Cleveland Foundation President and CEO Ronn Richard outlined his vision for "Revitalizing America's post-industrial cities: Some lessons from Cleveland" at the City Club on Friday, September 8, 2006.

Richard insists that, "For a post-industrial city to be revitalized, it has to have a comprehensive, long-term, strategic action plan – a plan with benchmarks and early, visible wins...the plan must be the entire city's game plan."

His action plan focuses on these five critical areas:

• Topping the list is, of course, economic development and globalization. In short, jobs!
• Second — we must not simply improve our public schools, we must reinvent them. Again: not just a challenge for Cleveland, but for our nation.
• Third — we must continue to improve the livability of our urban neighborhoods with new housing, better security, green space, and recreation — all those things that make for quality living.
• Fourth — we must improve and reorder how we deliver essential human services, especially to the young. If “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” then reaching out to our most vulnerable citizens at an early age must be a priority.
• And fifth — we must ensure that our remarkable arts and cultural institutions — many of them world famous — remain intellectually vibrant and economically viable, recognizing the key role that the arts play in our economy and in our quality of life.

It is also worth noting that Richard wants to see Northeast Ohio develop an advanced energy industry.

I believe that Cleveland should aim to become one of the world’s leading hubs of activity in advanced energy. If we succeed — if we become America’s leading supplier of wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, clean coal and whatever other new advanced technologies will supply the ever-growing demand for energy in an enduring fashion — we can create an industrial cluster employing tens of thousands of citizens, and generating billions of dollars in economic activity.

Who was listening? Who will take up the charge of a plan to revitalize Cleveland?

Read the full text of Ronn Richard's speech to the City Club.