By Richey Piiparinen.
You take a client to the game. You have a “power lunch.” Work and leisure have long been blurred in the corporate world. And, in the past few decades, they have been blurred by cities as well, in the form of entertainment and cultural districts.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, when middle-class job erosion took hold and urban economic development needed a spark, cities began to act like businesses. By the late 1980s, according to scholar David Harvey, cities became entrepreneurial. Cities asked their managers to act like ad men, using the clients’ funds (otherwise known as taxpayer dollars) to sell a product (Cleveland, say). The job of the city manager became, wrote Harvey, to make the city “appear as an innovative, exciting, creative, and safe place to live or to visit, to play and consume in.”
Enter the entertainment district, a concept cities used not only to show off their assets, but also to stir economic development. In Cleveland we had the Gateway District of the mid 1990s, created when the city tried to spark economic development with sports tourism. But success was dependent on a winning team (and then LeBron left).
But even had the teams won, subsidizing glamor ballparks and football fields is not good business. Even those who make these deals admit as much: “I’m not one to defend the economics of professional sports,” stated Minnesota’s governor Mark Dayton after he agreed to spend $506 million taxpayer dollars to build a new pro football stadium in Minneapolis. “Any deal you make in that [sports] world doesn’t make sense from the way the rest of us look at it.”
These days, entertainment districts have evolved beyond sports. The new term is “cultural district,” a place where citizens can “live, work, and play. As in “Live. Work. Play. Columbus.” Or “Live, Work, and Play in Downtown Detroit.” Cleveland, no longer going after the cheese-coated debauchery of the big hair and boat days of the Cleveland Flats, is now gunning for sophistication on a walkable, human scale. East 4th Street and Ohio City’s West 25th Street are two examples.
The cultural district targets high-brow tastes in hopes of generating high-brow ideas. Mixed-use districts — complete with offices and condos, and peppered with microbreweries and martini spots — will provide the right atmosphere for creative types to network and share and are where, as Steven Johnson argues in Where Good Comes From, the “serendipity” of chance encounters occurs. Or so the thinking goes. As Bruce Katz said recently at the City Club of Cleveland, “where innovation happens is in walkable, urban places.”
But is innovation happening? Do cultural districts spur economic development? Will the burgeoning microbrewery district on West 25th lead to long-term growth? Or is it just the latest place for Cleveland’s restless class to spend money?
Alex Nosse, owner of Joy Machines bike shop in Ohio City and a resident of the neighborhood, worries it may be the latter. He isn’t impressed with the nightlife district unfolding in Ohio City, calling W. 25th Street an “adult playground.” “That’s not a neighborhood,” he told Cleveland Scene’s Sam Allard. “It’s not the same thing.”
There’s something to Nosse’s critique. As West 25th Street increasingly becomes known as “Cleveland’s hot spot,” clubbers arrive with needs more primal than idea evolution. When you mix a cluster of beer joints — or in this case, “locally crafted microbrews” — what results is less splitting-of-the-atom type stuff and more bar fights, or splitting of the frat guy lip. Kind of like the Flats before it self-destructed. Switch out the boats for bike boxes. And Hummer limos for the traditional stretch.
Ohio City is far from doomed, but there is room for concern. Behind the façade of innovation, cities that build nightlife are basically bringing people to booze. Sloppiness ensues. So does losing inhibitions. A lot of lizard-brain thinking tends to populate West 25th Street after a certain hour, and the “serendipity” leads to actions other than innovating. In some ways, a microbrewery district is a tailgate party with dressed-up people. Just as a “power lunch,” which aspires to be a motivational event, “usually turns out to be a feast of gluttony and ruined neckties.”
This is not to say W. 25th Street, or the Ohio City neighborhood for that matter, will digress into Cleveland’s version of the Jersey Shore and become all play and no work. The West Side Market’s no-nonsense vendors won’t stand for the Snookies of Cleveland acting a fool. The neighborhood, after all, is their office. And they’ve got baby to feed. The neighborhood is still about living, too, and the living is getting better: families in Ohio City have more schools to choose from than they did previously, for example.
Eric Wobser, the Executive Director of the non-profit neighborhood development organization Ohio City Inc., is confident the neighborhood can maintain its integrity, noting that its history is thick with “live” and “work,” which will mediate the potential downsides of “play.”
Wobser says he welcomes “the trend” of nightlife, but he states his group — along with neighborhood investors and tenants — is focused on building a complete neighborhood. “Entertainment districts come and go,” he said, “but Ohio City is a resilient urban neighborhood that will continue to thrive based on the diversity of its uses and its people.”
A city and its people should still have fun. But they should also be aware of urban gimmicks. Ohio City has a chance to be a special neighborhood. If it were to devolve into a punch palace in the name of “the serendipity of chance encounters”, that would be a damn shame.
Muting the emphasis on “play “and amping up the emphasis on “live” and “work” will help Ohio City and other cultural districts thrive. Because consumers alone do not create a healthy economy; you need residents and producers, too.
Richey Piiparinen is senior writer at Belt.
Top image ©BobbyLikesBeer.com
Ohio City & Tremont are faux “neighborhoods”. My parents are immigrants and their goal was to move out of these areas. Ask yourself this very simple question: Would you want to raise a family in these neighborhoods?
My simple answer: “Yes”.
How do I, as someone who primarily dines and drinks on W 25th (ergo, ‘play’), continue to support the area and increase the emphasis on ‘work’ and ‘live’? While I feel the shift on W 25th towards the more “fratty” scene as of late, I still enjoy a nice meal or a few drinks at Nano or Market Garden. Where does this article place me? Should I stop going to W 25th? What do I do next?
I often find that young urban activists, while well-intentioned, condemn areas of Cleveland that are stirring economic activity albeit by taking the money of hipsters/yuppies/insert-derogatory-word-for-young-people-with-money-here.
I understand the sentiment of the article, but I suppose what I yearn for is some sort of directional statement. How do drinkers/diners/the good ol’ Cleveland folk that frequent W 25th support the holistic development of the neighborhood?
I think the direction that needs to be taken is integrating consumption into the neighborhood fabric, or neighborhood development, as opposed to heavy-handed branding of a neighborhood as an “entertainment district” as a form of broad economic development policy. When you begin to emphasize tax receipts arriving from what will become Cleveland’s “latest hot spot” above community capital, what you are doing is playing with fire, as the many negative externalities that come with a cluster of night clubs can begin to affect the quality of the neighborhood. As the article notes, W. 25th St. is not beyond the pale. Though, there is a fine line from whence an entertainment district tips from a cultural district into something less desirable. This fine line must be discussed, brought out into the attention of policy makers and neighborhood developers, so investment can be leveraged into something good and not wasted via greed, as was the case with the Flats. I hope this article serves to spark that conversation so folks can plan accordingly, as Ohio City is a special place.
I think ClevelandGirl raises a great question when she says:
what I yearn for is some sort of directional statement. How do drinkers/diners/the good ol’ Cleveland folk that frequent W 25th support the holistic development of the neighborhood?
I don’t live in OC either and of course I will keep spending my dining and drinking dollars there. I don’t think anyone, on an individual level, should feel the slightest bit of remiss for so doing.
Clevelandgirl, I think your comment is spot on. Ohio City is not The Flats; it’s latest nightlife focus has become but a minor component in a neighborhood entrenched in decades of residential-retail redevelopment. The most telling example is that former Latin disco that was forced to close. Instead of a new club taking its place, it’s becoming headquarters for a signature ice-cream company. Yes, ice cream. Although sports-bar types seem to be making weekend sojourns to the area, there will be no empty sports bars after they move elsewhere, because the establishments here are not sports bars. Rather, they are the kind of inventive destinations that will continue to attract a loyal following.
I would totally raise my daughter in Ohio City or Tremont. Yes. I think young families could bring a balance to the neighborhood. People raising kids in the area would want it to be more family-friendly and would take action to make sure it was. My issue with the area is that developers see it as a cash-cow. Even with a (self-imposed) budget of $100,000 we were priced out of the area. We hated having to move, but we got a lot more house for a lot less money on W.116th in Cleveland than we would have on W.16th.
I live in Ohio City and am raising a family, as are many other families. There are 20- and 30-somethings who grew up in the neighborhood and still live here (including Alex Nosse). So the answer to this question is a clear yes from a lot of different people.
I do think that in addition to the very good issues this article raises, we need to be sure that we maintain housing affordability for the long run. Unfortunately, I am concerned that the neighborhood may be missing the boat on this front. This aspect of long-term sustainability to keeping Ohio City and the surrounding near west neighborhood as a true neighborhood is not going to be easy unless we take well-thought-out steps to make sure people of many different income levels can continue to live here. We often pay lip service to diversity, but maintaining it takes a lot of focused action.
Amen to that.
I’m afraid I really don’t understand all the hand-wringing about keeping the neighborhood sustainable in terms of long-term affordability. Beyond the scant handful of neighborhoods seeing an increase in population growth and rents, the rest of the city continues to hemorrhage residents, as you obviously know. There’s no lack of vacant housing to rehab providing that the rents can justify the investment. If OHC becomes so expensive that people move to the next neighborhood over, how is that a bad thing for the city? I get why people look at a neighborhood like, say, Bushwick, and feel really bad for the long-term residents who are getting pushed out by rapidly escalating rents, but the scope of that problem far exceeds anything you’re going to see in Cleveland. Gentrification unquestionably creates problems, but in weak market cities, they’re the type of problems you should want to have.
I know it seems different in a weak market city, but frankly as a long-term resident of Ohio City I don’t want it to become a completely high-wealth residential area. It will push this part of the near west side in the direction of what someone else on this page described as a faux neighborhood. It’s not healthy for the fabric of the neighborhood. Diversity of all kinds matters even at the neighborhood level, no matter what is happening in surrounding neighborhoods.
Zlaticelli,
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Please do share with us your “non-faux” neighborhood.
I am thrilled to raise my children in these “FAUX” neighborhoods
Ok, fair critique, and I am the first to despise the douchebaggery that rolls in like fog after a certain hour at Townhall. But for those of us, especially new to town, who still look to Friday nights for a chance at those “chance encounters,” where would you have us go? Even if W. 25th isn’t perfect, it’s at least a place with a dependable concentration of younger people that can dare to resemble that in larger cities. I love a hole-in-the-wall, been-there-forever dive bar with all its old-school authenticity, but that’s where I go to meet up with my dad, not the new friends or eligible men I’m hoping to meet. Is there a middle ground? What’s the better alternative?
You’re right to worry about this possibility because heaven forbid it go that way, but a visit to both places on a Friday or Saturday night will tell you that both places attract entirely different crowds. The Flats attracts what I call the “$30,000 Salary Millionaire.” These are 22 to 30 year olds who think nothing of running up a bar tab into the hundreds of dollars on Patron, excessively sugared drinks with provocative names, and macrobrews. They can be found in entertainment districts such as The Flats and Park St. in Columbus, and are more interested in a party-type club scene that is simply not found on W. 25th St. The W. 25th St. crowd is more of a craft brew and tapas crowd that recently graduated from The Flats scene and have kids to take to soccer practice in the morning.
I like this article, it’s good to be mindful of our history and avoid repeats of previous failures like the Cleveland Flats.
The economics of cities are complicated to say the least, but whatever you call these districts they are important to the ecosystem of a healthy economy. To build, create wealth, and furthermore offer jobs, which allow people to live in the city, leaders and city mangers focus on creating export dollars. That is dollars that are spent on goods and services in the city and originated from another area. This includes tourism dollars, which are sought after not only because they are typically export dollars, but because they create goodwill with visitors who could potentially see opportunity, move, and become a contributing members of our community. Building these districts is two fold of creating wealth and attracting talent.
Tourism as an industry is a good thing, but needs to be kept in balance or it can create social problems that detract talented people from the area more than attracting. Additionally if social problems are created they CAN become more of a burden on a city’s finances than the value they are creating. I don’t think this has happened in Ohio City by any stretch.. but I think the concern raised in this article is that it can happen if we’re not careful.
I think Ohio City is in a good place, leaders are aware of the balance that needs to be kept and are working hard to make sure that the neighborhood is growing, people are moving, industries and businesses are starting. I hope people continue to build exceptional products and services on the near west side that are unique and wonderful and that we can continue sharing those things with more and more people from across the country.
richey,
i’ve been living, working and playing for a decade on west 25th in ohio city. it’s been quite amazing to see this dense, walkable and historic neighborhood go from decay and abandonment to vibrancy. and despite the naysayers this neighborhood is sustainable for a number of reasons that your article overlooks. i studied urban planning at cleveland state university’s urban college and ohio city is exemplar of balanced and sustainable renewal. in fact, it’s actually a textbook case of the private sector working with the neighborhood development corporation (ohio city inc.) to bring about a thoughtful and studied rennaisance.
sustainable ohio city:
is chef driven and food focused. name a single chef from the bygone days of the flats or a single chef in the warehouse district.
has hands on operators.
has no dj’s. night clubs can bring fighting and drug use if not properly managed. the exception here is touch supperclub, a well run and small dance club that has great food and is a great asset to the neighborhood.
promotions aren’t price driven as this is always a race to the bottom.
has retail diversity and a vibrant and growing residential neighborhood surrounding it as evidenced by the years long waiting lists for homes and apartments and the many many hundreds of housing units currently under construction. clearly this old house understands ohio city is more than an entertainment district when it voted us “best old house neighborhood” in north america. http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20728180_30008297,00.html
has activity throughout all the dayparts, not just nighttime.
i could go on, but you get the idea….
cheers,
sam mcnulty
I lived and played my 20-something heart out in Ohio City about a decade ago. I have a foggy recollection of my first Christmas Ale experience at GLB, when I wandered back to my Jay Ave. loft in a snowy stupor, wondering what the hell happened, thankful to have left my car at home.
Now, I live in the burbs and work in Gordon Square, and I love Ohio City in a whole new way. I take my clients there for happy hour. I “power lunch” at the Fig a few times a month. I’ve attended writers events at Market Garden Brewery, where my professional networking group is hosting their holiday event in December. My husband and I have enjoyed many date nights and dinner events at various OC establishments. I occasionally take my kids to grab falafel at the WSM on the weekends.
It’s been great to see how this neighborhood has evolved over the years, and how it can now shape shift to accommodate everything from engaging dining experiences and networking events to boozy, late-night entertainment. That adaptability, combined with continued investment in both commercial and residential real estate, is key for the continued sustainability of this vibrant community.
I wish there were other things to do on W 25th st than just drink. I want art galleries open at night. I want a coffee shop open past 8:00 so I can work on my computer and people watch. I want the west side market open once a week at night so I can actually go shopping there after work. These are things that would help me actually live and work in the neighborhood I live in. Why isn’t there any live music at any of the spots on w 25th? Some other options other than booze please!!
A good article Richey, and judging by the thoughtful comments, a conversation that surely needs to be had. I think you hit the nail on the head when you write :
“Muting the emphasis on “play “and amping up the emphasis on “live” and “work” will help Ohio City and other cultural districts thrive. Because consumers alone do not create a healthy economy; you need residents and producers, too”
What you’re talking about is balance. Balance and diversification are key in all things, your 401(k), work/life dynamics, and the economies of cities or neighborhoods. In the first half of the twentieth century, Cleveland rode high on an over-concentration of manufacturing industries. With deindustrialization in the second half, this lack of industrial diversification and over-concentration in waning industries, as we all know, led to decline.
While Ohio City has more residential and retail activity than our other “boom and bust” entertainment districts (The Flats and West 6th), I do worry that the third leg of the stool (industry) is too heavily concentrated in the services sector, namely food and drink. While these are important additions to any successful neighborhood, I question whether they can provide long-term sustainability. The service sector in general pays lower wages, and isn’t known for the type of innovation that spurs synergistic, high-growth ancillary industries (i.e. the much sought after medical device and pharmaceutical industries that many hope will spring out of the Cleveland Clinic/U.H./CWRU footprint). The more stable neighborhoods I’ve observed have bars and restaurants, but not in the same concentration as you see in Ohio City or West 6.th, or that we saw in the Flats. One or two per block seems about right…not 10 or more.
I’m hopeful that Ohio City will be able to retain its diversity in demographics and expand its diversity in industry. Time will tell. In the meantime I’ll be watching with interest how University Circle’s Uptown Neighborhood unfolds. It seems to have a better mix of high-paying, and growing “innovative” industries (education and health care), has a more diverse entertainment scene (bars such as XYZ, reataurants such as Accent and Mi Pueblo, music venues such as The Barking Spider, and cultural institutions such as Severance Hall and the Art Museums, etc). Although the high price point for rental units in Uptown is a bit worrisome…
As a former Ohio City resident, my concern is that all this new growth has led to a surge in this neighborhood being the new “trendy place” in the region. That typically means lots of young people flocking to the area at night still thinking they are liven’ their college frat parties, making parking for several streets seem impossible, and requiring the need for reservations if you want to sit down for dinner. I loved the Ohio City of a few years ago (2007-2010), but now there has just been an explosion of growth. Building on that observation, this has made finding an apartment or house in that neighborhood far more difficult-unless you’re willing to pay a lot more than you were a few years ago. Ohio City doesn’t need a slew of $1,000-plus/month luxury apartments to fill the neighborhood. Ohio City was charming for its middle class roots and not a playground for wealthy kids from the suburbs.
In June 2016, I’m bringing myself back home for good, three kids and a mad Austrian husband dragged behind. In the past 12 months, I’ve come home twice to OC to gut-check myself (“sanity-check” say my friends here in Seattle). This last time, I visited for three weeks in July and I’m not so sure now that it would work for my three teens. I did a lot of walking, visited the community garden, went to Transformer Station, drank coffee, drank whiskey, and ate as often as I could at the market, but almost always in the ‘hood. But what I never saw were teenagers (though some younger children). Playgrounds were empty for the most part. I walked up and down all over OC, snaking in and out of neighborhoods, peeking over fences, looking up on porches. Where are the soccer shoes piled outside the doors? The bikes? It’s very concerning to me. Why aren’t there more bookstores? Comic book stores? Record shops? Consignment stores for women and children? Tasteful furniture resale? Smaller live-music venues? In the end, will I move back to OC? I don’t know. But I know that Town Hall is something I’ll have to fight my way past, shepherding my children past the security guards (security guards? really!?) of their neighborhood. I love Market Garden, Bar Cento, Crop, the Fig and the rest – but Town Hall is a monster that sends the wrong message to a nice neighborhood.
You have a neighborhood thriving. New restaurants, bars, vintage shops, an artisan bat shop, a bike shop, a large ice cream operation, another large micro brew (the Slovenian one when it opens), art gallery, coffee shop and many more – of which all these places opened after I moved to the neighborhood 3 years ago. Couple those developments with the West Side Market and Great Lakes Brewery as your anchors and throw in new condos currently under construction as well as the unbelievable amount of houses that have been rehabbed, and you have quite the sustainable development. While its easy to compare W25th to the flats of the 80’s and what the warehouse district has become… this is an incredible dis-service to all the things I just mentioned. In no way did those earlier developments have the same anchors.
Yes, things change. This is not Ohio City of the 1980’s. It is much more difficult to find parking. You will have a harder time finding a decent place to live due to sky high occupancy rates. When you do find an available place, you will have to pay more in rent. The house next to you is no longer boarded up (well… not always but I digress). You can no longer dance at Moda.
I feel like I’m living in bizzaro world where people complain about parking, about rents being too high, and about wealthy “kids” moving into the neighborhood and supporting all those businesses, rehabbing houses, and increasing property values. Heaven forbid property values increase to the point that they match other large cities in U.S. I know none of us are used to it… but this seems to me what progress looks like. Ohio City is quickly becoming a real city neighborhood that rivals some of the famed neighborhoods in other parts of the country and with that… yes W25th will be busy on a Saturday night.
W. 25th is a food and drink-centered destination. There are also a variety of other businesses on that street, but that is primarily what it is.
The way it has been built from the ground up is sustainable, and it will continue to flourish for years and years to come. It seems people are worried about 2 different things: – 1. Whether all this popularity is a “bubble” which will pop, and – 2. Whether this type of district is “good” for the neighborhood.
Addressing #1: #1 is not going to happen, at least not anytime soon. There are thriving food and drink districts in other cities which have been there for decades, and in other countries, for centuries. Built from the ground up (which is how this was done — the W. 25th from 15 years ago is unrecognizable), McNulty et al. have created something which is not a “fad”. Good food and excellent beers are not fads, they have been loved for thousands of years. If for some reason the “young” people don’t think it is cool anymore, or the economy is such that the prices must lower, the developers have enough foresight & experience to adapt properly. But I don’t see this as a fad/bubble whatsoever (the same could be said for Tremont).
Addressing #2: This is the grey area. The question for me is: can this food/drink district be the “core” around which other varied development can thrive (such as the work/play) which is mentioned. Is there room for a retail / commercial district? Can small businesses open offices here without excessive rent? What else can thrive around or in conjunction with the food/drink district? I believe W 25th now offers potential which wasn’t there 10-15 years ago.
Another large issue — The development is pushing up property values and making it harder for lower-income people to afford living in the neighborhood, but this is a whole separate discussion.
W. 25th is here to stay, now its up to other developers to be creative.