Can “branding” a city through a snappy slogan and slick marketing campaign work?
A lot of cities apparently think so, including Dayton and Cleveland, as outlined in this USA Today story.
They point to successful and memorable slogans, like “I love New York,” and “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” It’s also interesting to read the comments under the story- on mentions great success North Dakota has had marketing itself as a “Wild West” destination for bicyclists.
The story doesn’t mention less-successful campaigns. (I’m thinking of the Michael Moore movie Roger & …

Read here what one Buffalo woman misses after moving to Florida.
-KG
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Cleveland residents,
The Great Lakes Urban Exchange is hosing its third annual conference in Cleveland this year.
The group, which aims to share ideas and best practices for revitalizing Great Lakes cities, has a survey about how how the conference can best be used for “ACTION, rather than agendas.”
The group is “issuing this preemptive survey to help us plan conference activities that will be immediately actionable, useful, and effective in answering the needs of the ‘do-ers’ who are making Cleveland a healthier, more sustainable, more equitable and successful city.”
Find out more and …

It seems everyone who’s interested in cities has an opinion about Richard Florida.

I’ve always had it in for him, since he wrote, “Who’s Your City?,” a book which instructed readers which city they should live in based on personal characteristics, as if that was a rational way to choose a place to live.

When I was working at a newspaper in Toledo a coworker of mine began researching “Who’s Your City” for an article because Toledo was listed as the 12th (13th, 14th?) best mid-sized city to be a committed gay couple. The story had to be killed midway through, however, because the margin of error on the statistic was approximately 50 percent.

Well, Florida is gearing to go to the presses again in April with, “The Great Reset,” in which he argues that the recession has fundamentally reshaped the economic landscape. This tome may be more controversial because of its premise that the new economy will divide the country into geographic winners and losers.

It also happens that many of these “losers” paid Florida a hefty fee to explain how their cities could be made Meccas for the hip, highly-educated population that is so essential to prosperity, according to Florida’s teachings.

Michigan led the nation in one-year population loss, dropping below 10 million residents for the first time in nearly a decade, according to this article from The Toledo Blade.
Michigan lost nearly 33,000 residents this year as its economy suffered in a recession that was particularly brutal for the US auto industry.
Still, over the past decade, Michigan has gained a total of about 31,000 residents, owing mostly to births and foreign immigration.
-AS
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Great Lakes Urban Exchange is bringing its “I Will Stay If” campaign to Cleveland tomorrow.
If you’re in the Cleveland metro area, stop by Speakeasy Bar, 1948 West 25th Street, between 5:30 and 8 p.m. Hear from speakers Lillian Kuri, Randell McShepard, and Matt Zone. Connect with like-minded urban advocates.
Also, tell local leaders what you want from your city.
Here’s mine: “I will stay in Cleveland if the city finally coordinates its traffic signals and takes down the 300 that are completely unnecessary.”
-AS
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The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Global Midwest Initiative have launched an new blog to talk about the future of our region.
These folks should be familiar to you if you heard Richard Longworth speak at the Great Lakes Urban Exchange conference earlier this year or have read his book Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.
Welcome to the conversation!
-KG
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A common refrain heard in Buffalo, and much of the Rust Belt, is that you can’t appreciate the place until you’ve left it.

A crop of young Buffalonians have put this idea into practice in the past several years by combining an appreciation for their hometown with the innovative resources and ideas they’ve gained through education and experiences in the world outside the Queen City.

Megan McNally, a senior at Barnard College in New York, used a school grant to purchase a home (pictured above) on Buffalo’s blighted West Side. Picking up renovation tips from the non-profit

The state of Ohio lost population overall for the first time in nearly a decade, according to a study by Community Research Partners.

90.3 WCPN in Cleveland reports that the state lost 35,000 residents. In-migration and birth rates were not able to offset the decline.
Experts believe the out-migration can be traced to job loss. Ohio has a tendency to lose residents during a recession, experts report.
Franklin County, home to Columbus, managed to avoid the decline and gained residents. Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and Cincinnati’s Hamilton County both lost residents overall.
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I know we’ve had a lot on this blog about the current recession and how hard it has hit the auto industry and Michigan.
So, I apologize if you’re sick of reading about it, but I’m posting a link to this sobering Wall Street Journal Story about laid-off white collar workers.
“Mr. Barr, 46 years old, was the type of well-educated, white-collar ‘knowledge’ worker that Michigan hoped would help offset a decline in auto-assembly jobs. But Detroit’s Big Three car makers have aggressively thinned these ranks in the past two years, perhaps …