont or the Tremont Arts & Cultural Festival.

I have attended the Annual Meeting since about 1992. At the time, I had just bought a house in at the southwestern edge of Tremont - actually what would historically have been the heart of Tremont - if the area had remained farmland, Lincoln Park had never been developed, and the freeways had never been built. But things change.

At the first meeting I attended, I believe Tremont West had only three employees. I think the office had one computer. Times were tough.

I eventually ran for the Board, and sometime later, became an employee. When I first joined, we worked in a big open room with a hodge-podge of old desks - it looked like the City Room of the Chicago Tribune, circa 1934 - and we had two computers. And now we have a new, larger office and we are very up-to-date. And still, once a year, the community comes together to help set our course for the coming year.

Over time, many things about the Annual Meeting have stayed reassuringly the same - Sister Corita and her crew from St. Augustine's Catering do the food, there are speeches by our local councilman and other dignitaries, Block Club updates, and of course, elections for the Board of Directors (this year, almost twice as many candidates as open positions!).

It's Grassroots "Democracy in Action!" - corny, but true. Neighbors talk, and argue, with neighbors. People make motions from the floor. Tempers flare. Babies cry. Politicians politificate.

I always find myself, by turns, inspired, bored, angered, and humbled to be there. Sometimes I like the outcome of the election, sometimes not (as an employee I do not get to vote). But I am thrilled that we, collectively, take the so process seriously.

Race

2006-01-24T14:27:00.000-05:00

Lately there's been talk in Cleveland about changes in the residency requirement for City employees - Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett's 'Dirty Little Secret' column identified 'race' as one of the unspoken elements of this discussion. Many people objected to this, especially members of the police and fire unions.

Why is race a part of this? Or isn't it?

I guess I have to say that I think it is, but carefully - because I think it is more about class than race. And about black culture, and urban policy, and so much more than simple racism.

In a previous career, I was a teacher at an expensive private prep school. The student body had racial diversity - but very little cultural diversity. The students who attended all read 'white' to me, reflecting my own cultural bias; there was no perceptual difference for me between the kids of different races, no matter what their skin color was. Later I taught at a large, inner-ring suburb public school outside of New York City. The student body was 70% black and Latino; the other 30% were white, mostly Jewish kids who were college bound, and whose parents were alumni of the school. (It was very much like Cleveland Heights High. And like Heights, it had reached that critical ratio of 70% minority where white students tend to leave the school at an ever-increasing rate). The black kids at this school, many from middle class families as well as kids from poorer families, had much more pressure to 'act black' - to be 'authentic,' to 'keep it real,' etc. Ironically, a large subset of white kids (mostly boys) acted 'black' as well, wearing their hair in dreadlocks, low-slung pants, creating rap songs and graffiti art.

When I was 17, I wanted to be 'authentic' too. I was a white, suburban, middle class kid and I wanted to be tough, street-smart and sexy. I wanted to be cool. Part of being cool was being, well - black.

And since I had no hope of changing my skin color it meant listening to black music, reading black authors, and feeling at least, a sense of solidarity with an oppressed and talented people.
But in fact I had very little contact with actual black people.

I chose my college (Oberlin) mainly for the catalog, which depicted smiling, multiracial groups of students in beautiful black and white photos. The reality was that students self-segregated by dorm and cafeteria table to a degree that surprised me.

Studying for my education degree, I was struck by two statistical facts: one, no matter what new program you try, there is always a spike in test results; and two, the greatest predictor of academic success, by far, is socio-economic status. The first fact is pertinent because it indicates that many educational (and social) reforms have appeared successful, as long as they are carried out by enthusiastic, specially trained personnel who provide extra attention to their constituents - many reforms have then failed when carried out in real-world conditions. This is why educational strategies, especially in poor and struggling districts, seem disjointed, frantic, and ultimately futile. (Show me one urban district that demonstrates excellence, especially in the upper grades). The second fact is pertinent because it demonstrates that many reforms in poor districts will fail to provide enough 'juice' to overcome the many disadvantages that come with a lower socio-economic status upbringing. These are many and well documented from commentators who range from Jonathan Kozol to Bill Cosby.

The recent book 'Freakonomics' in one essay focuses on child rearing differences correlated to socio-economic groupings. For upper-class children, various studies demonstrate the statistical meaninglessness of spanking vs. non-spanking, TV vs. no TV, and other hotly debated parenting issues. No - the only thing that really matters, according to the data cited, is socio-economic status. My private school students had all the advantages, where my public school students had less. And it showed in the way they interacted with the world; those from relative wealth and advantage knew that they had much to gain from being a part of the dominant culture; those with less to gain saw their main chance in rebelling against it. "If your only power lies in saying 'no,'" as someone once said, "that is what you will do."

This is frightening to me, in a world where we are so segregated by neighborhood, cultural and social affiliations, and to a lesser degree, work. For many reasons, black women especially have entered the work force and excelled, and have risen to management positions in health, education, welfare as well as the corporate world. It is not unusual to have black colleagues, and bosses, but they represent a small portion of those who have entered the 'white' world, and may still be largely cut off from social interactions beyond professional affiliation. Of course there are exceptions, but even today, an inter-racial couple stands out, as does an inter-racial friendship.

Today kids, black and white, idolize Usher and Beyonce and whoever is current (pop culture changes so fast now that I will embarrass myself if I try to name too many); sports heroes from basketball, tennis and golf are black and multiracial. Many white kids want to be seen as being 'black;' while black kids from poorer families don't want to be perceived as being 'too white.' The higher the social status, the less this seems to be true, but it I think it still plays a subtle role.

I bought a house in Cleveland's near west side 13 years ago in a mostly stable, working class neighborhood - or so I thought. I was naive enough to believe that the many somewhat run-down homes on my street would be snapped up by young professionals ready to move back to the 'Comeback City' - in fact I had been told by a local housing specialist that the street was, 'a candy store for redevelopment.' In fact, though there was some of that activity, what actually happened was that unscrupulous mortgage loan officers and appraisers took advantage of the rapid appreciation of housing values in the late 90s to strip value from many of the homes, which are now vacant and abandoned, and in foreclosure. Other homes, left by their owners who have died or fled to the suburbs, have become part of the portfolio of poorly maintained rental properties, complete with absentee ownership and/or section 8 (voucher) tenants. This has concentrated poverty in an area that has no capacity to offer jobs, security or social services, that struggles with keeping the streets clean and demolishing the back log of blighted and condemned properties, much less code inspection or redevelopment strategies. It has become 'affordable housing by default.' This in spite of efforts of organizations like the Cleveland Housing Network to provide safe, secure and affordable housing.

Many of the new residents are young black or Hispanic men, evidently without jobs or daytime activities, beyond drug sales and loitering. They have no hope of entering the daily life of mainstream, middle class America - the government, union and working class jobs that once offered stability are not found in sufficient numbers for people of any race. The public education system for many has become a stop on the way into the prison system, challenged by vouchers and No Child Left behind to demonstrate competence when few resources are provided, and demands are high.

Meanwhile our 'ownership society' has glorified consumption and macho posturing, winner-take-all strategies and hopeless preening, empty faith and contempt for the meek, who are supposed to have a special place in our hearts. Young men brag of their sexual conquests, which now include impregnating as many young women as possible, who themselves have fallen sway to the culture of arrogance and oppression which engulfs them.

I look for a way out, a place for my idealized, multiracial society that includes people from a broad spectrum of economic life. One that includes tolerance, respect, and humility, and concern for common humanity. Instead I find an urban culture that has abandonment and disintegration on the one side, with a growing wealthy class on the other - and very little left for those in the middle. Ironically, perhaps, the wealthy class has come to include people from other cultures and colors, and is somewhat representative of the people who live in America (visit the Beachwood Mall and you will see it evident) - but assimilation for the middle class and the poor is more difficult.

Trying to provide for a healthy, safe and multicultural environment in which to raise a child is a real challenge for me, my wife and others who have chosen urban living over the outer suburbs. Settling in a few small areas of downtown, Tremont, Ohio City, and greater parts (though shrinking) of Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, are people who have been committed to living in a multicultural, economically diverse world. They are more than outnumbered by the many poor and struggling people who would like to leave the city but lack the resources. And as Cleveland shrinks, economically and in population, opportunities, resources and funding diminishes for education, health and safety. Housing becomes rundown, neighbors less engaged, schools poorer.

The options are to become a 'colonist' in these small oases of the urban fabric, using personal resources to network and find services and schools that the public sphere fails to provide. Feeling a social connection with neighbors who may not engage with the culture, or are actively hostile to it, and feel betrayed by it, is difficult and problematic. So, people self-segregate in enclaves - just as they did at the lunch tables and dorms at my college.

If you want a feeling of safety, of clean streets and neat lawns, of regular trash collection and good schools, you might start to look at the suburbs, as so many have before you. Ever further out there, pulling back from the urban core, in the expanding 'doughnut' ring of growth, or sprawl. Homes built in cornfields, 'power centers' and faux urban 'lifestyle centers' leave behind the empty storefronts and collapsing malls that serviced previous generations. And this is to say nothing about the environmental cost.

Efforts to restore and maintain the urban core are underway, and in fact, I have spent some years as a part of it. But as I watch opportunities move outward, and a Federal and State government that seems hostile to urban communities, I wonder. Should I, too, move to Lakewood or Cleveland Heights, or onward to Westlake or Solon? Assuming I could afford it, would I? As it is, I drive outward for activities for my child, for a lot of day-to-day shopping, for a bookstore to browse in - although I try as much as possible to spend my dollars at local urban shops, the selection is scattered, limited and niche driven. It takes a dedicated person (though I do know some) to completely avoid Trader Joe's, Borders and the Gap.

I have tried, through living in the city and being a part of it, to help to grow it, and to contribute to it. I am also committed to speaking the truth of my experience, no matter what the outcome may be. Race plays a role for some in the push to flee the city, while for others it is a reason to stay. It plays a role with the safety forces and fire unions, no less with residents and shoppers. But it is less about race than about culture, about comfort, convenience and safety, and also about assimilation, pride and opportunity.

Oh, I do wish that this mess had been cleaned up by a previous generation. That Martin Luther King, JFK and Bobby, Malcolm X, had lived, that the Vietnam War had never happened, that George W. Bush never sobered up enough to win - or steal - an election. But this is the world we do live in, and we will have to figure it out. I really don't know what to do at this point. Will I leave, too? Or stay and fight what sometimes feels like a losing battle?

Sweet & Lucky

2006-01-20T16:50:00.000-05:00

I have 6 cupcakes in a box on the seat of my care today. From Sweet Mosaic, an in-house bakery located at Lucky’s Cafe in Tremont. And I made them.

Or really, I measured out flour, salt, shortening, vanilla, eggs, baking soda and baking powder, cinnamon, and vinegar to make the batter for banana cupcakes (I mashed the bananas too) and vanilla cake. Owner Heather Haviland mixed the batter in a vintage Hobart, showed me how to slather the mix in a pan, and she baked, cooled, frosted and decorated everything.

I was her sidekick for a day, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Imagine. Here you are in heaven. It smells like – well, a bakery. And it is an amazingly beautiful day in Cleveland, which is something I cannot always say. Small space. Kind of like being in a submarine, and we once in a while look through the porthole of the door at the ‘house,’ to see who’s in the coffee shop and what’s going on.

My coworkers are David, an apprentice baker who is finishing up culinary school, and Jody, manager of the coffee shop. David has an easy-going, low-key but friendly manner. Heather calls him ‘Sweetie.’ Jody with her blond ponytail tucked under a cap, has the breezy, confident manner of a barmaid. Which she has been, and is pleased to not be doing now.

While we work, a stream of people poke their heads into one of two doors to the tiny workspace. Keith Sutton, owner of the shop. Matt, a chef with the Barricelli Inn. Carl, photographer and local gardener. A former customer, a lady with cat’s eye glasses, pokes her head in the door and greets Heather, who says, you have to try this cake, I’ll bring some out later. Many get a hug, all get a smile and a warm greeting.

With NPR in the background, we work. With a little banter and some joking (Jody is mad – mad – that she was left out of the late Friday night pizza party for staff), we assemble ingredients in freshly cleaned containers, and slide pans of fragrant cakes into and out of the oven. The triple sink is never empty for long, and every item is returned to a storage rack, table tray, drawer or shelf.

As we work, I learn more about baking, and about my coworkers. I learn that gluten, the essential component for both bread and cake, must be treated differently for different products. For bread, you want a stretchy, sticky dough that comes from the pulling, kneading and rising. For cake, you want the gluten to be light and fluffy, brought out by light mixing and minimal processing. I learn that Heather has worked as a potter, owned a restaurant in Bearsville in New York State, and spent six years as a blacksmith. Without the benefit of a culinary education, she has worked in top area restaurants. Every recipe in the shop has been developed through painstaking trial and error. I find out that David grew up in Mentor, as did I, and that he is a fellow suburbanite who has chosen to live in the city. In addition to cooking, he would love to paint. Jody has worked in many restaurants and bars, but this is what she loves. Getting up at 5:30 am to prepare for the morning shift, greeting the first customers of the day, and of course, brewing wonderful coffee. This makes her happy in a way that bartending never did, she tells me. I also learn that she has a degree in sculpture, and in horticulture. She’s smart and funny and an excellent manager. Jody, like David, lives in Tremont. That’s one of the things that makes Tremont special for me – people who work here, tend to live here, too.

“Are you an oil person, or a butter person?” Heather asks me. Butter, I say. Good, she answers (she is too). Frequently, Heather will pull something from the oven, cut it up and everyone gets a taste. Right now, it’s a loaf of crusty, sourdough bread. “We use a hybrid sourdough, an Italian ‘levain’ method, combined with an American technique, due to our limited cooler space” …whatever. The bread is heavenly.

Jody takes me up to the front of the shop, to show me how to make a cappuccino and a latte. I am shown how to grind fresh coffee and place it in the metal widget that holds it tight in the machine, hand-packing the coffee to exactly 14 pounds of pressure, or close to it. We foam the milk to the proper fluffy peak; I use a thermometer gauge, Jody does it by the sound of the hot steam in the milk, changing the density of the butter fat and proteins and thus the pitch of the air flowing through the hot liquid. I am taught the difference between skim, whole milk and soy. Like everything else here, it’s a combination of art and science, intuition and intellect.

I think this is what I like about cooking – it engages the intellect to the extent that you want to, but really, it comes down to developing an artist’s eye, the sense of touch and smell – this is what makes a great cook, and a good one at home. I tell Heather that I like to cook, but I haven’t done much baking, because it requires strictly following the recipe and measuring it all out. She tells me that I am wrong, that a good baker can adjust each recipe by feel, allowing for changes in the weather, the ingredients or the desired outcome.

I guess it would be interesting to report that Tremont is full of sharp edges and odd angles, that anything named Sweet Mosaic must contain a bitter finish. But this isn’t so, not here. I close the day with a hug from Heather, as she rushes out to take a plate of warm cake to the lady with the cat’s eye glasses.

Lucky’s, which houses Sweet Mosaic and features fresh bakery daily, is located at 777 Starkweather in Tremont. Sweet Mosaic website is: http://www.sweetmosaic.com/

Yoga Happy Hour

2006-01-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

Yoga is hot. Over the years it has gone from being granola crunchy to mainstream. While it still has the faint scent of patchouli about it, you can find a Yoga studio in almost every small town, city or neighborhood anywhere in the country. If not a studio, you will find a class in a church, home or workshop somewhere.

Studio 11 is one of two places I know of to do yoga in Tremont, the other being Pilgrim Church. Ohio City used to have the West Side Y, which closed, but teacher Joan McGuire still teaches at the Franklin Circle Church and at Buck Harris' studio, 'No Place Like Om' in Detroit Shoreway; and classes are held at MorrisonDance studios in Ohio City. I am sure there are others, but those are ones that I have personally attended.

Last week, as part of my efforts to get to know the Tremont business owners a bit better, I volunteered to work at the Friday Karma Yoga 'Happy Hour' that Studio 11 sponsors, very popular during Art Walks. This evening would be special, because the class would be led by husband and wife team Tammi and Terry Singley, followed by a potluck dinner (including treats from 'Take A Bite' owners Tom and Joy Harlor) and poetry reading. What more could I ask for?

As the 'Karma Yogi' (volunteer) for the evening, I arrived at 5:00 pm to help set up. Tiiu Gennert, who with Kate Murch is a founder/owner of Studio 11, met me at the door with her infectious enthusiasm radiating. She is one of those overachievers who could be really irritating if she weren't so dang nice (yoga teacher, Pilates instructor, Thai massage practitioner - not to mention lawyer, theater person, sports enthusiast). And yes, Tiiu is her given name, and Eastern European rather than Sanskrit as I had assumed. We ran around and lit incense, arranged yoga blankets, prepared artichoke dip, and hauled stuff from the upstairs yoga studio to the downstairs Pilates area, site of the potluck and poetry reading.

Studio 11 is in the triangular shaped entrance to Lemko Hall. The Lemkos were Eastern Europeans with a fascinating history (see the website: http://lemko.org/genealogy/buryk.html). The hall is famous for being featured in the 1970s classic movie 'The Deer Hunter.' The Studio 11 space is a wide, welcoming, room, with candles, incense and a springy Pergo floor, perfect for yoga. Years ago a friend of mine had a studio here when she was a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art - she made an enormous American flag made out of woven lead fabric on the floor; I remember several other artists rented the space before Tremont was hot. Architect Bob Vayda updated the space when he bought it, leasing it to a gallery for a number of years before he created a yoga studio, Prava, which he subsequently sold to Tiiu and Kate.

Kate looks like a 1930s movie star, tall and elegant. Together she and Tiiu embody what makes Tremont special - young, enterprising, and fun. They laugh a lot, and seem not to take themselves or anything too seriously - except in their desire to have a great yoga studio.

Just before 6:oo pm people start to arrive - an older guy, a mom with her pre-teen daughter, established professional women, 20-somethings, a couple, an older woman who is trying yoga for the first time - eventually 40 people fill the room. My job is to collect the $5 donation for tonight's special class, make sure they sign in and that new people fill out the health survey. It's a daunting task to keep up, and I try to project a yoga-appropriate air of calm and serenity.

Tammi and Terry are charismatic and skillful leaders. They tag team on leading yoga and adjusting postures. There is a great feeling in the room, as there usually is during a yoga class. There's a lot of laughter in between poses - Terry especially, is funny, and has kind of a 'yoga tough guy' thing going on. He's an expert with a group. His wife is quieter, focused and keeps things rolling. Before you know it, we are in final relaxation pose. I try not to feel ridiculous, as I have been pushed out to the entry way by the capacity crowd; my yoga moves are visible in the doorway to anyone who is sitting at Civilization or Studio Le Beau. But I have a good yoga buzz on so what do I care? Tiiu instructs me how to sweep the floor 'McDonald's Style' (a continuous zig zag) and we're done.

The potluck that follows is a surprise - about half the attendees stay on, and eat delicious food. The poetry reading is limited to two performers - one, a lawyer who became a yoga practitioner without realizing his connections to Tiiu - they worked at the same law firm at one time. He read his rhyming couplets to much laughter as Tom and Joy's children raced about and people lounged on yoga blankets finishing their tea or beer. The other reader had been the first to arrive that evening, he recited a heartfelt poem that he had not written but had enjoyed and wanted to share. People lingered for longer than I expected, and it made for a perfect evening.

I am so glad there is a yoga studio in Tremont. Kate told me: "I feel like the energy in Tremont has just been building and building for 20 years or more, and now we are a part of it." I think she's right.

The Studio 11 website can be found at: http://www.studio11tremont.com/index.htm

Preservation Gospel

2006-01-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow the architects and owners of the Gospel Press building will present their rehabilitation plan to the Cleveland Landmarks Commission. This is an amazing event and one I thought might never happen. For years the building has sat empty or near empty. A succession of artists, bohemians and developers had had their dreams dashed in their dealings with previous owner Joe Skully, who was smart like a fox and good at dangling people's hopes just out of reach. At one time, the building was going to be the Tremont Cultural Center, a grand live/work project. A group of artists lived within the cold, dank walls of this mausoleum, working for free for Joe to try to salvage the decrepit yet beautiful building. Nothing much ever came from it except bitter feelings and dashed hopes.

Now someone with the capacity to take on a project of this scale has done so - a developer who is willing to work within the confines of Historic Preservation. There are tax advantages to this, and a project of this scale will need subsidy of some type to make sense. It is simply too big, and the building needs too much work, to go about it any other way. I hope the project is successful.

If you love old buildings, you will likely have your heart broken more often than not. Many many beautiful buildings from Cleveland's past are destroyed - from the humble Carpenter's Gothic farmhouse (c. 1840s) that was torn down (in the dead of night without a permit) on W. 25th St. to East Cleveland's gorgeous Kirk Middle School - one of the finest public education buildings I have ever been in (marble floors, murals, brass ornamentation, sculpture - and columns that one of the E. Cleve council members said reminded her of slavery). And many others. I have literally lost sleep worrying about buildings that were to be demolished.

Recently I took an online poll which was meant to determine the polltaker's level of mental health. In the category of 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder' I scored high under the heading of "an unwilliness to let go of the past, even if the object no has a purpose for you." I have no idea why these things correlate, but I think it is interesting. And I can tell you that many of the staunch historic preservationists I have met are - well, a bit odd. OCD would likely show up in their mental profile. But then I suppose I am a bit odd myself.

Some people are completely unsentimental about old buildings. They make good developers, because they see a building in terms of financial yield, and they understand that historic 'charm' is one of the possibly marketable commodities that can help sell a project. But they have the ability to step back and be honest, because charm is only one many characteristics that can make a project economically viable. To the dyed in the wool historic preservationist, each building has a history, a story to tell, a personality - a soul. So a demolition or a terrible renovation is a shock, a kind of a murder.

Architecture is as trendy as clothing, and as fickle. Victorian homes were considered 'ugly' and 'grotesque' in the tract house era of the 1950s and many were torn down or 'modernized.' 1950s aluminum siding makes way for vinyl siding in the 1980s that now steps aside for Hardie Board or galvanized metal. Entire neighborhoods become 'obsolete' only to become fashionable again. The 1950s ranch home that I disdained is now 'mid-century modern' and desirable. And of course, American society is so mobile that entire states can suffer a net loss of population yielding a surplus of unwanted housing (hello Ohio).

I have hardened my heart to the loss of buildings. I try to look at them as just a pile of sticks and stones, without souls. They have utility or they don't, and the market will determine that. It's the American way. But still, I cheer when a victory is won, and a building that might tell a good story - and maybe has a soul - is saved. You go, Gospel Press.

Urban Disturbance

2006-01-10T08:50:00.000-05:00

As I walked out of my house this past Sunday morning I noticed something a little strange - the hood of our Honda was cracked open just a bit. Uh oh. The driver-side door was unlocked; I've done this before, it's easy enough to forget to lock it. I jumped in and turned the key - the engine turned over but no spark, as they say on Car Talk. I popped open the hood and well - no wiring harness, no spark plugs. Someone had stolen the wiring right out of my car! Damn!

I've lived in the city for 20 years now and in the Southern Tremont/Metro area for 13. In that time I have had one car vandalized, had the plates stolen off of my van, my garage broken into and had a bike and lawn mower stolen, had a table stolen off of my front porch, and now this. I guess that is not too bad a track record for the time involved - I remind myself that when my sister lived in Manhatten I was amazed to hear that someone had stolen the eye shades out of her car; that and being mugged on the subway. I feel that crime is pretty low in Cleveland.

But still. It is aggravating. My neighbor had the stainglass windows stolen out of his Victorian home in the middle of the day. I have cleaned up buckets of trash off of the street and sidewalk including unbagged dirty diapers and a chicken carcass. I have been on my front porch as I watched some kid let his pit bull crap on my lawn. I have seen numerous homes go into foreclosure and become boarded up eyesores that have not been rehabbed. I have called in drug dealing to the police more times than I can count, I have witnessed drag racing on my residential street. I have had some idiot kid try to intimidate me by tailing me and revving his engine. I heard gunshots at night and there have been two murders within a block of my house that I know of - one was a robbery at a convenience store and the other may have been a drug deal gone bad.

I used to feel 'if you care about the city, you should live in it.' That was going to be the topic sentence for an editorial I never wrote. I believed it fervently. When I first bought a house in the city I proudly used the term 'urban pioneer' (until I heard that the phrase was racist because what about the people, largely nonwhite, who came before me?) But now I feel less like a pioneer and more like a - victim. Sometimes. Especially when the spark plugs are stolen right out from under the hood of my car.

On the other side of the ledger - my young neighbor, Jerrod, who tells me he 'lives for it' when I tell him not to work too hard - he's helping me rake leaves. Or the three young sisters who stop by to leave presents, cards and their school pictures. Or my neighbor, who organized a prayer vigil in the dead of winter for the young mother who died in that convenience store robbery. There is the music of many languages, the smells of Puerto Rican cooking, the West Side Market, the local church that still conducts services in German.

It's my job to market the city and Tremont to young professionals, visitors, shoppers. Which I proudly do. I also spend a lot of time with the 'grassroots' - block club members who have lived here for decades - doing neighborhood cleanups, writing grants, staffing meetings. The trick is to balance the competing concerns of the new well-to-do and the old been-here-firsts, and do what is right for everyone.

But where do I fall? My love of old architecture, walkable streets, church steeples, history, diversity and urban texture, even if it includes some urban grit, is giving way. Giving way to concerns for safety, convenience, schools. My wife and I have a young daughter, just nine months old. How do we want her to grow up? Where?

My feeling that the personal is political, that I could change things by being a part of it, is diminishing. I now see things in broader, bigger terms, of forces largely beyond the control of any one person. And while this makes me feel less angry at times about personal loses, it makes me feel less passionate about the city. And that makes me sad.

Cleveland Colectivo

2006-01-06T14:01:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I started circulating around an email that basically said, hey, I'm tired of talking about changing things in Cleveland, I want to take some direct action - anyone else feel that way? Well, the response was pretty amazing. I got a ton of emails. And eventually, some of the people who had emailed met, talked it over, and the Cleveland Colectivo was born. It's not such a big deal - just a group of friends and acquaintances who have decided to pool money and resources and then did some research on how to set up an informal charitable organization, or Giving Circle. We've attracted about 25 members and made regular donations and now we have $5000 to give away, or invest. We don't have much in the way of formal funding criteria, and the application process couldn't be easier - just answer three questions and send in via email on our website, and the first part is done. The second part would be getting invited back to present your idea to the group.

The deadline is mid-January to send the email, and the website is:

http://www.clevelandcolectivo.org/

Individuals, organizations, start-up businesses and non-profits are all welcome to apply, and we plan to make awards ranging from $500 to $5000.

Oh yes - we'd like to have more new members too - either fully contributing members who join for $100/quarter (people can pair up to join also); or volunteer members who do everything the others do but who do not have a final vote on funding. Also members can bring their own projects to the table for consideration, but must abstain when the vote is called.

We meet on the third Wednesdays of the month. I will post the next meeting time and location here as well. But in the meanwhile, visit the site and figure out a way to spend our money - doing something really, really cool.

Pre Fab Homes

2006-01-05T14:37:00.000-05:00

Recently I ran across a really great book called 'Good House Cheap House' which was full of articles and illustrations of sleek, modern homes built dirt cheap (relatively). Wouldn't it be cool to see something like this in Cleveland?

This website has tons of information about modular homes that could make this possible.

http://www.fabprefab.com/

Cleveland Wiki (CleveWiki)

2006-01-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

Looks like someone is setting up a Cleveland Wiki, which is a user-defined site for all things Cleveland - including Tremont. Visit the site and add to the knowledge base for the neighborhood (or Cleveland in general):

http://clevewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Tremont

Graffiti Wars

2005-12-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

So I get a call from a local businessman, Bill. He owns industrial buildings in Tremont and Ohio City that have been 'tagged' - repeatedly - with graffiti. He has met with new Ward 14 councilman Joe Santiago and he's terribly concerned; and now Bill wants to 'do something' about it.

*Sigh*

I wish I knew the answer to this. I will try to be helpful.

The graffiti in Tremont is mostly tags - little squiggles of semi-readable letters or initials. It's not the super-creative stuff that looks like a Zen master artist crossed with visual hip hop that you see in the Bronx, or maybe along the RTA route in Cleveland...no, this is just words like 'spend' written over and over; some kid saying "I am here"...

...it's found on utility boxes, garage doors (mine included), mailboxes, blank walls...and unfortunately, on occupied, beautiful, unpainted brick buildings, like Bill's, which takes up a whole block, and is now irrepairably damaged.

Paint it over, I tell him. The city no longer has an anti-graffiti program, so it's DIY. ASAP.

He's done that. Five times. What now?

Merrick House sponsors a mural program for teens; it's staffed by Rocky Melendez. Rocky is tall, with heavy metal hair and an easy, tough-guy manner. The kids respect him. Under his supervision they paint and maintain the International Flag murals under the highway overpass in Tremont. I call him up. Yeah, he says, there's some new kid tagging in Tremont. He's not one of ours; our kids don't know him. Must be a busser, the tags run along bus routes. He has no respect, he's an outsider. We'll keep an eye out, he tells me.

I tell Bill to call Marianne Ludwig, owner of Scoops. She and her husband Jon have spent many weekends painting out graffiti. Originally councilman Cimperman purchased paint for them and helped out, but now I think it's just mostly Marianne, Jon, and any of their friends or family 'lucky' enough to be roped in. Call her, I say - she and her husband can tell you exactly what shade of brown to paint a traffic light control box versus the perfect green for an SBC router. Bill is excited that he's not the only one concerned with this issue. But he doesn't want to spend every weekend painting out graffiti.

Bill has called the police, who just don't seem that interested. I can understand - they're short staffed, these kids are hard to catch, there are more serious crimes in the Second District. But we both remember that suburban kid who was caught, fined and sentanced to community service, painting out graffiti - wasn't that in Cleveland Heights?

Clark Metro is installing security cameras - maybe that is the answer. Although I hate to think we are living in Geroge Orwell's '1984.' But it's an avenue to explore. They're expensive.

Some years ago, a book was published that urged city planners, police, politicians and bureaucrats to address small issues quickly to prevent their spread and growth into bigger issues. It was called, "Broken Windows."

But in an era of limited government, limited budgets, and overwhelming problems, who will keep the small problems from growing into bigger ones?

Last summer, I worked with Court Community Service to paint out graffiti, clean up the streets and sidewalks. We worked every saturday from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. Some days, I'd be driving down Scranton a half hour after the crew had completed work and the area we had cleaned would already be full of trash. It never ends.

Someone once characterized American society as notable for it's "private opulence and public squalor." Some days, it strikes me that we have become the Third World - trash filled vacant lots, boarded up windows, gang graffiti. So I guess the choice is - go out there and clean it up - or turn your eyes from it - or move to a cleaner, wealthier neighborhood.

Private opulence. Public squalor.

Does it have to be one or the other?

Bill tells me he's lost tenants who see the graffiti and flee. His property has lost economic value, and so has the neighborhood. Bill wants to share his frustration, and to look for answers.

Meanwhile, the graffiti blooms like urban flowers in winter.

Haves and Have Nots

2005-12-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

During the holidays, and with the usual orgy of consumption of food and gifts, it is hard not to think about inequities, and what we are do to address them. I have heard it said that 'you are heartless if you are not a liberal before 30, and a fool if you are not a conservative after;' however I think that it is possible to be hard- headed and open-hearted at the same time - but it takes some work.

My background and natural inclination is for the arts and humanities - books, music, and art appeal to me - but if it is true that as you get older you begin to integrate opposing sides of your nature, than it is economics and politics that fascinate me now. I had a professor in college who defined politics as 'the art of who gets what - where, when and how much' and because of my job, I get to see this in action. Money to build and rehab houses, to organize, and to provide services, comes from our taxes and flows through the hands of politicians and bureaucrats until it is finally returned to us, the citizens. This process is awkward and often ugly, but if it is transparent, no better way presently exist. Our group consciousness, or a collection of our decisions, will come to reflect our will. And 'we will get the government that we deserve;' a good one, to the extent that we are willing to be an active part of the process.

From my essentially romantic view of the world, based on my love for art and books, it came as a shock to realize that there is an entirely different way of seeing the world - of looking at it for what it can yield, rather than for what it represents. In other words, where one person sees a tree, another sees lumber. Or rather, they see the profit, because the lumber is a means to an end. The trees themselves are unimportant to the capitalist; to the romantic, they represent life, beauty, growth or any number of things that we envision.

At its best, community development reflects both of these realities - seeing the world with compassion and beauty, yet with an understanding of monetary value.

Conservatives love to talk about the 'invisible hand' of the economy, and they have a high regard for leaving this 'force' uninhibited, (I wish they had a similar regard for the 'invisible hand' of nature!) Our job in community development is to interfere - to build and rehab houses and businesses in neighborhoods that the economy, the 'invisible hand' has left behind. If we are good, we will reveal value where others had failed to see it, and create new markets - if we are bad, we will waste money on a project for which there is no demand. It takes a combination of head and heart to see the vision and the reality.

I think this combination of head and heart is what is needed to be a good steward - neither unfettered greed nor starry-eyed idealism. It is tough to get at the right combination, but I believe it is possible when we are honest and open and refrain from demonizing the opposition.

The right loves to criticize the left for being soft and unrealistic. While I embrace the word Liberal, I agree with the critics. To take a phrase from the right, I would suggest that 'compassionate conservatism' is just what we need - taking these words literally and not for the deceptive buzzwords they have become. We must be conservative with our resources, whether they are historic buildings, people, or wealth - while at the same time being compassionate for those who have as well as for those who do not. It may be trite, but it is important to remember that we are all in this together, and to work for the common good takes just the right combination of head and heart.

What is a community development corporation anyway?

2005-12-21T10:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I certainly didn't know until I was over 30. I grew up in suburban Cleveland - the kind of place that is eerily quiet most of the day, with kids at soccer practice, or inside watching TV. We knew our neighbors, but we certainly didn't organize around any issues with them. Of course, there were issues - just hidden away. In the city, it's different. Kids are outside all summer, riding bikes in the street, playing football. And their parents too, tend to be out - sitting on the front stoop or the porch, laughing, talking, whatever. The issues are out there too - poverty, racism, pollution, teen moms, drugs. Not much is hidden away. And neighbors in the city do tend to get to know each other better, even if they don't like one another, this is the way that it is.

I understand that Community Development Corporations, or CDCs, as they are known, were started in the 1960s in part through the efforts of President Kennedy and his brother, Bobby. First in the inner cities, spreading then to less poor sections of town, downtowns, and inner ring suburbs, these organizations thrived and may have peaked, for now, in the late 1990s. They are officially charities, sanctioned by the IRS as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. Their purpose is simple - to eliminate slum and blight conditions, to distribute educational information on health, safety and community organizing, and to alleviate the burdens of government. Their first functions where to organize around issues - scrappy, grassroots organizing to tear down a blighted property, clean up a park, or chase away a drug dealer. They were funded to do this through Community Development Block Grants, federal dollars that flow through the local government and into the community. Based upon early successes, and with access to capital, CDCs started to take on bigger projects, to become 'developers of last resort.' This can be clearly seen in Cleveland where many CDCs own significant chunks of real estate, both commercial property or apartment buildings. Funding organizations, called 'intermediaries,' have been set up by private foundations in many cities to assist CDCs with their work. In Cleveland, we have the Cleveland Foundation, which set up Neighborhood Progress Incorporated to directly fund and assist CDCs with these efforts. There are others - LISC, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation; and CNDC, the Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition, which is an umbrella organization to support and advocate for CDCs. In most neighborhoods, the local city council member is a supporter and funder of the work that CDCs do.

The Tremont West Development Corporation was chartered in 1978 - set up by Merrick House, among others, to assist in eliminating an arson problem which was rampant in the neighborhoood. Over the years, we have worked to organize and staff block clubs, which currently number ten; we have managed affordable housing in partnership with the Cleveland Housing Network, currently over 300 units in Tremont, and also in Clark Metro and Ohio City; we have assisted 30 businesses with significant, historic renovations of commercial property; and we have partnered with for-profit developers to assist them in building market-rate homes, which currently stands at over 150 units priced from $140,000 to over $500,000, with another 150 units on the planning board (including the massive renovation of Valley View Housing Estates). Increasingly, we are also 'fiscal agent' or financial manager of funds for organizations like the Art Walk, ReStore Tremont, and the Tremont History Committee - independent groups that need assistance, much like block clubs do.

So, have we been successful? As a staff member, I would like to think so. Tremont is certainly one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Cleveland - partly due to our efforts, and partly, maybe mostly, due to the risks taken by entrepreneurs who have started bars, restaurants and galleries in the neighborhood, and people who have renovated property to live in, or to sell or rent. But - poverty persists in Tremont, as does some crime, though much less than before and comparable with the better neighborhoods in Cleveland and in its suburbs. It is no longer the 'bad old South Side.' But it is still an incomplete task, with perils of gentrification on the one hand, and stalling development and disinvestment on the other. Neighborhoods are always changing, and there will always be unwelcome challenges as well as unseen opportunities.

Tremont West is a public organization in that our meetings are open, our bylaws and master planning are achieved in cooperation with an elected board of directors and with guidence from the block clubs and area business and property owners. Becoming a member of TWDC is as easy as attending a public meeting and signing in.

However, CDCs are sometimes the target for people's anxieties and anger. Those who feel the neighborhood is changing too fast, or not enough, or into something they don't like, can and sometimes do, blame the CDC. Because we work in cooperation (and sometimes in opposition to) the city government and local council people, we can become a target for tensions between government and constituent.

Challenges for CDC exist too, because federal funding for efforts are ever shrinking, and likely to shrink still more. Therefore organizations must start to do more fundraising, and charge fees for some services, which is always controversial.

I find myself, sometimes, on the defensive with neighborhood critics. After all, I live in this neighborhood too - I started as a volunteer in my block club, ran for and was elected to the board, and happened into a job at Tremont West when I found myself unemployed. No one will ever, nor should ever, get rich working for a CDC. But I love my job and think that I am good at it after 7 years, and I get rankled when people think either that me or the organization I work for are either all-powerful and against the little guy, or alternatively weak, stupid and worthless (and oh yes, I have heard both, especially because I do live in the neighborhood!) I must say, however, that our critics keep us honest; keep us trying harder; and keep us humble. I used to have a teacher who said that if you want to sharpen your tools you need to get the resistance and roughness of a sharpening stone, or of criticism, to do it.

But still I say - if you don't like what we do, help us do it - join your block club, run for the board, protest at city hall. In the city, there is just too much to do to stay inside all day. And that is the beauty and the ugliness of it - keepin' it real, I guess.

Take a Bite of Tremont

2005-12-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I worked with Tom and Joy Harlor, owners of Tremont's popular caterer and boutique deli, Take a Bite. As part of my job, I have wanted to volunteer to work a three-hour shift with area merchants to get a feel for their day-to-day business operations, and Tom and Joy were the first who agreed to my request. When I walked in this morning, Tom told me to wash up - as long as it would take me to sing a verse of 'Happy Birthday' (which I declined to sing out loud). He threw me an apron and a dishrag and, noting my bald head, told me I wouldn't need a cap. Joy directed me to start by slicing tomatoes - "We'll see how you do here as a warm up," Tom said with a nearly concealed wink. A brief introduction to my coworkers, already busy with their tasks, and I jumped in.

Three hours later, I had made 170 puff pastries (with help from their talented pastry chef), sliced and stacked trays of sandwiches (harder than it looks), wrapped trays of fresh baked goods, and done innumerable loads of dishes in the triple sink. What I didn't do was even more important - no accidental knife cuts, no burned hands, no dropped food, and I pretty much avoided aggravating my busy, temporary co-workers - or they were gracious enough not to show it. I avoided the cash register completely because my ignorance here could cost the business money, but I had a first hand view of the line forming on the other side of the counter.

What I learned: running a small business in Tremont is hard work - competative and busy, with long, long hours. The food business is unforgiving. A family run business means you really have to like your coworkers, because you'll go home with them at the end of the day.

And oh yeah - I learned that it's one thing to love to cook, and a whole other thing to make a living at it.

I look forward to working more shifts around Tremont, and I will post them here.