ROLDO: Attention Should Be Paid – Now!

Attention Should Be Paid – NOW!

People surely believe that Cleveland has shrunk. It has diminished in more ways than mere loss of population. The Census figures soon will tell us how much.

Do we realize just how it has diminished? For what reason?

Institutions as the Plain Dealer and the Greater Cleveland Partnership have really, really shrunk the city. It’s their vision that’s the problem.

They do not recognize the city’s normal old legal borders. Nor do they seem to recognize or care about the part of Cleveland where its people live.

They want to set new boundaries. Convenient lines for their purposes.

Here’s how I see it: The City of Cleveland to these people now is bounded by Lake Erie to the north, Carnegie Avenue to the south, and the banks of the Cuyahoga River to the west and about East 4th Street to the east. That’s about it. It has real, really shrunk.

Much less to worry or care about.

That’s all that’s left to their Cleveland now. The rest is invisible.

How can I tell? I can tell because that’s where all the resources of the city seem to flow. The newest ornament: a $550,000 skate park. Put it downtown, they say.

Why not? That’s as far as they can or want to see.

“But good for the serious-minded mayor,” praises a PD editorial, “for wanting to enliven the city’s core and its waterfronts as a way to revitalize downtown.” It makes for a more “inviting downtown.”

Is that what makes a “serious-minded mayor” these days? A $550,000 gift to downtown. Not in a neighborhood.

Are we still “revitalizing” downtown? How much revitalizing does it need from government? How much public money needs to flow to this small enclave? How many centuries will this take? Please, give us a hint.

Really, there is more to Cleveland, Mr. and Ms. Editorial Writer. I know you want people to feel good about Cleveland. But feel good “news” isn’t enough. It doesn’t solve problems. And have we got problems.

You can’t have a golden core surrounded by a rotted exterior. It won’t work.

To be honest, I should mention a satellite of downtown: University Circle – around our cultural and medical institutions. It’s an exception to the “downtown only” rule.

These two small enclaves are where the concentration of media attention goes these days. As does so much of the city’s scarce public investments rush.

It’s an elixir that gives a fast high but not a lasting one.

The concentration of resources on downtown is KILLING the rest of what used to be Cleveland. It is starving the peopled city of dire needs. But who cares?

Not much attention goes to the rest of the city – the part, oddly enough, where most of the Cleveland people live. They might as well live in Pittsburgh. Or Miami, for all our leaders seem to care.

Oh, a smidgen of attention is given to some neighborhoods. Tremont’s restaurants and retail. Same goes for the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood where funding from foundations and the city has made it a go-to place. These places are not nourished because Cleveland people go there.

All these go-to places cater more to visitors than to those who live in the city.

Why is that so?

In good part, it is because the media – which essentially is the Plain Dealer in this town – hardly recognizes the rest of the city. It draws our attention to what it perceives as the city. It draws our attention to the go-to places of people with money to spend.

When I was at the PD in the late 1960s the attention of the editors, thus the attentiveness of the coverage, had a wider view than today. Attention was demanded. The times and the city were more explosive, you see. Its people were less passive and more edgy. There were violent reactions to long neglect.

The editors were nervous. What was going on out there? Who are these angry people and what do they want?

I was assigned some of this reporting at the PD in the mid-1960s. The PD showed so much interest that many of the articles were given a special tag and a prominent display. The loosely defined series of articles on urban issues filled a full page. It was displayed on a back page for better viewing. It had a fixed headline: “The Changing City.”

We know less of our city and its people now than we did then.

I suggest that the Plain Dealer begin to cover the city, not just the downtown and the cultural/medical center.

Let’s allow the glitz to make its own mark. Let’s give voice to the voiceless out there.

It’s time to tell the story of what happened to the people of Cleveland who live outside what Joe Roman believes is Cleveland.

It’s time to get outside, PD editors and reporters. It’s time to see what happened to that Changed City. It’s time to see what is left and worth saving. People are still there. Attention must be paid. Or someday attention will be demanded.

Time to balance the coverage. Give some attention. Or you may wake up some day and find attention is demanded.

If it can happen in Middle East dictatorships it even can happen in Cleveland, Ohio.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.

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8 Responses to “ROLDO: Attention Should Be Paid – Now!”

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Roldo Bartimole

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