No doubt anecdotal, but I can't help but observe a common refrain from many who grew up in Cleveland circa the 50’s thru the 70’s. And the chorus sounds something like the reference to that down-and-out uncle, saying things like “what a shame” as eyes begin descending toward the sidewalk or the floor. It can be argued, perhaps, that such folks loved the city of their youth too much to ever set foot in the reality they no longer recognize. But is it that they can’t recognize Cleveland? Or is it more so the fact that they haven’t allowed their eyes the capability of a fresh look?

That said, it matters what the suburban diaspora think of their hometown, as these people must come back to their city, not necessarily to live, but to have pride and speak well and look around with belief. In fact, only when greater Cleveland supports the health of itself as a region through the vitality of its core will sustainability ever be reached. Because while regionalism is great in theory, it is nonetheless a political death knell that lacks much suburban will. What we are left with, then, is the attempt to change the perception of those who just shake their head at the present while bemoaning the absence of the past—or that Cleveland of Halle's and Bob Feller and Mr. Jingeling. And to change perception entails changing the emotional reality leading to the way things are seen, or not seen.

Roughly put, hanging onto the past means not accepting that it's gone. One way of not accepting is to leave the reality of a situation, like say hightailing it out to Parma Hts. because Clark-Fulton is changing from the way it used to be. (I've seen this particular out-migration first hand.) And so leaving beget mores reality which begets more people leaving until the avalanche of non-acceptance to the suburbs seals the endpoint no one wants to deal with: vacancy, disinvestment, mass segregation, etc. Superficially, life remains good away from the core, and there is nothing to see here.

Now, what is it about the baby boomer, Cleveland cohort that is particularly unamenable to letting go? I argue it was the suddenness of the decline during the 60’s and 70’s that perhaps played a part. As evidence of the suddenness, check the graph. See that precipitous drop? That was a period of twenty years (from '60 to '80) in which shockingly every third Clevelander moved out. That is, a third of one’s graduating class, family, and neighborhood left the landscape as many had grown to know it, with the subsequent loss of the known serving to rattle that cage we have inside where the truths of life’s unknowns are attempted to be secured. Couple this quick disappearing with a national black-eye that was catching water on fire, and then the ghettos on fire—not to mention the ignition of a mayor’s hair—well, the existential unknown served to become not only rattled but inflamed for many breathing in those times.

No doubt, it is the sudden losses that are hardest to get over. As the mix of ill-preparation and sharp shattering only serve to make more pronounced the mortality of everything—be it a city as we have grown to know it or a person we have grown to love. For many, the aim becomes to tuck the insecurity back into the cage that allows the comforts we've gotten used to, seeking for instance a new world where the chaos and the loss isn’t as present.  A world perhaps embodied by people arriving, and by lawns and cleanly divided sub lots. In short: a homogeneous world where there are less perceived chances for fires.

But of course reality eventually follows. As the Slavic Village of two days ago becomes the Berea of today becomes the Strongsville of a quickly approaching tomorrow, with a hope, then, being defined by a further outmigration in which the lawns and sub lots get larger, and the aesthetic more homogeneous—as if the sprawling out of our uncertainties into a thin film will finally make them stop arriving wherever there is flight.

Alas, the leaving doesn’t beget the exiting of our region’s problems. Because the leaving is simply extending the negative effects of outmigration away from the core and into the path of yesterday’s destination, making life in greater Cleveland unsustainable both fiscally and environmentally. We need to loop back in, then. Or rather start the process of in-migration like a person returning home to confront the moment(s) which ignited their need to escape. Come to think of it, maybe the best way to finally deal with all the loss is for everyone to begin arriving back to the center of Cleveland to see the potential as the founder’s saw it—so as to once and for all quit greater Cleveland's lessening.