Thanks to LeBron's aided autobiography Shooting Stars, I thought he was staying in Cleveland. It's a dully written account of his AAU and high school teams and their eventual rise to a national championship, but it masquerades, in part, as a love letter to Akron. More than the comradery and friendship spurring them onto athletic heights, it's a book about the motivation to "Put Akron on the map." Cleveland isn't very far from Akron, I reasoned, and that meant he'd do all he could to stay in northeast Ohio. Obviously, that wasn't what happened because LeBron draws a line between Akron and Cleveland. As I'm finding, most Cleveland natives don't do that, but I've never heard an Akron native say they're from Cleveland. It's a similar region, sure, but I'm not from Toledo and Wooster is a far cry from Cleveland, so I know what it means, to not buy into a melting pot mentality where the biggest city in a certain region takes precedence. Looking back, the more accurate argument is that LeBron wanted to put Akron on the map precisely because it wasn't Cleveland. Without Cleveland, this part of the world would be the Akron area. They've got their own airport, they've got their own state university, they've got their own courthouse, and they're in a different county. Akron isn't Cleveland, and it was probably the fact that Cleveland is on all maps and Akron isn't that meant the most to LeBron.
It's not LeBron's motives that I want to write about- it's his sentiment and how it is manifest in Cleveland, toward Cleveland.
Nationally, isn't known for much but failure. There are valid reasons for that and I'll always argue that it's tragically unfair. The symphony, the culinary scene, the museums, the arts scene-- they're strides ahead many major U.S. cities, but the national reputation isn't there. Likewise, it's impossible to talk about Cleveland without mentioning the sports- though 3 major sports teams are here, to look at ESPN most of the time, you wouldn't know it.
When you're in Cleveland, it's easy to get lost in the great things going on in the city (or frightened by the bad). Taking a step back though, there's not a lot of publicity outside of Cleveland that would suggest its at all a place worthy of visiting, living, or investing.
My opinion is skewed by my biased intake of mostly sports media (and NPR), but across the board, Cleveland can't even get respect from Forbes magazine as a tortured sports city. It's easy to look at things nationally and view Cleveland as, at best, a footnote. Even statewide, Cleveland feels a bit separate from Ohio. We spent last weekend in Columbus and, though it's the biggest city in the state, it's got a more midwestern, less east-coast urban feel than Cleveland. In many ways, Columbus Ohio resembles Madison Wisconsin more than Cleveland. Perhaps outside of Steubenville, Youngstown, and Akron, there isn't a place that feels remotely like Cleveland in the rest of Ohio. Every place is unique, of course, so you can't take that too far, but it's, as far as I can tell, its own sort of reality. I've got my theories (perhaps the predominant of which being cultural background- Cleveland hasn't had nearly as much German American influence as essentially the rest of the state, and that changes things in surprisingly evident ways), but it all boils down to a crumbling bridge. Cleveland doesn't fit into Ohio terribly well because it's on the cusp (though less and less seemingly all the time) of being a major U.S. metropolitan area, but gets what at least appears to be none of the respect and perks that should go with that.
Statistics could derail all of this, but back to LeBron. He wanted to put Akron on the map, but Cleveland's been on the map, for a long time. Everyone here knows that. Anyone who spends a week eating out in this city realizes that there's a better restaurant scene going on here than most places otherwise. But how would you ever know that, looking at the rest of the country? The end result, as I often see it, is a mixture of ambivalence and anger. I've talked to and heard a lot of angry people, desiring a form of respect for Cleveland that just isn't there. I've also heard and talked to a lot of people that don't care and just want to live life whatever that means, regardless of the city's reputation.
I think the proper path to pursue lies somewhere between those options. It's important for the long-suffering economy of Cleveland that real respect actually come our way. We can't just be poor old Cleveland, or bad old Cleveland, or liberal old Cleveland if we're going to get what we need at the State level. Likewise, we can't just be written off on the national level if the synergy needed to see economic renewal emerge is ever going to happen. Companies aren't going to come to a place perceived as more dying than reviving- it's really that simple.
Ultimatley, the issue might lie most in Cleveland's eclecticism. If you're not New York, it seems you've got to be exceptional at one thing in order for the collective American psyche to accept and affirm what's going on. Outside of the Cleveland Clinic (which most people don't care about til they need it, unfortunately), Cleveland doesn't really lead in anything. We can argue for top 5 status in a lot of things, but there's no niche (outside of corned beef, perhaps, but I care more about that than the average person, I'll admit) that makes Clevealnd a destination for a certain experience. Unfortunately, the Rock Hall just doesn't cut it (not, especially, when you can experience the most important aspect of the inductees via Pandora from anywhere on Earth. Celebrating mostly dead recording artists isn't exactly a fruitful industry, in the digital age).
It would be wonderful, were it possible, for Cleveland to grab something and become a true leader. The better option though, would be an expansion on the part of the collective American psyche, to value true diversity and eclectic experience. That wouldn't just help Cleveland- honestly, it'd help the whole midwest, wherein cities just aren't coastal, by definition, and thus, don't boast singularly defining experiences. I don't know how to do that, but it's got to start, step by step, with inviting people to experience Cleveland and tell others about it- and the reputation has to come back.
That's why it hurt so much when LeBron left. We were there, we were "back." Cleveland mattered and it wasn't supposed to be too long before that ended in a championship-- finally being able to say we're the best at something.
LeBron wasn't going to single-handedly renew this city, and a championship, by any of the three teams won't either. Nevertheless, something has to happen, at some point, to rebuild, to some degree, Cleveland's reputation. That's why we're a sports-obsessed city, I think. Every season is a chance, in a city where few chances ever come by.
-Zack
"we had our mind's set, all things no, all things no.
You had to find it, all things go, all things go"
-Sufjan Stevens
