10 Things Cleveland Should Be Proud Of
The skies are grey, there are grumpy Monday Moaners all around you, and it's snowed 98+ inches so far this winter. You're ready to relocate. There's absolutely nothing good about Cleveland.
If you tend to find yourself in that frame of mind, take some advice from someone who's left (twice, in fact.) Cleveland has a lot to offer. Here are a few assets you won't find anywhere else:
1. Cheap public transportation that gets you pretty much anywhere. Where else can you pay $3 for an unlimited daily pass?
2. The City Club Forum is the "oldest continuous free speech forum in the country." They've had speakers from George Bush to Dennis Kucinich, illuminating bigwigs and little people alike on national and regional issues. Most impressive is their longstanding New Leaders program, designed to mold young professionals into effective community leaders.
3. The Civic Innovation Lab supports, mentors, and funds programs that help Cleveland pull itself up by its bootstraps, ones that haven't been done before, ones that encourage those young creative types to try something new...something that might just help their little old hometown morph into something great. Take a look at the Urban Scrawl project for an idea of what I mean.
4. A bevy of alternative media outlets, such as the Free Times, Cool Cleveland, and Brewed Fresh Daily. Seriously, folks, don't take these guys for granted. You don't know what you're missing until you end up someplace without a decent local substitute.
5. Edgewater Park. It's free. Where I live, you have to pay $85 for a season pass just to get on the beach. Plus, Edgewater has an unparalleled view of the Cleveland skyline.
6. Rent is cheap and apartments with character are plentiful. It's pretty hard to find a studio for $1,000+ in Cuyahoga County.
7. The Cedar Lee and the Cinematheque. Trust me, there are lots of places in this beautiful land where you can't see an art flick without driving (and driving, and driving).
8. The West Side Market - move somewhere else, and you'll probably not be able to find 5 lbs. of zucchini for $1.
9. The Cleveland Metroparks. Central Park certainly can't boast hundreds of miles of hiking trails.
10. The CLEVNET Libraries. Maybe I'm a little biased, what with being a librarian and all, but the CLEVNET collection spans 30 library systems and 9 counties. It's completely free to use, and I never once requested a book that they didn't have somewhere in that vast network. If you're literate in Cleveland, take a moment to be grateful for CLEVNET.
Feel free to add your own....
If you tend to find yourself in that frame of mind, take some advice from someone who's left (twice, in fact.) Cleveland has a lot to offer. Here are a few assets you won't find anywhere else:
1. Cheap public transportation that gets you pretty much anywhere. Where else can you pay $3 for an unlimited daily pass?
2. The City Club Forum is the "oldest continuous free speech forum in the country." They've had speakers from George Bush to Dennis Kucinich, illuminating bigwigs and little people alike on national and regional issues. Most impressive is their longstanding New Leaders program, designed to mold young professionals into effective community leaders.
3. The Civic Innovation Lab supports, mentors, and funds programs that help Cleveland pull itself up by its bootstraps, ones that haven't been done before, ones that encourage those young creative types to try something new...something that might just help their little old hometown morph into something great. Take a look at the Urban Scrawl project for an idea of what I mean.
4. A bevy of alternative media outlets, such as the Free Times, Cool Cleveland, and Brewed Fresh Daily. Seriously, folks, don't take these guys for granted. You don't know what you're missing until you end up someplace without a decent local substitute.
5. Edgewater Park. It's free. Where I live, you have to pay $85 for a season pass just to get on the beach. Plus, Edgewater has an unparalleled view of the Cleveland skyline.
6. Rent is cheap and apartments with character are plentiful. It's pretty hard to find a studio for $1,000+ in Cuyahoga County.
7. The Cedar Lee and the Cinematheque. Trust me, there are lots of places in this beautiful land where you can't see an art flick without driving (and driving, and driving).
8. The West Side Market - move somewhere else, and you'll probably not be able to find 5 lbs. of zucchini for $1.
9. The Cleveland Metroparks. Central Park certainly can't boast hundreds of miles of hiking trails.
10. The CLEVNET Libraries. Maybe I'm a little biased, what with being a librarian and all, but the CLEVNET collection spans 30 library systems and 9 counties. It's completely free to use, and I never once requested a book that they didn't have somewhere in that vast network. If you're literate in Cleveland, take a moment to be grateful for CLEVNET.
Feel free to add your own....
Labels: Cleveland
posted by Christine Borne at 7:34 PM
12 Comments:
Cleveland should be proud of ExPats around the country who miss it, tell their friends about it, and remind us here what there is to be proud about...
A vibrant left end of the dial in the radio spectrum. There are a number of top notch college radio stations in the Cleveland/Akron market: WRUW, WCSB, WZIP, WJCU, WBWC, etc...
You can get seven different good cups of coffee a week without once having to set foot into a Starbucks.
four full seasons a year with no tornados, quakes, fires, hurricanes or many natural disasters ! the cheapest place to live next to the largest freshwater lake in the land ! the metroparks streching from the lake to the ledges in the valley! and jim is right, the best college radio in the land...free....
Thought of a few more:
Food. *Great* ethnic eats in Cleveland, on every side of the city.
Booze. Some excellent bars in Cleveland as well, plus some top notch beer is made in the region. Being a native Philadelphian however, I do miss my Yuengling. :-)
As someone who now lives in the "deep" south, believe me that Cleveland is outstanding in many ways. The architecture of Cleveland-area homes is outstanding, beautiful, interesting, and varied, and you don't know how lucky you are if you have a basement until you don't. The Autumn and Spring and some of the best around, period. Oddly enough, the infrastructure is also - quite - good, considerably better than where I live now (on the Florida Georgia border). I miss all the things Christine and others mention, the radio especially(I've lived here 2 years and don't listen to any radio whatsoever). Don't forget WKSU and Jim Blum's Folk show, and WCLV. For those who don't know, the owner of WCLV fought long and hard to keep WCLV alive and out of corporate hands. Where I live now has a stinky orchestra and only plays classic music after 9pm. Also, the amazing variety of ethnicity, foods, and people. Cleveland is great!
Nicely said. I thought of some things as well here (with only a few overlaps): 37 things we love about Cleveland
My list I posted just before my move to Phoenix.
I moved to Cleveland last fall, and since then have been keeping a blog of all the things I'm finding to love about my new home. Thanks for the recommendations for new things to discover!
I'm a transplanted far west-sider (Lorain/Vermilion) now in Orange County, CA. I've been back and forth between here and there all my life, in California this time for the last four years. Here's what I miss and what the Greater Area should never take for granted:
Roman burgers and cheese fries from Mr. Hero (I've gathered that most of you might be healthy eaters.....I'm not.)...
Grouchy-ass, genuine, honest people. There's a realness to people back home that you can't find out here in LA LA Land. I have maybe two decent friends here, I have a half dozen back there that would drop everything to help me out if I needed it (and vise-versa)....
The way people talk. Whether you realize it or not, the Cleveland area has a lot of linguistic diversity...I think people on the west side of town sound a little different from the east-siders and obviously people in Akron/Canton sound a LOT different from us hicks out in Lorain. But people there have genuine charecter in their speech and some of the home-spun slang is hilarious...I drop a few of these jewels now and then out here (I'd give some examples, but most are profane). People look at me like I just fell from the moon.
Awesome site, Christine.
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I have been a Cleveland resident for most of my life and I think that this city has a lot of hidden treasures. I like this blog. I hope that it will help me find some treasures that I didn't know about
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