Does the Midwest Matter?
Notes on the geography of greatness.
The Curtain Falls on the Creative Class
A carnival atmosphere won't solve Cleveland's poverty problem
Midnight in the Rust Belt
There is the idea of “Morning in America," and that of the “Rust Belt." The first brings to mind an emerging light that will show us forward. The second deals in all that is against us ...
Inner Belt Beauty
Driving across the Inner Belt Bridge on my way home from a trip to Bogota, I see the cityscape rise before me, lights twinkling and traffic whizzing by, and cynically think to myself that Cleveland looks like a hundred other mid-size cities.
The Roots of Rust Belt Chic
I first heard the term “Rust Belt Chic” in Youngstown, Ohio, from a young software developer named John Slanina. Slanina was driving me around the Yo, as he called it, in a Ford Taurus with a bacon-scented air freshener ...
Opportunity Corridor
By Pete Beatty. I moved away from Cleveland in 1999. When I return to visit, I spend about 10 percent [...]
Austin, Cleveland, and the Cost of Cool
When Leslie Cochran, the most famous homeless man in Austin, Texas, died last year, the city, whose unofficial slogan was “Keep Austin Weird,” became a little less weird and quite a bit more square.
Cleveland’s Teardown Runaround
A few months ago, I was riding around on my bike from my old neighborhood near the Collinwood rail yards on Cleveland's East Side to my apartment in suburban Lakewood.
A Rust Belt Revival Is Beyond Black and White
City analyses often fall prey to black-and-white narratives. The Rust Belt is either “dead” or “reviving.” Residents are either suburbanites or city dwellers, gentrifiers or natives, boosters or negative nabobs.
The Biggest Little-Known Book Award
No one stumbles upon the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award collection at the Cleveland Public Library. The books are shelved in three locked cabinets of the Treasure Room, a drum-tight chamber in Special Collections.
S & M in the CLE
I am in an S & M relationship with Cleveland. I am Cleveland’s slave. For me the “S” of Cleveland’s sadism stands for “seasonal.” All winter long, I withstand what Cleveland wants me to withstand.
Harvey Pekar’s Nagging Muse
Harvey Pekar — the grouch, the pessimist, the quitter — wrote about the Cleveland that really was — not the Cleveland we aspire to be.