Check out this video tribute to Cleveland’s Randall Park Mall, recently listed on the Huffington Post’s America’s Most Abandoned Places.

I especially dig the Edward DeBartolo intro, where he claims prophetically that downtown will decline and the suburbs will rise. What is the next frontier for Cleveland? Will it continue to be farther out into farmlands? Will a return to the city really take hold in greater Cleveland like it has in more prosperous metros? Who is the Edward DeBartolo (Youngstown) of today? What would he say? Would he even bother …

This story originally appeared in HiVelocity and was reprinted with permission of the author, Rust Wire contributor Lee Chilcote.
In the heyday of Youngstown’s steel industry, wealthy families settled in the city’s Idora neighborhood, building solid, brick homes near Mill Creek Park. Trolley cars whistled down Glenwood Avenue, the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare, and shot-and-a-beer bars like the Empire Club Tavern served steel workers coming off their shifts.
Yet today, Idora’s decline is like an oft-repeated refrain from a Springsteen song. The community is packed with empty …

I am from Columbus, or really, I’m from Toledo, but I grew up in Columbus. And I live in Cleveland.

There aren’t too many of us Columbus transplants here. On the contrary, when I lived in Columbus, approximately 40 percent of everyone I knew was from Cleveland.

So anyway, when I’m meeting new people from Cleveland it generally comes up relatively soon in the conversation that I am from Columbus. Generally, this inspires one of two reactions:

The number of poor in the Cleveland and Youngstown MSA’s that live outside of the city proper has grown like wildfire over the last decade, according to a study I led at the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University.

57% of Cleveland metro’s poor live outside of the city proper, whereas in Youngstown the figure is at an astounding 74%. Overall, the 17-county region saw a marked the swelling of the disadvantaged.

Cuyahoga County’s 2010 poverty rate (approx 18%) increased by nearly 6%. The increase occurred because the county at-large got poorer. In all, 80% of Cleveland neighborhoods had an increased poverty rate, as did 75% of Cleveland suburbs.

Recently I wrote about the grocery chain Giant Eagle wanting to open up a mega-store less than a mile away from an existing store in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville. I argued this type of sprawl development is counteractive for a number of reasons, including its erosion of small business.

Well, the local politicians heard citizen concerns, and they have amended the plans. Good news, right?

Not exactly.

Source: lonelyplanet.com

Michigan State University in East Lansing has been a steady leader among public universities in the United States for sending its students abroad for a portion of their academic studies. On the flipside, the university along with seven other Big Ten universities has been the lucky recipients of a growing influx of international students, particularly undergraduates from China in the past five years. According to the Open Doors 2011 report from the Institute of International Education, of the 25 universities in the United States with the largest international student population, …

60 Minutes recently swooped into Cleveland with a heartbreaking story about homeowners dealing with foreclosure — and about the city’s efforts to deal with this tremendous problem.
The segment made its focal point a failed developed called Cinema Park. This neighborhood, like so many across the United States, got started with high hopes right before the recession began. And now, it is eerie, half empty, a startling reminder of how much has changed in this country over such a short time.
Cinema Park is a particularly sad case because the development, on …

This article was written by Alex Abboud. It originally appeared on his blog and was reprinted with permission.
They’re going to be making steel in Youngstown again. Taken in isolation, this is great news, pointing to progress in an area that has struggled economically for the past 3-4 decades, and – as the story linked above – points out, lost half its population since 1950.
The steel mill, however, will be producing parts to use in hydraulic fracturing, fracking for short. This process is gaining support in the …

Yesterday a bunch of folks in Cleveland got together to discuss a topic that is near and dear to Rust Wire’s heart: civic boosterism.

The discussion mainly focused on whether this is a good or bad way to discuss Cleveland (also with some devolution into is Cleveland good or bad). There were a few harsh exchanges and no clear consensus, so it was a little disappointing from that perspective.

I have permission to post a few responses from the peanut gallery (for those 4 people who are not 100% sick of this whole discussion at this point).

I didn’t so much grow up in Cleveland as I did into Cleveland — like a vine wrapping around a brick. My thoughts and interests became tied to its physicality, to its familiarity, and of course with the familiar comes the longing for nostalgia and the way things used to be: that city of my childhood — the buttermilk at the Market, my grandma’s garden along the fence near the alley.

That’s the plus side of staying where you grew up. The downside arises from the stark reality that the past can’t exist intact, and this is particularly true in the Rust Belt.