By Richey Piiparinen
Venture capitalist Brad Feld recently said, “The cities that have the most movement in and out of them are the most vibrant.” The statement speaks to the reality that Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities can’t shrink their way to economic growth, as in-migration is needed. On that score, there’s some indication of Rust Belt demographic inflows.
For example, people are returning to Pittsburgh, with a positive net migration for the past five years. In fact, U-Haul’s latest annual survey marks Pittsburgh as the top growth city in the U.S, beating out the likes of Austin and San Francisco. There’s some movement back to Cleveland as well. My past research for the Urban Institute showed a net inflow of 25- to 34-year olds in the city’s downtown, as well as its surrounding inner-core neighborhoods of Ohio City and Tremont. Other Cleveland neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs are seeing a net inflow of young adults as well, including Old Brooklyn, Lakewood, and Parma. Also, migration patterns from 2005 to 2010 flowed net positive to Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County from Chicago’s Cook County and Brooklyn’s King County. Yes, you heard that right—more people moved to Greater Cleveland from Big City than the number leaving the Rust Belt for Global City, USA.
Will the trend grow? Here, it’s necessary to understand cultural and economic trends on why it is occurring, so as to emphasize the inherent competitive advantages Rust Belt cities have to offer.
Part of the psychogeographic attraction that Cleveland and Pittsburgh have is the fact they are not Portland, Brooklyn, or any other variety of venerable hot spots engaging in an arms race of mod. Industrial cities maintain distinct cultures comprised of unique histories that are manifested by both elegant and unpolished bones. In short, the Rust Belt is real places, with real people. Wrote a New York City cyclist and author, Bike Snob, on his recent trip entitled “It’s Monday, I’m Back, And Cleveland!”:
“Portlanders ride around on bespoke bicycles wearing artisanal fanny packs and eating kimchi quesadillas out of food trucks. Clevelanders watch The Deer Hunter and eat rabbit and tubular meats while basking in the warm glow of their leg lamps…”
Bike Snob continues:
“Cleveland has its own unique take on the whole ‘artisanal’ phenomenon. For example, in Brooklyn people open stores where they only sell olive oil or mayonnaise, or where some Oberlin graduate will give you an old-timey shave with a straight razor and a leather strop for $75. In Cleveland, this guy sits outside his shop making bats.”
Rust Belt cities, then, got their own thing going on, something at variance with the universal creative class typology. To engage in copycatting would be a tragedy for Cleveland to adopt—like re-branding a flower by eroding its scent.
Joi Ito, the head of MIT’s Media Lab, agrees, saying city making is not about heavy-handed creative class endeavors, but about backing off, letting things emerge. But this requires city self-awareness, which, according to Ito, “has to do with the character of the city, the character of the people, the character of the mayor.” In other words, the answers for a city are inside of it. Not inside the idea of outside programming.
And by being self-aware, Cleveland could position itself as a place for the “cool exhausted,” or places about community and affordability. Places that contain good single-family housing stock. Places with coffee shops, taverns, and backyards. Places not prone to the dichotomy of micro-apartments v. McMansions but rather rest in a middle-grounding sweet spot that is projected to be attractive to the next generation of homebuyers, particularly that idea of raising a family in a city setting. Writes Lee Chilcote for Freshwater Cleveland:
“As our attentions turned from the newest bars and restaurants to playgrounds and play dates, we found we weren’t alone. We joined a babysitting co-op and met other interesting parents who’d come up with creative ways to navigate family life in the city. We imagined ourselves part of a bigger shift — a recommitment to raising kids in the city.”
Chilcote continues, writing about a pair of coastal transplants attracted to the region because of the big city feel minus the big city cost:
“The Prignitzes, who are expecting their first child in September, lived in Boston and San Francisco before moving back to Cleveland, a city they’d lived in right after college.
“‘Cleveland has a lot of the same amenities as bigger coastal cities, but here I could buy a house out of law school,’ says Lola, who graduated from Harvard Law School and works at Jones Day. ‘Ohio City felt like a communal place. There’s also a great network of families here who are really committed to raising kids in the city.’”
No doubt, in-migration of all types is needed—i.e., Cleveland’s foreign-born rates are at historic lows and need to be re-scaled up— but the low-hanging fruit is Rust Belt refugees, or “boomerangers,” many of which are Global City graduates. Economic development writer and strategist Jim Russell, who has been examining the phenomenon for years, sees this variant of return migration as a potential game-changer for historically declining Rust Belt cities, particularly because it represents a counter flow to the donut hole-patterning of urban decline.
“This is happening, and it’s on a scale much larger than expected,” Russell told me. “We are busy catching up to a trend. The Rust Belt Chic migration is a particular form of return migration: Rust Belt suburb-to Big City-to grandpa’s neighborhood.”
Economically speaking, such migrants pack a wallop, as the act of migration is primarily an entrepreneurial act. Such is illustrated in a recent New York Times piece called “Replanting the Rust Belt.” In it, they profile Cleveland chef Jonathan Sawyer who moved back home from New York to raise his family. Yet he was also determined “to help the city transcend its Rust Belt reputation.” Once there, Sawyer “foraged for people,” eventually setting up a local food ecosystem that “connects mushroom farms, bean gardens, Italian bakeries, Amish dairies, noodle makers, butchers and the basement and backyard of his own house.”
Migrants like Sawyer are economic change agents. Cleveland needs to scale them up, and then do everything they can to eliminate barriers so they can forage properly.
But let’s not forget why the migrants are coming. Because Cleveland can be a home. Not because Cleveland is cool. That said, since “uncool” is the new “cool,” well, being hip to be square doesn’t hurt.
Richey Piiparinen is a Clevelander, a writer, and a city strategist. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Atlantic Cities, New Geography, Huffington Post, and Next American City. Richey is co-editor of the book Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology. His musings and work can be found at richeypiiparinen.wordpress.com and rustbeltchic.com.
23 Responses to ““Uncool” Cleveland”
Snarky
Stats can be misleading young man.
What you fail to post are actual numbers .
Also , how many of those returning or arriving from chi or crook land are now residing in their parents basement in Richmond heights?
There is nothing chic or cool about CLEVELAND 2013.
Not unless the notion of endemic poverty , third world. birth stats concerning babies having babies is chic or cool.
All the beer joints and thirty something hipsters do not a city make.
Most of the lower west side newbies seem drunk on themselves as well as on beer.
ClevelandRocks
Hey Sharky get out of your parent’s basement and out of your suburban “prison” and try to actually gets some culture.
Nothing cool about Cleveland 2013??? You probably have never even been to the city.
What’s not cool about a city whose downtown occupancy rate is at record highs and have waiting lists to get apartments?
What’s not cool about the 2nd largest performing arts district in the country (Playhouse Square) which is also getting updated this spring?
What’s not cool about University Circle and the largest concentration of museums in a 1 square mile radius in the country and just recently having the Cleveland Museum of Art finish an expansion, The museum of modern art’s new building, the current expansion and updates of the Western Reserve Historical Society, The upcoming renovation to the Natural History Museum, the botanical gardens and one of the Best Orchestras in the nation all within a 5-10 minute walk. How uncool…..
What about all the new development in Uptown / University circle that has to be uncool with all the public art work, programs, university updates, shops, restaurants, etc.
What’s not cool about all the great dining options on East 4th, Warehouse District, Little Italy, Ohio City, Tremont, Gordon Square, etc…
What’s not cool about not having to spend half your salary on a mortgage?
What’s not cool about having a new Convention Center and being on the forefront of medical technology and further illustrated by the new Medical Mart and collaboration the major world ranked medical institutes of the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals?
What’s not cool about have a city that actually has a balanced budget and not going bankrupt (Detroit) or on the verge of going bankrupt (Chicago)?
What’s not cool about the new development in the Flats which is already planning on phase 2?
What’s not cool about one of the most sustainable cities?
What’s not cool about a city which is attracting major motion pictures to film because they say they can virtually film any type of scene in Cleveland with the exception of Mountains and Deserts?
I guess if you think Chicago is cool with its increasing gang activities and being the murder capital of the US (Heck one weekend they had over 60 shot and 21 dead) Pretty much a fifth of what Cleveland has for the year.
Do you think a city like Chicago that has such a huge deficit that its on the path of what Detroit is going through and recently laying off cops and closing many of the public schools?
Do you think a city like Chicago which has one of the highest vacancy rates in terms of residential and commercial is cool?
Do you think a city like Chicago which has a unemployment rate over 10% is cool?
Do you think a city which has one of the highest taxes in the nation yet progressively gives you less for your taxes (it currently is the third worse city financially comparing the debt to income ratio of the city and is on course to be a bigger Detroit) is cool?
If the last statements are true then yea I’m glad Cleveland isn’t your definition of “Cool”.
Snarky
Sorry to bust the g string of your cheer leading guitar solo , cleveland rocks.
Live and work downtown , heard all the hype before , and the sidewalks still roll up at six p.m. When no special events are happening.
I suggest you stop smokin’ those cleveland rocks , and spit out the cool aid.
Howard
Snarky, I think you’re rolling yourself up at night. A 97-percent occupancy rate in downtown, with a dozen or so apartment more market-rate projects on the horizon, is not a declining city, no matter how much someone needs to project their self-loathing onto their environs. It’s not necessary for the growing downtown population to coordinate a street festival every weeknight to prove downtown resurgence. The fact that restaurants, club, theaters are all operating — and growing — is proof enough.
Snarky
Again n
Hard numbers not percentage.
97 percent of what?
The whole number of citizens downtown is under 9,000 , many in tax abated digs .
When Cleveland’s downtown gets to 50,000 like Detroit’s midtown neighborhood then you will have convinced me , and retailers such as n actual food market , that a critical threshold has been reached.
Until then , downtown living remains a temporary place for young breeders , content to stay until Miffy gets her baby bump , and then it is off for the ‘ burbs and a lifestyle that revolves around cracker park.
Howard
Detroit? Surely you jest. You just quoted a figure for Detroit’s DAY-TIME downtown population.
Detroit doesn’t even have a measurable core-downtown population. Detroit stats measures a 36,000 (not 50,00) population figure for its GREATER DOWNTOWN area — which is “a 7.2 square mile collection of neighborhoods: Midtown, New Center, Woodbridge, Eastern Market, Lafayette Park, Rivertown, and Corktown.
A comparable demarcation would be Downtown Cleveland, Ohio City, Tremont and a good chunk of near-east side and University Circle
As for Cleveland’s SPECIFIC CORE downtown population, it has doubled in the last decade and is expected to continue to grow. Even in 2005, the Brookings Institution called Cleveland one of America’s “Emerging Downtowns” because of its 32.2% growth over the period. As of the 2010 Census the population of Downtown Cleveland was 11,693 — not 9,000 as you incorrectly claim — making it the biggest downtown district in Ohio. The growth has continued through this year.
Your notion that successful developers would be investing millions of dollars of new apartment and condo housing in the CORE downtown area for “temporary space for young breeders” is groundless. The developers have actual marketing studies, whereas it seems you have nothing but wishful negative thinking.
snarky
Detroit’s midtown section enjoys a core population of 50,000.
This fact was repeated on the NPR program featuring the opening of a
new WHOLE FOODS MARKET , in the midtown district , and was quoted as the critical mass number needed for such a retail food enterprise to prosper.
Take your demographic shitz up with the NPR folk , who made quite a point of stressing the 50,000 plateau as critical for the Whole Foods Store to open.
The BBC reporters where also sniffing around Detroit at the same time , as the city was filing for bankruptcy.
As for your comments concerning the busting nature of growth in downtwon Cleveland populatuion , time will tell.
When a critical mass occurs that a National food store the likes of Whole Foods decides to open in downtown Cleveland , well then reality will arrive.
Until then , the millennium generation that we will refer to as breeders will split to the burbs when the baby bumps happen , leaving the sorry empty nest couples and grass widows who drive across town to a Heinen’s for their vittles , and the rag tag mincers and weirdos that comprise the odd lot of us who spend our days and nights in this lifeless space called downtown Cleveland 2013.
Do not get me started on think tank and media studies concerning the climate of Cleveland.
Suffice it to say that Cleveland always gets high marks in poverty , urban crime , poor education , and satisfaction of citizens concerning quality of life issues.
Forbes , New York Times , and other major media have reported these disturbing facts again and again.
Until the corporate welfare state which is downtown Cleveland is stopped , and public tax monies returned to neighborhoods this terrible state of affairs which is local politics will not have seen reform.
Howard
Hate to beak it to you, but midtown is not downtown.
But since you have to switch targets to pretend making a point, Cleveland midtown already supports full-service grocery stores, as well as one of the most venrable Italian markets in the Midwest — Galluci’s. Forbes has put Cleveland on top of lists– such as emerging downtowns — as much as bottom. New York Times praises Cleveland all the time, as does the Wall Street Journal. And really, dude, I wouldn’t allude to Cleveland’s crime rate — or climate — when you’re trying to cast it unfavorably against Detroit.
I’m glad Detroit has a Whole Foods, a nice Walmart take on Trader Joe’s, and it will serve Detroit’s last bastion of non-poverty denizens (althought I came across an alarming amount of “What are they thinking?” snark remarks from your Detroit counterparts.
As for me, I prefer a genuine gourmet CORE-downtown market like Constantino’s (or the bigger one in the new University Circle district). We in downtown Cleveland can take the RTA one stop away to one of the most acclaimed markets in the country in another residential urban core abutting downtown (I’ll let you guess). It’s a block away from a perfectly nice, upgraded full-service Dave’s.
Your hypotheses about limited-stay breeders seems to be not only predicated on an mindless resentment, but apparent lack of awareness of human aging. If ans when 30-somethigs head for the burbs — and new downtown schools are discouraging that — other people will grow into that age. Yes, it’s true!
That’s why, in of the worst lending markets since the Depression, developers have been able to finance new market-rate housing right in CORE downtown, as well as Midtown and onward to University CIrcle.
Yes, There is a reason why a Whole Foods is such a big deal in a city that — unlike Cleveland, which is solvent — went belly-up.
By the way, lots of “non-breeders” are flocking to downtown Clevleand as well. Get over it.
Howard
P.S. Wikepedia lists Detroit Midtown’s population as 14,550.
Snarky
Howard , of course downtown is not midtown in Derroit or Cleveland.
Sad truth is that Detroit has hit.bottom with their fiscal collapse into bankruptcy , have no worries though , pCleveland will follow this course seeing that we are saddled with a huge debt ostructure going forward due to the whims of the suburban ruling class that has deemed that. Downtown developments in the form of corporate welfare in regards to such proven losers as sports stadiums and convention center will leave us on the hook for decades to come.
And yes Howie , duty should tell you that the population of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is shrinking with great aclarity , as tax paying citizens flee to the burbs and beyond.
So you can take your motley crew of millennial mutts and wannabe hipsters and all 9 to 10 thousand of them , many tax abated thenselves , will be leaving cleveland after breeding whether you like it or not.
As for national and international media perceptions of Cleveland and northeast Ohio , I guess it matters what sections of the newspapers you read ,and consider relevant.
The travel pages and lighter features seem to have sipped the same feel good cool aid that paints downtown Cleveland in an erroneous upbeat fashion.
Sad truth is that without some sort of special event , downtown Cleveland is as dead as Kelsey’s nuts.
The hard news reportage of all affairs Cleveland shows a more realistic examination of demographics that pertain to the entire city , not the cozy , boozy , and glutton laden downtown.
Real news says that crime in Cleveland is up in most categories , and most people reading the National media have a rather sordid picture of a bottom dog little city that is drought with outrageous crooked politicians , fun house evil murder lusting serial killers , and safety forces that double dip , ignore crime , or just plain seem not to care very much because they no longer live here , or are they invested in the city.
So , Cleveland is Detroit Junior , and in a few years we will also find our bottom , and then work on recovery.
By the way , I live and work downtown and would not consider shopping at Consatntino market . Overpriced and no selection.
Try Dave’s market on Payne and the Chinese groceries for better results.
Detroit is looking up , Cleveland still going down.
Snarky
Wikipedia. Is a morons choice of stats Howie me boy.
Howard
You’re once again taking your loquacious dourness as facts.
14,550 of Detroit’s Midtown is not 50,000, no matter how you spin it.
No one held a gun to the people of the Brookings Institution when it deemed Cleveland one of America’s “Emerging Downtowns.”
A city paying its bills (Cleveland) is not like a city that can’t (Detroit.).
If you want to look at a dead city, step outside of Greektown on a Detroit weeknight; it makes downtown Cleveland seem positively like Gay Parree. I’ve been there; it seems you been in Cleveland listening to NPR at a supermarket opening.
Who’s moving out of Cleveland? Poor, evicted, jobless. Who’s moving in? Middle-class, young, upwardly mobile. That’s happening in Detroit, but not nearly as much as Cleveland.
Banks do not loan money to market-rate housing developers in a dead or dying market. In all your citing of travel sections and news sections, try picking up a business section — and please put down that plastic eight-ball with which you pretend to see the future.
Howard
Wikepdia bashing is the method of choice for people who have no facts of their own. Other sites list Detroit’s Midtown population as being lower that the figure provided by Wikepedia, which at least attributes its facts.
snarky
Howard , You are dreaming again , so it is my duty to provide the needle to your floppy headed balloon .
Evferyone that has the means is moving out of Cleveland , from poverty to tax payer.
Yes , period.
Just like Detroit , which s a fraction of it’s 1950 population , Cleveland is in the same mode , only a decade or so later.
No real gain in the middle class in Cleveland population , the few odd thousand that you refer to do not offset the accumulative flight that is so well noted in local census , 2010 , and well described in detail in the National media.
Local media , not so much .
The terrible local coverage of the demise and shrinkage of Cleveland from it’s once daily newspaper of record is as pathetic as your attempts to portray contemporary Cleveland as a ” chic ” portal for lost twenty somethings who have just crawled outa Momma’s basement in Parma and are now headed to the lower west side.
I have been an active visitor and observer of Detroit since the mid 1960’s.
Their current loss will result in a gain down the road.
As I said , Cleveland has yet to hit bottom , though my money is on a continued exodus of the west side residents in yet another outward migration wave over the next decade.
That is what my sterling set of crystal balls sez.
s for your bleating about Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood , why don’t you visit the Eastern Market at noon tomorrow instead , and tell me what you see.
With great ease the number of citizens at the Eastern market will out weigh the Saturday crowd at the west side market by thousands.
I know from dead cities , and Cleveland is one and getting deader as every citizen departs never to return.
I am glad that whole foods invested in a Detroit core neighborhood , and you will have to take it up with the NPR people and their Detoit affiliate concerning the 50,000 figure.
I would not give any credibility to the think tank brookings Institute , and as I stated the bias of those little fiefdoms has aa stench that reaches to Detroit , and their notion that Cleveland has an emerging downtown only means the clowns and cheerleaders from the buffoonery positively cleveland gang poured enough cool aid down their throats to help with their hallucination that anything is really happening here.
I read the NY Times and Wall Street Journal business pages , and that tells me all I need to know about the future of the rust beltnugget Cleveland.
As Marlena Deitrich said to Orson Welles in Touch of Evil , ” I seen your future honey , ist all used up”.
Howard
Was this the story you read from the New York Times?
http://nyti.ms/1f7L1J5
It was in the Real Estate Section.
Was this the story in the Wall Street Journal?
http://on.wsj.com/knxD8U
It’s headline: “In Cleveland, a Model of Economic Viability in the Arts”
Is the Smithsonian Magazine an arm of Positively Cleveland?
http://bit.ly/ghQa9g
It was a COVER STORY, titled “Cleveland’s Signs of Renewal.”
You keep going in circles with vague distortions about how a city that is doubling in growth is bad, but another city that actually just defaulted is good.
If you want to compare adjacent university area’s, try University Circle.
Don’t take my word for it, Try the New York Times again in “Heads Up: Culture Blooms in Cleveland”
http://nyti.ms/15iz6ED
It cites, “both job and population growth of late.” Nothing like the Detroit, which can’t even keep its regular museum going, let alone a Museum of Contemporary art like Cleveland.
W magazine doesn’t laud Detroit Midtown; it lauds Cleveland’s counterpart, University Circle …
http://wmag.co/16WC4mH
You keep going in circles with NOTHING but negative cant. You bring nothing substantive to the table, just restating your clear bias.
Detroit defaulted. Cleveland is paying its bills and building new market-rate housing. People are leaving SLUMS, not market-rate housing.
I am enjoying a city I really like. You are stewing in a city you loath. Go figure.
Howard
Your first duty is to wake up from your nightmare.
You keep going in circles with NOTHING but negative cant. You bring nothing substantive to the table, just restating your clear bias.
Detroit defaulted. Cleveland is paying its bills and building new market-rate housing. People are leaving SLUMS, not market-rate housing.
I am enjoying a city I really like. You are stewing in a city you loath. Go figure.
Snarky
Nobody listened to Cassandra either .
Your prejudice Howie seems to be class oriented.
The real slum is in your mind , when you can actually believe that your vision and happy little market rate downtown Cleveland trumps the pain of those who exist here in an empovrished state.
I am leaving this morning for a few days vacation in Detroit ,go figure ?
I have spent a lifetime in the larger post industrial remains if this region and will continue. To document the good and the evil of thie decline of these once vital cities.
Cleveland unfortunately still has to hit bottom before it can enjoy rebirth.
We are a decade behind Detroit , but still burdened with the same negative tax and social futures.
Howard
So it seems you come from Detroit … or Detroit area. Your “prejudice” and negative spinning seems to be rivalry oriented … and I can’t help but suspect a bit of jealousy thrown in (try shopping in Detroit’s non-existent AsiaTown, Little Italy or world-renown, century-old West Side Market.)
It seems to have clouded your grasp of history: Cleveland defaulted in the 1970s. It put into place economic stopgaps so it would not screw up again big-time like Detroit.
Never say never, but I have to consider, people moving out of Cleveland are hardly a loss of a sustainable source of tax revenue — quite the opposite, their continuing departure will be a relief to our strained city welfare funding. I’m sure you’ll want to switch targets and exploit my so-called elitism, but I firmly believe a city can’t fight poverty if it allows itself to succumb to it.
Just ask the folks in Detroit … But let them know, we are envious of their airport.
Howard
By the way, I think “Cassandra” goes by the name of “Chicken Little” in these parts.
snarky
Born and raised in Cleveland .
Sorry ,Eastern market trumps west side market in every way.
The cabal of local banks and cei conspired for the default of 1979.
You where not born at that time , though I did vote for Dennis for mayor.
Dennis was our last good mayor.
Poverty exists within the minds of those so small in stature and large in narcissistic pursuits to imagine their ‘ chic ‘ little selves to be better than their poverty stricken fellow citizens.
Cleveland should fight welfare funding now , by saying no to any further absurd public private enterprises the likes of a market rate hotel for the tourism industry , tax abated housing downtown , or any other welfare driven projects proposed by the likes of positively cleveland , or any convention bureau or tourism jive.
Just say no to corporate welfare.
I will dance a little joy dance when united airlines checks out of hopkins as a hub in the next few years.
Detroit is an international city with a great future.
Cleveland 2013 is a failed corporate welfare state waiting to bottom out , go bankrupt , and then start over via Detroit 2013.
Let the west side of cleveland revert to the farmlands again and feed us east side citizens once again.
I am told that keeping chickens and truck farming is all the rage on the lower west side.
Hey rube .
Howard
Well, someone who thinks any supermarket chain is better than West Side Market can’t be taken seriously.
You’re not adding any facts or figures, just upping the verbiage ante about the city you hate, repeating the same tired cliches about corporate welfare …
COMPARED TO DETROIT?
I guess you weren’t born when Detroit had its entire auto industry bailed out — way back in the Obama Administration.
Really, dude, wanna think twice before your keep comparing Detroit to Cleveland? Your losing credibility every time you post.
Howard
Oh, I almost forgot … Speaking of Public Radio, Michigan’s public radio states the following on its website:
“What bothers the independent grocers is not that Whole Foods is trying to make it in Detroit. It is just that they have been given what Crain’s Detroit Business estimated was $4.2 MILLION in state and local tax credits and incentives to do so.”
See what happens when you employ actual facts?
charles
I’m not from Cleveland nor Detroit, but have visited both, Cleveland is the greater investment for the future. Detroit will continue to fade even through its bankruptcy adjustment, as Cleveland will rebound albeit slowly into a mid size livable city of economic diversity, a falling crime rate, recalibrating of its school system, its political hierarchy will soon become transparent to the point that waste and corruption will be kept in check.