Have you seen our new chandelier?

by Cleveland Frowns on October 9, 2014

It’s naturally tempting for more well-off Northeast Ohioans to believe that a renaissance is underway in the region. LeBron is coming back, the Republican convention is coming to Cleveland, fancy new buildings continue to go up downtown, we just got the world’s biggest outdoor chandelier, and the local paper has been trumpeting a “brain gain” in the city.

brite lites

“Young professionals from elsewhere [are] streaming into urban neighborhoods, raising education and income levels and maybe setting the stage for a new economy,” the Plain Dealer’s Robert L. Smith wrote in April of a study published by researchers at Cleveland State.

Yet as much as this CSU study might mostly mean that you can only get a job in Cleveland anymore if you’re a doctor, it was only a few weeks ago that the same local paper brushed off new census numbers showing that Cleveland’s decade-plus-long poverty crisis is as bad as ever, with 54.4% of the city’s children living below the poverty line. In announcing the census results, the PD spent most of its column on the subject trying to argue, without any apparent concern about growing inequality and segregation, that the numbers aren’t as bad as they might look because well-off Clevelanders have been more successful than people in other cities have at isolating themselves and their tax dollars from the city’s poor.

So is poverty worse in Cleveland than it is in Columbus? It depends on how you want to look at it,” Rich Exner wrote.

In other words, it depends on what you mean by “Cleveland.” “Our” Cleveland, or “theirs“?

Which mainly goes to show how the reality of this Tale of Two Cities continues to grow increasingly bleak while the narrative paradoxically grows increasingly one-sided — a trend that’s especially troubling given the unprecedentedly unchecked influence of moneyed interests on media and the political process;

Making alternative media, and especially pieces like this one at Belt Magazine by one of the most accomplished and respected economists in Ohio, George Zeller, all the more important.

“Bits of good news — as  welcome as they may be — are dwarfed by a relentlessly bleak economic reality,” Zeller writes. “The numbers are bad — and getting worse — and the suffering behind those numbers is more wretched.”

Read the whole thing, in which Zeller presents the numbers and discusses the implications. And if you think it’s important, please consider doing what you can to support Belt Mag, such as by bookmarking the page, joining the e-mail list, becoming a member, and by visiting regularly to engage with the work there and spreading the word.

  • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

    “LeBron James is homeward bound, Johnny Manziel is already here and the Republican National Convention is coming to town in 2016. What does it all mean? Media outlets from coast to coast have turned to Cleveland State University experts for insights into our hometown’s resurgence.”

    This copy was posted by CSU at a Storify page:

    https://storify.com/CLE_State/csu-experts-weigh-in-on-cleveland-s-comeback

    Um, Beej, this is your Browns/Steelers open thread. Use it wisely and lovingly as always.

    Will be back in a couple weeks with a big Cavs season preview and who knows when else depending on what happens in the meantime.

  • http://Streetsblog.net Angie Schmitt

    For some reason, there is this real resistance to actually looking at the numbers soberly and having an informed discussion about them. I find that (smart) people are woefully misinformed about very basic attributes of the region. For example, some guy on Urban Ohio insisting that if Cleveland’s boundaries were as large as Columbus’s they would have the same population loss as us. There is NO WAY that is true. Almost all, if not all, of Cleveland’s inner ring suburbs are shrinking, quickly. For Cleveland to redraw its boundaries in a way that would produce growth is impossible. People who try to point out that kind of thing get treated like heretics. There is like this wide scale denial about basic facts about our region that are really very obvious. Like people have confused downtown growth with city or regional growth — big difference. Or people take that brain gain study to mean Cleveland doesn’t have sort of an educational attainment deficit. We do. A serious one.

    • http://Streetsblog.net Angie Schmitt

      Just by the way, this independent study — done not by Clevelanders — shows Cleveland in the bottom 7 on degree migration out of the 50 largest MSAs. In other words near the bottom of people with college degrees migrating here. How odd that it would be at total contrast with what we are being told here locally. http://www.newgeography.com/content/004484-a-look-college-degree-migration

      • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

        Wow.

        • actovegin1armstrong

          The biggest “brain gain” in Cleveland happened in 1980.

          • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

            Addition by subtraction, I assume?

          • actovegin1armstrong

            Bingo!

      • Allen P

        It would be interesting to ask Richey Piiparinen for an explanation of the contrast.

      • Steve Bittence

        Both studies used the American Community Survey. The difference between the CSU study and the New Geography study is that New Geography looks at the migration of college educated people age 25 or older (i.e., including someone who is 70 with a college degree and may be moving south to retire). The CSU study used cohorts aged 25-34 and 35-44 to look at the educational level of the work force.

        • Steve Bittence

          The CSU study is available here: http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2166&context=urban_facpub

          Also, I agree that some positive news does not eliminate the need to focus on the regions many problems.

          • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

            So they’re only measuring the average education level of the workers that are moving in. Not sure this tells us anything other than that if you’re not a doctor there’s no job for you in Cleveland.

  • Allen P

    I can always count on both of you to “re-ground” the narrative on Cleveland’s comeback (and I appreciate that). As a native who plans to spend their life here, I sincerely love the area and want it to succeed – and naturally I grab on to the positive news as a sign that I’m not insane to want to be here. So it’s important to correctly frame the news, both good and bad, so as to prevent closed-thinking.

    Meaning: we need the “bad” news to spur discussion regarding solutions to real problems, while we need “good” news to remind ourselves that there are good reasons to solve those problems.

  • nj0

    Galleria
    Rock Hall
    new stadium
    Tower City
    another new stadium
    convention center
    medical mart
    casino
    Captain America II
    chandelier
    Republican National Convention

    • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

      “Cleveland’s leadership has no apparent theory of change. Overwhelmingly, the strategy is now driven by individual projects. These projects, pushed by the real estate interests that dominate the board of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, confuse real estate development with economic development. This leads to the “Big Thing Theory” of economic development: Prosperity results from building one more big thing.” – Ed Morrison

      http://www.newgeography.com/content/00553-cleveland-part-ii-re-constructing-comeback

  • nj0

    What I find interesting as an ex-pat living in Texas: down here everything is blowing up so much that growth is the default condition. “Tear it down, build something up.” It’s the real, honest fruits of a booming economy. When I make the ten-minute drive home tonight, I will pass at least a half dozen construction projects and most would be BFDs in Cleveland. Down here, they’re nothing. They’re the norm. People seriously don’t even realize they’re happening. “A thirty-story apartment building is going up right there? Really?”

    So when I hear about this Cleveland renaissance? I don’t know. I’m probably coming across as a jerk more than I want to. Just saying: I’m glad things are going well, but keep things in perspective.

    And much like it’s easy to make your NFL roster younger, it’s easy to spend a lot of money on public works. Show me results. For football, that means wins. For Cleveland, it’d be an actual economic revival.

    • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

      Thanks for this. The lessons of the Shurmurball Era continue to guide us toward a brighter future.

  • Allen P

    Oh and by the way, support Belt!

  • beeej

    Am I the only person that thinks the regression of the Browns’ D has more to do with the rule changes than anything else (granted the tackling has been piss poor)? The Browns built their D to be physical, and hard hitting. Their success would hinge on our DBs being able to man up and challenge receivers every step of the way. With the rules change in place it seems our greatest strength has become our biggest liability. I think they are talented enough to adjust, but it is not something that will happen over a week or two. I’m thinking the defense will look a lot tougher after week 8.

    Thanks Frowns! I’ve been waiting 5 weeks to make this comment. I need more friends… or a friend. Whiskey will never leave me.

    • nj0

      I made the same comment over at WFNY just yesterday. They drafted a big physical corner who no longer can play big physical corner so now he has to basically relearn the position.

      • actovegin1armstrong

        That is why even though I like Gilbert, I would have been happier with leaving the picks where they were, taking Jake Matthews and Jason Verrett.

        • http://www.clevelandfrowns.com/ Cleveland Frowns

          GUYS WE WON.

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