I have plenty of excuses. Maybe it’s that I don’t live within Cleveland’s city limits. Maybe it’s that I didn’t grow up here. Either way, Cleveland still surprises me.
I’m not talking about touristy weekend things such as going to a Cleveland Indians game, dinner in Ohio City or museums in University Circle. These are excellent. But they are not surprising.
Surprises come more organically, like my recent introduction to Westown. I had only vaguely heard of this West Side neighborhood until my work with Green Up Cleveland, a nonprofit that helps clean up communities, brought me to it. With Lorain Avenue as its backbone, Westown is bordered by the Cudell and Detroit Shoreway neighborhoods to the north. If you exit Interstate 90 and head south at West Boulevard or West 117th Street, you’ll be in the thick of it.
When I got off the interstate from the East Side, I found a vibrant neighborhood of shops and tree-lined residential streets. I got a peek inside the dusty but jaw-droppingly beautiful 1927 Variety Theatre, now undergoing a $15 million renovation into apartments, restaurants and a thoroughly historic yet modern theater.
This neighborhood-anchor-in-the-remaking is centered on an eclectic Lorain Avenue stretch with a long line of old-timey storefronts, including halal stores and restaurants, Latino tiendas, and even a circa 1938 fabric store jammed with two floors of colorful material and all the upholstering expertise you could want. Need a calling card for Afghanistan? You can find that here too.
Cleveland is amazing that way. There are discoveries and connections just waiting to be uncovered, if only we’d step out of our comfort zones. But for all our talk of regionalism, we’re not doing that enough.
Instead, regionalism has come to mean collaboration between Northeast Ohio governments. There are 59 municipalities in Cuyahoga County alone and many are tight on money — especially over the last 10 years.
“People are starting to realize we can only survive if we look at [ourselves] as a region, as opposed to just looking at our own municipality,” says Eddy Kraus, director of regional collaboration for Cuyahoga County.
This is important governmental progress. But city and suburban residents need more than bureaucratic efficiencies. We need a regional community. One look at the local or national news reminds us that we all need to cross that stubbornly divisive urban-suburban line. We need to know each other better.
To help solve that problem, I’d like to suggest a new program. Let’s call it Cleveland Together. Most people are familiar with Sister Cities International, which pairs cities throughout the world to exchange culture, establish trade and build person-to-person relationships. Cleveland has 22 sister cities, including Alexandria, Egypt, and a Cleveland on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean — Cleveland, England. Cleveland Together would do the same thing, on a smaller scale. Suburbs would each be paired with a sister neighborhood in the city in an effort to build social and economic partnerships.
Schools could do pen pal programs or share field trips. Businesses could promote each other. Churches, mosques and synagogues could hold shared services and events, alternating between houses of worship. Libraries could team up for programs or exhibits. Volunteers could help each other with community projects.
People from the city and suburbs could get together for events where mingling is encouraged, such as picnics, mixers or concerts, with transportation to each others neighborhood provided. Westown and Willoughby need not seem so far apart.
Know that Cleveland Together is not a proposition of financial partnership. No one is asking for higher taxes or for money to be sent to another city. Instead, Cleveland Together is about building a more personal community. It is an attempt to break down segregating barriers of geography, income, politics and race.
Bringing people together will not magically solve our problems. But by putting effort toward breaking bread and sharing space, we can begin to work past the generalities that have come to define our conversations. Vastly different Clevelanders can, momentarily, do the hard work of coming together.
To test if a program like Cleveland Together is possible in Northeast Ohio, I brought my idea to local nonprofit leaders and politicians. Many, it turns out, already informally support this sort of regional engagement.
The St. Clair Superior neighborhood, for example, is home to 23 languages. That cosmopolitan richness, St. Clair Superior Development Corp executive director Michael Fleming says, makes it natural to look beyond the neighborhood’s borders when envisioning its own identity. Festive, welcoming events that draw people from throughout Northeast Ohio, such as the Cleveland Flea and Night Market in AsiaTown, are the fruit of this expansive thinking.
Similarly, Slavic Village and the city of Newburgh Heights jointly publicize events at the Cleveland Metroparks Washington Reservation, which straddles the border between the two. Slavic Village Development has also shared its successful model for redeveloping vacant houses with the city of Maple Heights.
Outside Cleveland, suburban organizations are also receptive to building broader community. Rocky River Mayor Pam Bobst points out that hospitals, schools, churches, businesses and civic organizations are well suited to reach beyond borders. But they could benefit from a central coordinator.
“There’s no inventory for it,” says Bobst, “no clearinghouse that says, ‘Here’s what we’re doing, now how can we strengthen those things and make them more widespread?’ and ‘What are the deficits, and what are we missing in all of this?’ ”
Enter Cleveland Together. In addition to helping regular people feel more connected, it could also amplify existing urban-suburban partnerships.
And while Cleveland Together would require staff and funding, there’s an organization ready and willing to do the work: Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, a nonprofit that serves as a funding and expertise headquarters for community development corporations. President and CEO Joel Ratner says that Cleveland Neighborhood Progress is exactly the right place for such a program.
“It’s a really great idea, but it’s a question of funding,” says Ratner. “If someone called and said, ‘I want to give you $150,000 to hire someone for two years to run this program,’ I’d be thrilled.”
Ratner doesn’t believe we can expect the city or local foundations to pay. They are heavily invested in the community but relatively strapped.
Perhaps, instead, it’s time for suburban corporations or the county to kick in. Donations to Cleveland Together would be tax-deductible. And what a fabulous public relations move. Heck, I don’t mind if it’s called “Cleveland Together brought to you by Eaton Corp.” or “Cleveland Together, a Progressive project.” Regardless of who steps up, community building should be worth funding.
Nonprofits, businesses and governments can only do so much. To succeed in creating a more cohesive Cleveland community, we need new personal connections. Why not surprise ourselves?
