"Got to be some changes made"

So sang blues guitarist Albert King.

Cleveland is the poorest city in the country. Does it get any worse than that? Let's not kid ourselves. We have sunk to a new low. Many of us have escaped to the suburbs but can all the lawyers, doctors, CEO's and managers who work downtown or at University Circle miss what's going on?

Let's take a journey through Cleveland's Industrial Wasteland. After spending some time down in the steel mill area, an area that is somewhat alive with activity, you understand why Cleveland ain't ever going to be what it used to be. That's why it's time to forge a new vision of Cleveland.

The fact that ISG got steelmaking going and profitable again in Cleveland is amazing. The key was to get it to profitability so it could compete. Unless we want to completely socialize our economy, businesses that aren't efficient need to either improve or move on.

Lots of tracks, rail cars and buildings with smoke stacks are not the future of Cleveland. It belongs to a time long ago. Cleveland served a purpose in the Industrial Age and benefitted from it. No need for higher education. Just get a job at the plant that your family worked at. Support the union and retire early. Times were easy then.

You could have a decent living working in the industrial backyard of Cleveland. The unions got their fair share of the revenue when the times were good, when the South had no factories, and when the thought of Asians and South Americans producing and importing quality products was an absurdity. There is nothing wrong with unions but they need to evolve. The union mentality of the 1950's is now an irrelevant nuissance today.

Piles of raw materials moved in and out of Cleveland through giant ore boats. Huge vehicles pushed it around. Everything was big, raw and tough.

The times changed and Clevelanders didn't change with it. Now we are left needing a massive overhaul. Drive the streets of Cleveland sometime. Not downtown which is just a pleasing front covering a huge wreck. Drive down Broadway, Union, Cedar, East 55th and see the old plants and factories shuttered down. Go along St. Clair or Lorain or Superior and you'll see the boarded-up shells of times past. These wrecks stretch block upon block. Even more pitiable are the homes, now shabby, decaying, beyond repair.

The doors were once new and shiny. Now they are just reminders of what was. Clevelanders live in the past too much and don't spend enough time envisioning their future.

Like a tree with blight, the equipment rusts, the windows get boarded up and the doors close. It's not our fault that these factories of yesterday are now crumbling hulks. They served their purpose and now it's time to move on. Clevelanders wonder what happened to its economy but a new one is there waiting to be discovered.

All it takes to renew our city is vision. It means looking to the future and believing in it rather than trying to resusitate and sustain the past.

This building is emblematic of the type of thinking of our political leaders in Northeast Ohio. They would prefer to keep the old power structure in place rather than change. It keeps them elected by catering to unions, civil servants, and bureaucratic interests. But all they are are little kings fighting over a crumbling hulk of neglect.

Do we need more innovations like this?

It's time to start taking the wrecking ball of progress and innovation to our past in order to clear the way for a new Cleveland.

1. Stop living in the past.

2. Reform or replace the existing power structures.

3. Envision what a new Cleveland can be and start building it.

Copyright © 2005 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved.