Cleveland, Ohio's Blighted Hope; urban gentrification and renewal

Horeshoe Casino Cleveland 

It’s been two years since my last visit to Ohio.   Usually the first few days are nostalgic, fond memories of my childhood, being reunited with family and old friends, then by the end of my visit there is a biting sense of reality.   What does this city have to offer young professionals?  A failing school system, high crime rates, and blighted buildings everywhere you turn.   Oh I forgot their building a casino in the heart of downtown.  Yes, the casino will look pretty and sparkly but the long-term damage on the lives of the city’s most vulnerable residents will be significant.  

Gentrification and urban renewal are terms that come to mind.  This is were all the poor people are pushed out of the city and basically sentenced to live in a modern day lepers colony.  You know the ones from biblical times, where a community’s less than desirable members are isolated and forced to live separate from all of the beautiful successful people.  They are the poor, the Black, and the uneducated. 

Blighted Buildings scream gentrification 

in urban areas like Cleveland, OH.

The only beacon of light I saw was the Tremont community, a mixed income community with newly built apartments, homes, and townhomes.   That makes sense blue-collar workers and white-collar workers living together in the same community.   Is it that we are afraid to actually be humane and open to economic and cultural diversity?  So afraid we are willing to leave a group of people to parish and rot only to make ourselves more comfortable? 

Shame on the city officials who have watched this happen and done nothing to save this city or is this part of some greater plan.  A plan to let the city literally fall apart until there is nothing left of the people who actually inhabited it.

I am a huge sucker for the under dog story line.  You know what would make a good story; if all the poor and marginalized people in the city would stop waiting on the city to save them, band together and save themselves.   Re-organize community groups, learn about political issues that affect them, be a loud unified voice in this wilderness of urban gentrification.  Storm the gates, protest, anything but sitting back and waiting to be voted off the island.