This is part II of a two-part series focusing on developing a method of urban therapy for a Cleveland catharsis. Part I can be read here.

Imagine your city as a child who has grown up to feel lost, out of sorts. In fact somewhere along the way of this child’s development there was a break, and there are constant reminders (vacancy, pollution) of that fact. But still, the child (your city) is now an adult, and with adulthood comes entrenched cognitive capacities (bureaucracies) that self-servingly stuff down these reminders. Life goes on, then. Yet neither the brokenness nor the entrenchment has left. And so the person (your city) goes on with the flexibility of a stuck muscle, never allowing the potentials to unfold if only because the truth of the absences would spill out.

Your city is Cleveland. Its past method of progress was to freeze 1948 into its place. Control, then, has become a hallmark of your city’s policies. Like the controlling of choice via the restricting of decision-makers. And the controlling of industries that are allowed to enter let alone succeed. And then the controlling of land use and transportation choices and city design. In fact controlling it all until there was little left to control. Little industry, little investment, little people, not to mention the little movement in our polluted lake and river, with the stilled water, then, symbolizing our disallowances at becoming a breathable urban system.

Still, the upshot of all this loss means we have little left to lose, and with that comes an opportunity to finally be able to walk through these failures if only to get to their source. Of course the failures, here, need no introduction. Particularly, they live embodied in the vacancy that runs shadows into our abandoned homes and workplaces—and in the ecological fallout that we walk on, breathe in, and drink. But again: addressing these failures means addressing their source: or our control, as it is a control that has led to a rigidity against accepting the fact that 2020 will not be 1948. Rather, 2020 will be out there—with or without us—and so we can’t keep pounding on our temples hoping the world comes back. A process of letting go then, a collective breath: this is what Cleveland needs. If only to wrestle our future back from the false security of knowing a repeatable past.

So what would a Cleveland catharsis look like, or more exactly: how would we get at it? Well, the first step is understanding that Cleveland is not some concrete fortress outside us, it is us. People are a city, which means we can’t plan for its resurgence without keeping human factors in mind. That said, this is exactly what we did with past efforts to plan, since we viewed Cleveland as a pile of buildings and businesses as opposed to an urban ecology filled with those capable of fearing and dreaming. And this hurt us. Because interpersonal capital does in fact exist. And so feelings do count. If only because feelings affect our perceptions which in turn affect how we go about piecing the wrongs of our fabric back.

Take vacancy for instance. A vacant lot in itself doesn’t inspire. Rather, it is a sign of loss: a loss of a job, of a neighborhood. And so when viewing what a vacant lot could be without addressing what has left is no more fruitful than planting tulips on the grave without the ceremony of goodbye. Acceptance, the embracing of uncertainty—such mental freeing allows a chance, or an opportunity to see in the absence of vacancy the potential for space. Otherwise, it’s all just abandonment. The vacancy around us just another excuse to pile the “bs” on a thing called Cleveland that is outside us.

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We don’t have an option. We got to think differently in how we plan for our cities, doing so more humanely, creatively, and there is an actual project in the works that attempts to do just that. The project—entitled “The Progression through Vacancy: The W. 83rd St. Project”—is a collaborative effort between residents of W. 83rd, Councilman Matt Zone, Cleveland's Weed and Seed, the City’s Planning and Building and Housing Divisions, and Detroit Shoreway CDO, and it invests in the interpersonal capital of a community by blending the power of art with the promises of sustainability, with the intent to show that from destruction and emptiness can indeed grow growth. (Disclosure time, folks. The author, me, is intimately involved in the project, having worked with Planning Director Bob Brown and Planning Commission member [and my professor] Norm Krumholz in its development as part of an independent study in urban planning at CSU.) 

More specifically, the project involves turning one of the condemned houses from the W. 83rd St. explosion into an art exhibit, with the intent to “frame” the feelings that empty, broken homes can ignite. That said, the art project will be participatory, allowing the residents a chance to creatively express the helplessness that can be hard to talk about. After all, what better way enable a reworking of vacancy than by making the vacant house the canvas itself?

But the project doesn’t stop there, as a next stage includes an additonal step of de-installation, in which the dissambeling of the vacant house art exhibit may allow for a good-bye of sorts. Particularly, the gaps of gone homes on W. 83rd happened so fast—the destruction of so many residencies coming so quick—that much of the community is still in shock, sad even. This was made evident when a bit a graffiti was recently placed on a house near the epicenter of the explosion that read: “RIP W. 83rd. You will be missed”.

Of course the best part of saying good-bye is that you are again given room to say hello, and this is where the sustainability part comes in. Specifically, the vacant house art exhibit will not be demolished but deconstructed, with the disassebled pieces being remade by community members into usable objects and forms that will be reintegrated into what will be the site of a community space. As it were, the fact that a place for conversing and gardening, or for reflecting and knowing that Cleveland can be no less reimagined than the dreams of the next night's sleep--the fact that it all can arise from a destructive event  will be nothing short of inspiring, not only for the participating community members, but for a city at-large.

Perhaps the project portends to a movement, or a marriage of arts and sustainability that can grow our failure away from our hope, leaving us with room to get whole. Regardless, there needs to be a movement. A movement away from the methods that have left us looking back with a gnawing wish for that city of smokestacks and machines: a city of bygones. And believe it or not, with vacancy and disinvestment we’ve been given a chance. A chance to start over, or to realign our future with the values we have inside: for community, for health, for ecological mending. And whether or not we can do it depends on how creative we get at throwing our possibility out into Cleveland—a city that is indeed “us”.

(Note: if you would like to get involved in the aforementioned project email here. If you would like to pledge financial and/or material support for the production of the W. 83rd art exhibit and/or community space, email here. The project needs your help.)