Nick Gillespie: How to Save Cleveland (and Other Dying Cities)
[Nick Gillespie (gillespie@reason.com) is the editor of reason.com and reason.tv.]
...Since its population hit a high point in 1950, Cleveland has lost more than half of its residents and essentially all of its economic and cultural capital. The Rapture happened here, but instead of going to the bosom of God in heaven, the elect ended up in Houston, Charlotte, Los Angeles, New York, and, most galling of all because of its proximity and broad-shouldered similarity, Chicago. There was a time, at the turn of the 20th century, when Cleveland and Chicago were real rivals, but that competition long ago devolved into a sort of lopsided Clippers vs. Lakers fiasco in which the clear winner need not even acknowledge that a competition ever existed.
As Chicago was becoming the hog butcher for the world and tool maker and stacker of wheat, Cleveland peaked as the seventh-largest city in America, with nearly 1 million residents, before beginning a long, slow, steady decline underscored by race riots, the Cuyahoga River bursting into flames, and a 1978 default on its municipal bonds. This year Cleveland earned the dubious honor of being named “the most miserable city” in the U.S. by Forbes. “Cleveland nabbed the top spot as a result of poor ratings across the board,” wrote Kurt Badenhausen. “It was the only city that fell in the bottom half of the rankings in all nine categories.” Consistently one of the country’s poorest urban areas, Cleveland had double-digit unemployment long before it was commonplace in the rest of the country. Some two dozen Cuyahoga County officials are under federal investigation for corruption. Is it any wonder that in the last five years more than 70,000 people have vamoosed not just from the city proper but from the larger metropolitan area?...
From 1990 to 1993, I lived in Buffalo, a city eerily similar to Cleveland, differing chiefly in scale. (It’s about half the size.) As I packed up to leave Buffalo for Los Angeles, there was a mayoral debate in which a Republican candidate, a Democratic candidate, and an independent candidate outlined their plans for revitalization. The first respondent (I forget which, but it hardly matters) said he would go to the state capital and fight for the city’s fair share of tax money. The second one said he would go to Albany and also Washington, D.C., and fight for the city’s fair share of tax money. The third candidate, the eventual winner, upped the ante by saying he’d go to Albany and Washington and fight for more than the city’s fair share of tax money. Is it any wonder that during the 1990s, a decade in which many cities turned around years of population declines, Buffalo was one of only two entire major metropolitan areas that lost people? (The other was Pittsburgh, a long-slumping town inaccurately but repeatedly praised for a comeback that is suspiciously devoid of economic or population growth.)
When down-on-the-heels cities are not simply holding their hands out, they tend to work the same frayed ropes over and over again: building convention centers that will never make money, betting the farm on light-rail systems that always underperform, shoveling tax dollars at stadiums and sports franchises that don’t generate any new revenue, redeveloping the waterfront. If the basic definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again while praying for different results, then huge swaths of urban America are certifiably nuts. For its part, Cleveland has turned all the usual tricks and more while manifestly failing to address the most basic quality-of-life building blocks that might generate jobs, attract people, and build hope. What Cleveland and other slump towns refuse to do is decentralize and deregulate, pushing decisions and dollars back to the people so they can navigate their own courses through life....
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...Since its population hit a high point in 1950, Cleveland has lost more than half of its residents and essentially all of its economic and cultural capital. The Rapture happened here, but instead of going to the bosom of God in heaven, the elect ended up in Houston, Charlotte, Los Angeles, New York, and, most galling of all because of its proximity and broad-shouldered similarity, Chicago. There was a time, at the turn of the 20th century, when Cleveland and Chicago were real rivals, but that competition long ago devolved into a sort of lopsided Clippers vs. Lakers fiasco in which the clear winner need not even acknowledge that a competition ever existed.
As Chicago was becoming the hog butcher for the world and tool maker and stacker of wheat, Cleveland peaked as the seventh-largest city in America, with nearly 1 million residents, before beginning a long, slow, steady decline underscored by race riots, the Cuyahoga River bursting into flames, and a 1978 default on its municipal bonds. This year Cleveland earned the dubious honor of being named “the most miserable city” in the U.S. by Forbes. “Cleveland nabbed the top spot as a result of poor ratings across the board,” wrote Kurt Badenhausen. “It was the only city that fell in the bottom half of the rankings in all nine categories.” Consistently one of the country’s poorest urban areas, Cleveland had double-digit unemployment long before it was commonplace in the rest of the country. Some two dozen Cuyahoga County officials are under federal investigation for corruption. Is it any wonder that in the last five years more than 70,000 people have vamoosed not just from the city proper but from the larger metropolitan area?...
From 1990 to 1993, I lived in Buffalo, a city eerily similar to Cleveland, differing chiefly in scale. (It’s about half the size.) As I packed up to leave Buffalo for Los Angeles, there was a mayoral debate in which a Republican candidate, a Democratic candidate, and an independent candidate outlined their plans for revitalization. The first respondent (I forget which, but it hardly matters) said he would go to the state capital and fight for the city’s fair share of tax money. The second one said he would go to Albany and also Washington, D.C., and fight for the city’s fair share of tax money. The third candidate, the eventual winner, upped the ante by saying he’d go to Albany and Washington and fight for more than the city’s fair share of tax money. Is it any wonder that during the 1990s, a decade in which many cities turned around years of population declines, Buffalo was one of only two entire major metropolitan areas that lost people? (The other was Pittsburgh, a long-slumping town inaccurately but repeatedly praised for a comeback that is suspiciously devoid of economic or population growth.)
When down-on-the-heels cities are not simply holding their hands out, they tend to work the same frayed ropes over and over again: building convention centers that will never make money, betting the farm on light-rail systems that always underperform, shoveling tax dollars at stadiums and sports franchises that don’t generate any new revenue, redeveloping the waterfront. If the basic definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again while praying for different results, then huge swaths of urban America are certifiably nuts. For its part, Cleveland has turned all the usual tricks and more while manifestly failing to address the most basic quality-of-life building blocks that might generate jobs, attract people, and build hope. What Cleveland and other slump towns refuse to do is decentralize and deregulate, pushing decisions and dollars back to the people so they can navigate their own courses through life....