Now that my family has land that we may use for a while, we are growing our own food... and enough for many other families, it seems. One $1.07 packet of radish seeds planted in May is already many pounds of crisp, bright, beautiful, healthy fresh veggies... and eating my first fresh radish of my life taught me radishes are actually delicious. Same for Kale, and all the varieties of lettuce covering our farmland... really fresh pesto is to die for... can't wait for the carrots and shallots!

I love art, and much in the Cleveland Museum's collection, and the old and newish CMA, but I am not convinced the current reengineering of the museum is economically positive for the region, and I am very displeased with their new slogan "art is back" as shallow and disrespectful to the real NEO arts community, which has never left. The museum needs to better explore its identity and role here, as so many arts organizations, our population and economy transition, and the CMA takes a proportionately larger share of the arts funding pie. If CMA is spending $100s millions constructing new edifices for old mold and cobwebs, I will be very disappointed. I'm waiting to see Rub put his shine on anything, other than proclaiming art is back in a place it never left. What do you think... did art leave?

Two weeks ago, City Fresh's Maurice Small met with friends in East Cleveland to discuss City Fresh, urban farming, and how we may convert a typical urban convenient store, Brown's Market, into a pilot City Fresh local foods market. During our discussions, Maurice mentioned that a dedicated urban farmer may earn more than $30,000 per year from sales of food grown on one typical urban lot (say 1/10th an acre). That being the case, and considering our ever-growing need and realigning demand for locally grown food, and the fact food may be grown locally as cost effectively as elsewhere in the world, it occurred to me that the highest and best use for most of the land now cleared, abandoned, blighted and wasted in our urban neighborhoods is for urban farming. So that is a use we are now planning to be core to redevelopment of the Star Neighborhood. Intrigued? Discuss and plan for this reality with Maurice and friends this Tuesday, from 6-7 PM, at that house on Roxbury, in East Cleveland. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

Two people reported to be HEK and MAK were reportedly arrested, May 30th, 2008. Jeff Buster and I have had a great interest in the work known all around NEO as HEK, and we both seem to wonder if there is really anyone to "arrest" as HEK, for HEK, as HEK seems the identity of many... the voice of many... and is today's Art of the Day.

Monday, June 16, 2008 - Fine Particle "Soot" Pollution Urban traffic" />
 
Northeast Ohio - An Air Quality Advisory has been issued for Monday until such time as the front containing rain moves through the region.  This Advisory is for the counties of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit.

Maurice Small is the most economically and ecologically sensible planner I know.

Joe Stanley, Sudhir Kade and I have been brainstorming with City Fresh's Maurice Small about "I GRO EC" - Independent Green Republic Of East Cleveland. City Fresh already operates a Fresh Stop at Huron Road Hospital - which Maurice reports is doing great - and is active in community farming in East Cleveland. Recently, we've been discussing City Fresh having an involvement converting Brown's Convenient store into a pilot City Fresh Market, which could offer a paradigm-shifting model for bringing local food, farming and their economies into very needy urban neighborhoods, in very innovative and important ways.

Here’s an item that should be thoroughly described in tomorrow morning’s Plain Dealer.

  Let’s see if the PD gives us ANY   description about what the public cost of this will or could mean given the desire of Mayor Frank Jackson, Marty Sweeney and the Plain Dealer to keep the public fully informed about public business.

Chiefs meeting in Cleveland

Now that we have $4 a gallon gasoline upon us maybe we should look at what could have been if only…

If only our Regional Transit System had concentrated on being a system that had as its main aim the transit dependent, not to mention our environmental needs.

Ten days ago I noticed a robin's next with three new-born chicks, and protective parents, living early Spring to the fullest. Already, the chicks are fledglings, having jumped yesterday from the safety of the nest to thrive or die on the ground, until their wings are strong enough to fly. I watched this fledgling hop and flap around for a while, as mom and dad protested from above. Certainly a critical time in the life of the robin, and I wonder how our three chicks did - are they still alive the next day - are they now part of the chorus of nature making NEO a great theater. Do we humans fledge our children as well, and make the theater of life better or worse for all living?.

If these are average Clevelanders, living in older urban neighborhoods like around University Circle their entire lives, they have been lead poisoned, perhaps severely. Thursday morning, May 22nd, join 100s of NEOs leaders concerned with our community's health, intelligence, safety and economy meeting at the Cleveland Natural History Museum for a free breakfast, keynote discussion and breakout sessions about lead poisoning and urban redevelopment. I guarantee you will leave this brief event with a completely realigned understanding of the core barriers to the success of our urban neighborhoods, leading to better planning for a healthy, effective region in the future.

This certainly has been a perfect spring for flowering trees, still exploding with color all over the near East Side. Here are some views at Lakeview Cemetery, where the plantings are exceptional any time of year, and especially about now. Check it out!

Reading along in the Sustainable Industries Website I found this link for the earthnow EXPO.

What is a "Green Roof" and what does it look like?

At the house on Roxbury, the green roof is where the raccoons still live.

Little Italy has always been core to my REAL NEO experience. From earliest childhood memories,  my family has always had many meals at various Little Italy restaurants, each year, as well as picking-up an occasional pizza (where else in NEO but Mama Santas or Valentino's... well, do try the Gelatoria at Fairhill). I also love getting Lemon Ice and other goodies at Corbos. with their unusual greeting of "Leave the gun, take the cannoli"... as authentic as life gets, in NEO. Last night, I noticed Corbos moved next door to their old home, to a remodeled new space (much as Prestis did, a few years ago) Little Italy has always been a great hyper-local neighborhood, where people live, work, eat and socialize together within, and interact well with the world without. There's always lots of private rehab and strong entrepreneurial business activity here, off the Med-O-Mart grid. Which makes me ask you, what matters to the hyper-local economy in your neighborhood, and how is that doing.

One great thing about a gravel driveway is you can hear them coming.

This afternoon, Claes and I were chilling at home in East Cleveland, minding our own business, when we heard that crunch of rocks under heavy tires. Then the slam of a car door, and heavy feet on the front porch... another drive-by had arrived. It's been happening regularly since we started renovating the house on Roxbury, late last Summer.... especially on a beautiful day like today.

I thought I'd share some reflections after just spending Cinco de Mayo facilitating dialogues around regional economic development in Akron, Ohio.  I, like so many other colleagues who have participated in various phases of the Voices and Choices process had my fair share of reservations and issues with various aspects of the two-year, multi-million dollar investment and experience.  While I found great value in working hard to facilitate regional dialogues with a healthy mix of participants representing diverse demographics, I learned firsthand how difficult it is to drive meaningful outcomes from such activity.  I, like so many others, was very candid about the many difficulties endured and faced during the process - perhaps the most prolific of which was a failure to have the mechanisms in place to capture the heightened energy and activation of the masses in an effective and timely manner to drive meaningful and positive outcomes.  A candid conversation I had today with Advance Northeast Ohio's communications director, Chris Thompson, completely validated my feelings, as he was in complete agreement on this point.  I laud Chris for such candor and really appreciated his astute comments. 

Welcome to The Star Market and Cafe! What would make you walk, ride and drive out of your way and stop here? When? Why? Now is the time for Star Neighborhood Development to reinvent a blighted urban convenient store into a community asset. But how? That depends on you. What will you support here?

Jeff Buster certainly demonstrates "Why Citizen Journalism" regularly, with his impactful and important reporting and photojournalism on many matters of hyper-local, regional and global importance, on REALNEO, followed by the world. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer followed Jeff's lead investigation of a disgraceful, failed development in University Heights, "UNIVERSITY SQUARE MALL PARKING STRUCTURE - CLOSE IT NOW?" The PD's Patrick O'Donnell writes "University Square battles empty storefronts, parking garage problems", offering a very different set of perspectives on all matters related to this failure, while completely validating all construction-related observations first revealed by Jeff, a lifelong construction professional.

As we begin a new Spring - a new beginning - what are you doing to green your republic?

Corsair, a private pot of money and investors that seems poised to bail out National City, is an interesting development, but if you're concerned about housing and local investment, where is the encouragement for the future in a bank that got into this mess, at least in part, through poor lending practices and weak management oversight on home lending?

"It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

I just received this message from New American Dream - follow that link for a nice webpage on spring cleaning. One of the great disasters of our consumer economy is the proliferation of dangerous household construction practices, lifestyles and cleaning processes, and harmful products in use in and around our homes on a daily basis. In renovating our historic house in East Cleveland, Evelyn and I have made all living spaces as toxin-free as possible, and we certainly intend to keep it that way in maintaining it. I think the following message offers some good advice - I don't endorse any of the products mentioned, as I don't know anything about them...the make-your-own approach mentioned here is more my style.

Clipper's Steelwinds project in Lackawanna, New York is passing through a dark and uncertain repair/redesign.  This photo taken on March 28, 2008 shows 6 of the 8 turbine towers without their blades.  Earlier in the week only the tower on the right hand (north) had blades, so it appears that the lattice boom crane  in the center of the photo is installing, not removing, the turbine hub and blades - presumably after the repair of the gear box.  

What does tomorrow look like? For Fritz Haeg it is a place where rather than waste precious natural resources on vanity-scapes like the ubiquitous front lawn we learn to work with the earth and find both beauty and functionality in personal and social investments such as his  “Edible Estates”. It is a tomorrow that includes architecture as a way of relocating animals to their natural habitats. Haeg will discuss his work as an architect, designer, educator, curator, artist, in short---visionary, as well as his ideas about an alternate model to the artist as isolated creator.

fritzhaeg.com
NY Times
Metropolis
www.cia.edu/tomorrow

 

April 1st is "Energy Wasting Day"

A Great Idea, and A Great Video...

http://www.energywastingday.com/

Wear BLUE for Earth Day 2008 to Vote for NO COAL 1 comment | calendar | read more | 404 reads ( categories: Sustainable Development | Alternative Energy | Green Development | Biofuel | Community | Fuel Cell | Global Warming | Solar Power | Sustainable Transportation | Wind Power ) CUYAHOGA COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES: MEDCON OR STREET LIGHTS? Submitted by Jeff Buster on March 22, 2008 - 2:43pm. At the City Club recently, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson-Jones suggested that the first priority for the County goverment was "economic development", and that's why the Commissioners and Fred the Fixer Nance were working so hard to be able to pay a wealthy developer from out of state to build and operate a public-private pirate ship here in Cuyahoga. Jeff Buster's blog | login or register to post comments | read more | 427 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Healthcare | Industry | NEO Communities | Sustainable Development | Workforce Devlopment | Alternative Energy | Green Development | Community | Economy | Environment | Health ) CHRIS KENNEDY FACILITATES TOTAL COLLAPSE OF CLEVELAND AND CUYAHOGA COUNTY Submitted by Jeff Buster on March 21, 2008 - 1:25pm. Of all the possible investments that are needed here in Northeast Ohio’s Cuyahoga County and in Cleveland,  the County Commissioners have chosen – in secret meetings and without the vote of the public – to spend over $900,000,000.00 (even more for a possible 60 year contract) in a scheme whose only acknowledged public benefit is amorphous “trickle down”.    Jeff Buster's blog | login or register to post comments | read more | 492 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Cleveland | Dear Peter | Healthcare | Information Technology | NEO Communities | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Community | Economy | Education ) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... next page last page

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