On Friday August 31, 2007, while Air Show jets stalled out conversations and blasted ear drums,  Susan Miller and I visited the “open house” at the Post designed Cleveland Trust Rotunda building which sits on the corner of Euclid and 9th next to the Marcel Breuer designed Cleveland Trust Tower in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.   Lee Trotter had announced this open house at the County Commissioners meeting the day before and the Dirty Dealer had carried the news a few days prior.   I wondered, why is the County doing this? 

Today's Plain Dealer again chronicles the "horror" of living in the city and validates the decision of all the suburbanites that have chosen to flee.  Sister Regina touches on the crux of the real problem in her column today.  Standards.  The school district is changing the standard for success by imposing a dress code.  The City of Cleveland needs to set the same standard for our neighborhoods.  The new second district police commander gets it. 

 The Cleveland Port Authority wore no clothes on Thursday.   The King was completely naked – yet about half (including a rep of “first suburbs”) of the 19 adults who spoke to the 100 plus in attendance raved about the “BOLD PLAN”  

I consistently attempt to have a “positive” outlook about North East Ohio and Cleveland.  I consider the substance of my posts on Realneo and affirmatively select material which I believe is conducive to improving the region.  However, there can be a problem with this self steered Polly Anna  editorial policy .   Always looking at the bright side might be just perpetuating a lie – maybe always having a positive outlook is actually misleading people and leading others into the false belief that the region is doing ok, that the region is improving.  Maybe it would be more helpful if I used my blog to accelerate failure – get to the bottom of it, get it over with and start new…

The Cleveland Port Authority has a new boss and a new plan. 

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Asleep on the job....                  photo courtesy Tim Littler                            Xian,  China

It was somewhat reassuring to note today's PD article on City Economic Development Director Chris Warren's strategy for regional economic development.  In broad strokes the plan calls for main facets we have been advocating for years now: more collaborative (synergy building) joint ventures, shared tax systems,  smart, green, energy efficient design standards like LEED, and revitalization of abandoned property.  Validation is sweet.

Good Day Everyone!

I'd like to invite each of you to explore Detroit Shoreway, or more specifically, the Edgewater Hill neighborhood, as the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization unveils our new home at 7405 Herman Avenue.  Please see the attached flyer for more info.

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I posted the following letter to my blog yesterday per Jim Moran's request if the Plain Dealer had not run it by Thursday.  They didn't, I did.  George Nemeth at Brewed Fresh Daily posted an excerpt and linked to the original post.  Today, my site is down. I can count the number of times my blog has been down in the past year,exactly once. Today.  Thanks to Norm for sharing RealNEO and thanks to George for posting the letter in its entirety. 

Let's try to elucidate the elusive and concretize the abstraction represented by my Cross System  - start by drawing a Cross.

The mind boggles.

We now have airplanes flying over Jacobs Field exhorting people not to sign petitions. In the home of the City Club, this is civic debate?

Perhaps we can bring a little market reality to the situation. From this perspective, the petitioners seem, well, rational and responsible... guardians of the public purse.

Having discussed the modification of classic aquaculture systems to be truly integrative in production of terrific tilapia, vitrious veggies, and cultivated compost I feel like there is no time better to integrate our toxic toxin mediating and mitigating mushroom strategy.

I just got the email below, from the head of a local arts not-for-profit to remain un-named, to protect the innocent: "Norm -- i just wanted to make sure you knew about the "sales pitch" we are about to get.". I read on to see that tax junkie CPAC - Community Partnership for Arts and Culture - is on the Cuyahoga County junk again, now hustling artists and arts organizations to tax themselves and patrons for the benefit of the dealers. Read on... anyone going to this who can cover for realneo?... Note: " RSVP’s are required!" Now, a little art, in honor of this event and the rush for the MedCon and taxation without sober representation, courtesy of Lou Reed:

I dont know just where Im going

But Im gonna try for the kingdom, if I can

cause it makes me feel like Im a man

When I put a spike into my vein

And Ill tell ya, things arent quite the same

When Im rushing on my run

And I feel just like jesus son

And I guess that I just dont know

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I was up at the Ubuntu website downloading the latest version to my ThinkPad (from a mirror site at OSUOSL, which I hopefully thought would be Ohio State University Open Source Lab, but was of course Oregon State) and I noticed a promo that "Ubuntu on Dell now available in the UK, Germany and France" with support from Canonical... one promo said this is available in the USA as well. This is a major development for Linux and for Ubuntu, and for open source development in the world. For the first time ever, I am a Dell fan... I'll be interested how pricing will differ between comparable Dell Ubuntu and Windows boxes... especially after you add Office (v.s. free OpenOffice)... more below and here.

I spent the afternoon at the Burning River Fest on Whiskey Island.

When the Cleveland population dipped below 500,000, the population basis for many federal grant formula, the ability of the federal partner to help on our urban problems was constrained, as the City became one of only many cities across the country, rather than one of the larger, most impactful cities on its own. So strategies to increase the city population deserve special consideration, yes? Well, perhaps not.

A brief time-out on “point of view” blogging to simply share some exciting information. The City of Cleveland released information about the the Cleveland Midtown Innovation Center at Euclid Avenue/East 44thStreet.

An important addition was made to The John and Mildred Putnam Sculpture Collection, located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University and the grounds of University Circle, with the installation of a fantastic steel sculpture by masterful sculptor and Cleveland Institute of Art President David Deming, which is titled "Inner Circle". Located by the Case residential village, across from the Starbucks, at the intersection of East 115th, Juniper and Bellflower, this work is a great addition to an important art collection, curated by Evelyn Kiefer, that makes University Circle a much more inspiring and remarkable place, with public art.

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http://bp3.blogger.com/_saDN0NfMlYY/Rru3yMc2n5I/AAAAAAAAAEU/xRx0i4KcKyY/s1600-h/PVC+Free+Company+List.jpg

What ever you do, DO NOT click here if you want to avoid bearing witness to a total, unabridged,and fully explicit pollution in its rawest form.   Sedimentation transported gently on the waves of mother nature and towards our fair lake via stormwater runnoff.   Play our youtube.com footage at the link above for the whirlpool video that is taking the stormwater scene by storm

I grew up and lived in Cleveland and, other than school, stayed here until I moved away for about ten years. Since coming back home, one distressing thing I've noted is that decision-makers, at all levels, closely guard information, almost as if a Captain who would rather go down with the ship, than loosen up and perhaps not go down at all.  The Medical Mart non-debate has all those strange dynamics.  Is it possible, I wonder, if a true, public-private partnership on a Medical Mart/Convention Center/Urban Design District might actually make sense after all?