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 | 282 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 | 289 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 | 318 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Cleveland | Dear Peter | Healthcare | Information Technology | NEO Communities | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Community | Economy | Education ) Coal Power's Deja-Meltdown Submitted by Bill MacDermott on March 21, 2008 - 10:22am. Coal Power's Deja-Meltdown By Denis Du Bois 03/12/08 The government's futuristic "clean coal" power project has joined the long list of scuttled coal plants. The death spiral of coal energy is reminiscent of the 1980s popular blockade of nuclear plant construction. Investors and even the Bush administration are backing out. Bill MacDermott's blog | 4 comments | read more | 322 reads ( categories: Sustainable Development | Environment ) Kevin O'Brien's column "Forget Global Warming" made more sense in Canadian Submitted by Norm Roulet on March 19, 2008 - 12:14am. On March 12, 2008, Cleveland Plain Dealer deputy editorial page director Kevin O'Brien published a snide, pointless editorial taking the position global warming is over-hyped. His conclusion is a Russian scientist predicts the world is entering a new Ice Age, which trumps Global Warming, so do nothing about Global Warming. I googled the Russian scientist O'Brien references - Oleg Sorokhtin - and came across a February 25th National Post column, by conservative Canadian columnist Lorne Gunter, to which O'Brien's March 12th column is so similar as to be plagiarism, in my book. login or register to post comments | read more | 305 reads ( categories: Dear Peter | Education | Healthcare | Internationalization | Making Change | NEO Communities | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Alternative Energy | Green Development | Community | Environment | Global Warming | Historic Preservation ) Given only the following choices, for whom would you vote to be Mayor of Cleveland for the Next Four Years Given only the following choices, for whom would you vote to be Mayor of Cleveland for the Next Four Years: Frank Jackson Chris Ronayne Jerry Springer 752 reads ( categories: Cleveland | Making Change | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Community ) Alarmist April Submitted by Norm Roulet on March 15, 2008 - 4:23pm. Start: 2008/04/11 - 11:00am End: 2008/04/11 - 11:01am There is a need for the thoughtful people of Northeast Ohio to speak up loud and clear - sound an alarm - about environmental issues here, and our impact here on environmental issues worldwide.  We should do this in our everyday life, and we should participate in community efforts to speak in harmony about saving planet Earth. One way to shout-out that "This is a state of global emergency" is to become an "Alarmist". As posted on REALNEO here, for this April 11, at 11 AM local time, for one minute, and each 11th of the month thereafter, at 11 AM,  Alarmists declare, "We need to set off the world's alarms. Join in. It could be the alarm on your phone, in your home, in your car. You could gather some friends to make some noise. Organise a flash mob. Schedule a company fire drill. Borrow a vintage air raid siren... Be creative. Raise the alarm." So, people of REALNEO, how should we sound the first Alarmism minute? 2 comments | calendar | read more | 340 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Education | Healthcare | Industry | Nonprofits | REALNEO | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Green Development | Community | Economy | Education | Environment | Global Warming | Health ) CUYAHOGA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS - SNEAKY & ARROGANT? OR JUST OUR ELECTED REPS? Submitted by Jeff Buster on March 13, 2008 - 5:01pm. I attended the KennedyConCenter meeting this morning - held before the scheduled meeting of the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners.   Jeff Buster's blog | 1 comment | read more | 354 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: eGovernment | Healthcare | Industry | Making Change | NEO Communities | Sustainable Development | Community | Economy | Education | Environment | Fund For Our Econ Future ) Are Kevin O'Brien and the PD correct... there is no global warming!?!? Submitted by Norm Roulet on March 13, 2008 - 1:35am. Each of the last two winters, Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Kevin O'Brien wrote that it sometimes snows in Cleveland so there is no global warming. His latest scientific position on this is posted on Cleveland.com here (and included below). O'Brien is such a strange writer I cannot tell if he is kidding, but in the interest of good public information it seems important for all people to consider what O'Brien published in the Plain Dealer and discuss if it is intelligent, misleading, incorrect or perhaps true. Who has an informed position on global warming and what O'Brien writes below? Norm Roulet's blog | 1 comment | read more | 429 reads ( categories: Internationalization | NEO Communities | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Economy | Education | Environment | Health ) "When oil becomes scarce, our current way of life will become obsolete." Submitted by Bill MacDermott on March 12, 2008 - 9:42pm. Thought For Today.... Found in the current issue of Metropolis magazine...     "When oil becomes scarce, our cu Bill MacDermott's blog | login or register to post comments | read more | 198 reads ( categories: Sustainable Development | Community ) Climate Watchers Place Own Big Bet On Alaska's Thaw Submitted by Bill MacDermott on March 12, 2008 - 8:22pm. Climate Watchers Place Own Big Bet On Alaska's Thaw March 7, 2008; Page B1 Every winter since 1917, people in Nenana, a village 55 miles southwest of Fairbanks, have wagered on the exact moment that the ice breaks up on the nearby Tanana River. For the 450 townsfolk, the annual Alaska ice lottery, called the Nenana Ice Classic, is a financial lifeline that offers some their year's only employment. Winners last year shared a jackpot of $303,272. Bill MacDermott's blog | login or register to post comments | read more | 251 reads ( categories: Sustainable Development | Environment ) PAY IT FORWARD - THEN THROW IT AWAY - CUYAHOGA WASTE SPECIALTY Submitted by Jeff Buster on March 11, 2008 - 8:14pm. On April 3, 2007 there was a discussion about the proposal for a new Cuyahoga County Administration building here on Realneo.   Around that time I had read a letter written by Tim Ferris which suggested that the present County Administration building was originally built to be expanded upward.   Today I add the photo above to confirm that the building was intended to be continued upward – you can see the columns projecting right up through the roof on both the main Administration Building and the Annex building.  I’ll bet if you removed the copper flashing from the top of the columns, there would be a plate with bolt holes already in it, ready to accept the steel columns for floors 5, 6, 7, etc.   Jeff Buster's blog | 2 comments | read more | 336 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Cleveland | Healthcare | Making Change | NEO Communities | Sustainable Development | Green Development | Community | Economy | Environment | Health | Historic Preservation ) CLEVELAND COUNCIL ON WORLD AFFAIRS - A LIGHT IN NEO Submitted by Jeff Buster on March 11, 2008 - 3:13pm.  One of the few organizations in   Cleveland that seems to have truly meritorious objectives is The Cleveland Council on World Affairs.      Jeff Buster's blog | 1 comment | read more | 395 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Cleveland | eGovernment | Information Technology | Internationalization | Making Change | NEO Communities | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Web Technology | Arts and Culture | Community | Content Management Systems | Economy | Education | Knowledge Management | Open Source Development | Relationships | Technology ) Opportunities for pregnancy & birth in 2008 Submitted by Norm Roulet on March 11, 2008 - 12:38am. Start: 2008/03/15 - 2:00pm End: 2008/03/15 - 5:00pm When Evelyn and I learned we were expecting Claes, three years ago, we started exploring local natural childbirth and child support resources, and have most enjoyed the getting to know the people with the Cleveland BirthNetwork, which is part of a national organization has a mailing list and holds regular local meet-ups and casual events... I strongly recommend expecting families to attend one of their activities, like the following...  An afternoon of discussion and meeting advocates for change, with Judy Norsigian, executive director and co-founder of Our Bodies Ourselves, and Ourselves, co-contributing editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. login or register to post comments | calendar | read more | 356 reads | 1 attachment ( categories: Case | Child Development | Healthcare | Making Change | Nonprofits | Social Consciousness | Sustainable Development | Workforce Devlopment | Community | Economy | Education | Health ) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... next page last page

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