A letter to my adopted hometown.

Dear Cleveland,

I have to admit, I really didn't get it when my elementary social studies textbook called Akron the "rubber capital of the world." (It's now touting its "Polymer Valley," by the way.) It didn't click even when I worked for the Western Reserve Historical Society promoting exhibits about African American traffic signal inventor Garret Morgan or the successful industrialists that called the extravagant mansions of Millionaire's Row home. But, since I started working in economic development, it has hit me like a ton of bricks.

You are built on entrepreneurship and that legacy is omnipresent.

A monument to Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller marks his grave in historic Lake View Cemetery. One of the first lights to illuminate a city street remains downtown on Public Square, the creation of Charles Brush, whose electric company merged to become GE. Abraham and Lena Stouffer's small coffee shop led to a frozen food empire that is now part of Nestle, still located nearby in the suburb of Solon. Iconic entrepreneurs like these are part of your identity. Some of the wealth they generated spurred the philanthropy that supports your community development, social programs and rich arts and culture today. And a host of big companies founded here at the turn of the century—familiar names like Sherwin-Williams and Eaton Corporation—continue to provide jobs for tens of thousands of Ohioans.

And, for a while, we got by on industries created more than 100 years ago. Those successes allowed us to be complacent. Things were okay, so there wasn't the urgency to take a risk, change our thinking, or start our own businesses. Then, we felt the pain of shifting technologies, global competition and urban flight.

Recently, there's been an explosion of enterprising ingenuity. Chef/restaurateurs are anchoring vibrant entertainment districts and making food trucks fabulous. Cooperatives of worker-owned, environmentally-sensitive businesses are cropping up around your cultural and educational epicenter, University Circle. A network of organizations are collaborating regionally to support entrepreneurs with the potential to change the way the world lives, works, and plays. And new initiatives are reaching out to attract, welcome and retain talent from around the globe.

Today it is community creating opportunity…a community supporting all types of entrepreneurs… a community itself acting entrepreneurially, that is contributing to your reinvention. Today I am happy to say things are very different for you. And yet, in some great ways, very much the same.

Fondly,
Sam.

Dear City of Cleavland [sic]:

Thank you for submitting your resume to be considered as a first-rate city whose inhabitants enjoy prosperity, personal fulfillment and civic pride.

The response was overwhelming, and after careful consideration of your specific qualifications, our department has decided to accept...another city whose background is more appealing and attractive and sexy.

Naturally, your information will be kept in our files for a year, in case an open position should occur that requires chronic unemployment, meager opportunities, poor infrastructure, empty storefronts and closed-down factories that testify to your spirit of "entrepreneurship" and an obsessive hatred of LeBron James for leaving the region so he wouldn't end up a minimum-wage "greeter" at your new downtown casino.

Thank you again for your interest. The very thought of YOU expecting in some small way to be placed on a similar level of status as US brought much amusement and hilarity to the staff. Merely your name on the return address label was enough to cause paroxysms of laughter, and the smiles will endure long after the dispatch of this firm refusal and cold rejection of your hopes and dreams.

We wish you best of luck in future endeavors.

...That, with some satirical exaggeration, is the letter I have collected during my long, fruitless attempts to ignite a career here. That is, when the employer even cares to generate a turndown letter in the first place.

It is mildly cathartic to be able to turn the tables, if only in fantasy.

A story is told that the President of the United States was visiting Cleveland, but the mayor at the time wouldn't meet with him. Because it was bowling night. My mistake, I think, was believing that in a town with such a negative reputation, the people might defy this label by pulling together more often. Support each other rather more so than tearing each other down. Instead I find Cleveland to be enclaves and insular, short-sighted little tribes who equate self-worth with the ability to exclude and shun. And it was in the arena of a job-search, in which acceptance can be life-changing and rejection sharpens to sword's point, in which "human resource" departments exist no longer to bring people IN but to keep everyone OUT, that I learned again and again: wasn't not part of the in crowd. I wasn't in the Union, or the right clique, or the trendiest minority, or the proper country club, or the most important Alcoholics Anonymous home group, or whatever one needs to be worthy of northeast Ohio.

I will likely lack income to pull this off, but it is a revenge fantasy of mine that when I die I arrange to be buried somewhere far away from Cleveland, Ohio. I would be dead - but my prospects for a good career and healthy relationships would never be better.

- Charles Cassady Jr.

Dear Cleveland:

I have known you since that winter day in 1982, when my friend, Sue, and I rode the rapid-transit train from the suburbs of Lorain County to the heart of Public Square. Oh, the sights of the big city! The majestic skyscrapers. The high-end department stores. The well-dressed professionals scurrying to their offices. We'd never seen anything like it.

Since then, I've come to know you better. My career as a radio, TV, magazine and newspaper reporter has granted me carte-blanche access to many of your hidden treasures and glaring eyesores. So here's your report card after nearly 30 years of observation.

First, you're not "the mistake by the lake" as many comedians have called you in every late-night, talk-show monologue. You are home to a world-class orchestra and public-library system. You draw tourists from around the world to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You can boast about your top-notch art, natural history and health museums. Speaking about health, you also can be proud of the Cleveland Clinic, with its brilliant staff of cardiologists, oncologists and neurosurgeons. U.S. News and World Report even pegged you as one of the four best hospitals in the country, for cryin' out loud!

You're also an authority on hosting a party. Take East Fourth Street, with its House of Blues, Hilarities Comedy Club and the ultra-chic Corner Bowling Alley. From there, walk a few minutes to the Warehouse District, where fashionable nightclubs explode after dark. And your restaurants! The 24-ounce porterhouse steaks at XO. The Lake Erie walleye at Pickwick & Frolic. The lobster ravioli at Mallorca. Are you hungry yet?

See, Cleveland? You're not such a bad place after all. Sure, an escalating crime rate and a mediocre school system are going to always be annoying nooses around your neck. But they are in any other metro area. So, hold your head high and remember: You're not Detroit.

- Cris Glaser

Dear Cleveland,

Some people are always stuck in the past – thinking about what they were, what they could've been, what they should've done, what they did and what it was like. Could've, would've, should've. We're over that.

We know that the census says you're flat, and that young people are leaving more than they're coming. But we also know that you have tremendous assets and are truly a city of the future. We know that you have the largest urban farm and metro parks systems, a world-renowned health care sector, an incredible restaurant scene, and that if people come, they enjoy a work-life balance without wondering why all their time has been lost sitting on highways and working to pay a high rent. We know that there are entrepreneurs working on solutions in biomedicine, green energy, and creating affordable and livable urban spaces, and an unparalleled innovation environment that supports them.

But, we also know that if we want to keep you vibrant, if we want you to maintain all the cultural amenities that we enjoy, if we want you to attract businesses and keep growing businesses here, we need to do something, and fast.

So, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. I'll work to bring you 100,000 people over the next 10 years. These new Clevelanders will bring their smarts, their entrepreneurism, their ideas and their connections and they'll start businesses. They'll draw on their education and experiences to fill open positions across all industries. And when they see how great you are, they'll take root. And many of them will bring their families and friends.
But I need to ask a favor. Help your residents understand the need to grow, and tell them not to be afraid. Newcomers aren't stealing your jobs. They're contributing to your economy by starting businesses and hiring people to work within them. They're helping other businesses grow by fulfilling vital roles within those companies.

Please remind those within your reach that this is a city and region that was created by newcomers. Some of your greatest businesses and institutions were started by entrepreneurial newcomers – isn't it time you made a focused effort to open your arms again? The future is now and you're at the cusp of it – embrace it.

Sincerely,
Kauser Razvi
Interim Director, Global Cleveland

Dear Cleveland,

In the late 1960s, I entered your house for the first time traveling with four female college friends. While attempting to obtain food from a Euclid Avenue rib joint, I was thought to be a pimp or in the street vernacular – the Doctor. Not a warm initial reception.

Two years later, I re-entered your house permanently as one of the few African-American scientists of that era hired by Sohio to work at its R&D center. One of the things I learned quickly was that your house has two wings – East and West and that your house was slowly recovering from its 1966 family feud. Housing conditions within both wings were in turmoil and over the years I lived in the Heights of Mayfield, Warrensville and University, eventually identifying your entrepreneurially-focused community of Beachwood as home.

Since my arrival, I've seen your house change with the departure of many of your corporate giants to become a house struggling to recapture its historical image or reinvent itself. With the departure of the oil giant I worked for in the early 1990s, I also had to determine how I would reinvent myself. I was tired of the traditional corporate 9 to 5, so I started to look within your house to see what companies were moving into your rooms bringing new energy and vitality.

What I observed was that your rooms were not being populated by well-known, large corporations. Instead, highly-energized individuals or clusters were popping up in all rooms of your house. It was becoming apparent that your house was putting on a new coat of sustainability paint. Colors of all shades were beginning to adorn the walls of your more hospitable and inclusive rooms within both wings of your house.

Today, the old rib joint is gone and your communities are becoming more diverse. Emerging are vibrant colors of sustainability, combined with a splash of your entrepreneurial legacy. This sustainability is being fueled by organizations such as JumpStart, NorTech, Kid's Flea Market and others. And JumpStart's Launch100 is identifying entrepreneurship offered by minorities and females. These organizations are capturing and corralling this spirit and connecting 'hungry' investor dollars with investment-ready projects.

So, Cleveland, continue to follow your new direction. In fact, do more to identify and attract entrepreneurs to your house to show the world how you've changed and how your new energy is fueling entrepreneurship.

Regards, Claude

Dear Cleveland:

We've been though a lot together, haven't we?   If we met when you were an adolescent (100 years ago) we'd probably have a different discussion.  You were youthful, full of wonder and were about ideas & imagination.  You embraced immigration, too.  Remember?  

Thanks to you, dear Cleveland, my great grandfather arrived from Europe and was welcomed by your open embrace.  Thanks to you, he landed here; met my great grandmother, and began a new life - in the "New World".   Through him (thanks to you, Cleveland) I exist.
Remember the picture 100 years ago?  It was the industrial revolution.  You were growing like a weed, and created things the World had never seen before:  The first community foundation, numerous industrial inventions, and a city-plan including a great mall modeled after our Nation's Capital.  The World looked to you, Cleveland, for insight, ideas & innovation.

Much has happened since.  You've experienced decades of prosperity and progress.  Yet, in some ways, your success has become your failure.  At times, I sense you're trying too hard to hang on to "the way things were" and you depend on outmoded success formulas.  I also feel that the pace of change, globally, has given you a case of the willies.  It causes you to be insular, conservative and protectionist.  You were never so easily rattled when you were a youngster, dear Cleveland.  Not only did you embrace change -- you made change happen! 
Remember?  You were the "Wild West". 

When Connecticut couldn't pay its citizens for their fight in the revolutionary war, at least it was able to give them "sufferers land" from the "Western Reserve"… a 120-mile strip of uncharted territory in Northern Ohio.  You Cleveland, were born within it - and became a shining star.  You and your success became an exemplar of what could happen in our then-new Country called the United States of America.

Well, it's time to break free again!  It is a New World, again, dear Cleveland. 

Ironically, the way for you to move forward is for you to remember who you have been: Open, innovative, passionate and a leader.  Yet, at the same time, you need break free from your dependence on doing things the way you used to.  It's time to again be uninhibited, unafraid, radical and globally relevant. 

I believe in you, Cleveland.  You've done it before.  Trust it.  Do your thing!

Yours truly,
Craig Arthur James

Dear Cleveland,

It's been quite some time since we last spoke. Sorry about that. I was away galavanting in Santa Barbara for the past decade, but now I'm home. And glad of it. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED Santa Barbara and the West Coast. But, I missed you. REALLY missed you. You were never far from my heart...

I missed this invigorating, vibrant weather that barrels in off this Great Lake  that we live on. I missed thunderstorms and fire flies. I missed the buzz of cicadas on a warm Summer day that just hugs you with all its might. And I missed the rhododendrons and the fresh water lakes and rivers. I missed the melancholy of Autumn and that smell of turning leaves. I missed the brisk Autumn winds that send the leaves scurrying for shelter from the pending snow. And I missed the magic of the first snowfall. I missed the silence of a Winter's night, when snow is clinging to every single twig and branch and the landscape is sculpted and illuminated. And I missed walking in that, when the only thing you can hear is the crunch of snow beneath your feet. 

And yes, Winter seems to last too long, but without it, would Spring Fever be so palpable? Would Crocuses coming up through snow be so miraculous? When you think NOTHING else could possibly ever live again, and not only does it, but it does so with a vengeance!

And I, of course,  missed the diversity and culture of Cleveland. The fair city that sits on the cusp of a legendary river and an Erie shore. I missed the West Side Market - the feeling of being in an Old World bazaar, of bartering for fruits and vegetables, fish and cheese, just like our ancient ancestors did. I missed the quiet dignity of The Cleveland Art Museum and it's regal collection from every corner of the globe. And the brilliance of listening to The Cleveland Orchestra in the grandeur of Severance Hall. As though you're literally inside a jewel and heaven is filling your ears and lifting your spirit higher than sky.

I missed your Summer Festivals, and the illustrious labyrinth of your Metroparks. I missed the gentle immensity that is The Holden Arboretum. I missed the food, the architecture, the tall grand oak trees and the cardinals. When they fly by, it's like a flash of hope in red. I missed the unassuming nobility of  your Cultural Gardens. Where Gandhi and Confucius stand with Goethe and Schiller, reminding us of the heritage of the great people that make up Cleveland.

And speaking of which, there are many things that I don't have time or space to mention. But, I saved the very best for last. I missed my fellow Clevelanders. I missed this diverse collection of people from all over the world. And I missed their wit, their tenacity, but more than anything, I missed their humility. I happen to believe that humility is vastly under-rated. And Clevelanders are some of the finest, the friendliest and most humble people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

After traveling the world, I've come to know what a world class city Cleveland really is... It's beyond cool. But, its citizens don't realize that. And somehow, that makes this place even cooler.

So, thanks for everything, Cleveland. It's good  to be home. In fact, the pleasure is mine.

Sincerely Yours,
Kevin Charnas

Dear Cleveland,

You're a beauty.  A beauty that, yes, has been  abandoned by many in search of greener pastures and thicker wallets.   Nevertheless, you persevere -- you're a hard-working, gritty town, proud  and tough.

Indeed, you're a tough city along a rough lake.  But  you're not afraid to live with a moody Lake Erie, enduring her icy  storms and Lake Effect howlings like a long-suffering husband endures a  half-mad woman with PMS during a full moon. You know she'll come  around, in her time.  And she does, offering her cool tranquility during  a summer's heat wave, providing a  perfect place to watch the sun slip quietly below her waters, or slide  down, raging, after lighting the clouds afire with pinks, oranges, and  purples.

A while ago you had enough of the Cleveland jokes.   True, you're among the poorest cities in the nation.  But, remember, you  birthed rock-n-roll -- you've got soul.   And lately you have dug down deep to take pride in what other, more gentile people could already see.  Home to an thriving arts culture,  your jewels include the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra, The  Cleveland Arts Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, University  Circle, The Bonfoey Gallery, the Rock Hall of Fame, Playhouse Square,  and a vibrant local art scene in neighborhoods like Tremont,  Little Italy, Lakewood, and Waterloo.

Art that moves the spirit is often born of pain and struggle.  Thank you,
Cleveland, for offering so much  that inspires my own artist's heart.  Just as you do, I continue on.

Sincerely,
Pat Washington

Dear Cleveland,

This may sound a little sappy but, thank you. You have basically helped raise me. I know were not directly related but you have helped me develop in ways unimaginable. You're like that uncle who we call uncle even though our blood lines don't exactly cross. More than anything you're an amazing friend who has always been at my side. How does that old cliché go? We have been through the thick and the thin, as Dickens might have wrote we have seen the best of times and the worst of times. Although that tale of two cities pales in comparison to the stories we have compiled together to tell our children.

I begin to feel older when I tell them about you, but don't take any offense to this Cleveland because you age like a fine wine. I can remember the days not so long ago when we knew everyone on the team and well I can equally recall the days we dreadfully muttered "maybe next year." From when we struggled to get a job to more recent days where your amazing ability to help the sick has made this humble city a hub. You know how to have fun. You are the personification of Rock and Roll and you never let me forget that by remaining resilient, even when stabbed in the back.

Although at the end of the day the greatest thing about you is the people who love you. It's a huge belief of mine that the people around you truly shape who you are and lend a hand to forming your greatness, in which ever ways it shines through. You have brought people together creating families, friendships, and communities that foster some of the greatest abilities and biggest hearts. So just keep being yourself because who you are is amazing. It is no surprise that such a great city lies on a great lake.

Sincerely,
Mike Fussell