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!

Can we lead a citizen charge to clean our house by making Kathleen Barber County Executive?

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.

Passport Project is thrilled to announce that we have been selected to host a group of Women Leaders from Korea on Tuesday, May 6 th from 2:00 - 3:30pm . This project consists of six visitors (accompanied by two State Department Interpreters) who are invited to the U.S. under the auspices of the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program (http://exchanges.state.gov/education/ivp/overview.htm) , and will spend three weeks traveling around to different U.S. cities, Cleveland being one of them.

How would you change the boundaries of this map?

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

I remember the attention I received for wearing clothing hand-made by my grandmother.  Do kids today wear hand-made clothes?

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed strange Clevelandesque slogans posted on billboards around town, with the attribution "Mind of Cleveland". I remember wondering if this was another Cleveland+hype campaign... or about AIDS prevention... and planned to google it later...

Change.  Wow, it is happening.  Thank you Obama and Hillary. Today, Kevin O'Brien declares himself a Democrat (?).  His change of attitude has me pondering my own cultural make-up.  Do we have in-breed, unpleasant cultural traits that need to be evaluated and addressed from time-to-time? 

The Meet the Bloggers interview with library administrators Holly Carroll and Pam Eyredam triggered this ponder.   How many people see libraries as part of their growing lives, but then "move on?"

I keep looking for the signs.  Today's Plain Dealer proclaims hope for downtown.  Believe me, I want to believe it.  How many downtown employees live, shop and recreate downtown?  Have institutions done all they can to encourage a small footprint? I like Michael Schwartz at CSU--does he live nearby?  Ditto, for all the CEOs and intitutional leaders at the Clinic, CWRU, CPL, NEORSD, NOACA... 

As I get older, my passion for food and wine is catching up with me.  I no longer hear adjectives like lithe or lanky used to describe me, but so what?!

We believe in the power of open innovation, bringing together creative minds to create breakthrough solutions that touch every human life.

Founded in 2001, InnoCentive connects companies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations, all hungry for breakthrough innovation, with a global network of more than 125,000 of the world's brightest minds on the world's first Open Innovation Marketplace™.

What can we all do to form an intergenerational community blind to our differences--a community that supports on

Does demolishing a building wash away the sins of the past?

"It continues to intrigue me that taking a position in favor of rehabilitation and modernization of these old structures—even a position that includes calls for selective demolition to reconnect buildings with neighborhoods by restoring street grids—is automatically seen as favoring a return to the bad old days of public housing mismanagement.

Global warming will bring an end to white Christmas and winter as we've always known in, here in NEO, so during the first real snowstorm of this season, December 16, 2007, I went in search of a visual symbol of NEO, in my neighborhood, strong enough to stand out in white-out conditions, and I came to the Breuer! Not the Breuer Tower, of global controversy, but the Breuer Museum wing of global celebration, design elements of which are featured in the latest additions to the Cleveland Museum of Art, shown on the left here, now evolving form in the hands of Vinoly.

In My Colombian War*, Silvana Paternostro reports that the average Colombian reads less than 2 books a year.  Does the average northeast Ohioan top that number?

I've known enough musicians in my lifetime to know that recognition is important.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located here.  Does that mean anything at all?

We know that Cleveland does not lead the country among U.S. cities for new business creation.  But, how many Clevelanders work for publishers based in other cities?  Do "our" writers, designers, and illustrators pull the heavy writing and creative process for other cities?

How will northeast Ohio contend with the massive disposal of analog TVs in 2008-2009?

From Waste News:

Many TVs will be tossed when new FCC rules take effect in 2009

(Waste News; 11/12/2007, Vol. 13 Issue 14, p1-23, 2p, 2c --You will need your Cleveland Public Library card number and PIN to read this article electronically)

What makes a realNEO candidate   REAL?  Money?  Business support? Life experience? A newspaper endorsement?

As part of the Star Neighborhood Development planning for the Star Complex and surrounding one mile radius, I have been planning the redevelopment of the current Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Building and land, on East Boulevard in Cleveland, shown below (full size image here).

What's the story with the old Cleveland Psychiatric Institute?  When I worked at Metro and cruised the underground tunnels in the 1980s, one tunnel was always fenced off and guarded like some Victorian-era fortress. 

There are many big industrial sites around Cleveland I pass regularly - some are active brownfields, like the Flats, and some are abandoned. Some feature Cleveland Landbank signs and are in stages of redevelopment... the one featured here is on the West Side of Cleveland, at Bishop Road and Madison, by W. 117, and the city has clearly spent $millions clearing up this huge property of many acres.

Now that I'm settling into East Cleveland, expect to see posted to REALNEO and my other communities many amazing pictures of urban cores of this NEO-Plum... healthy, ill and dead.

Stores have problems with identity theft and stolen or "borrowed" credit cards.  Libraries do, too.  How far should institutions go to protect your identity?

An interesting discussion on REALNEO, about bottled water, inspired this Question of the Day -  "Is lead a problem in Cleveland drinking water?" According to the Cleveland Water website FAQ, the answer is "Absolutly not". But, in looking at their water analysis data, which hasn't been updated since 2003, that claim is incorrect. They reference a Federal government acceptable lead level in drinking water of 15 µg/L (micrograms per liter, or parts per billion) and Cleveland water results averaged 6.4 µg/L, with 2 out of 72 samples exceeding the Federal standard... that equals around 3% of samples had unsafe lead levels, which equals 10,000+ Cleveland customers and probably over 50,000 regional customers who may fall into that 3%.

 About three weeks ago, I received the first "Letter to the Editor" in the history of REALNEO. Lots of people send me press releases and event info and tips on cool content, but never has someone sent an opinion editorial to be posted for them (probably because REALNEO is open for anyone to create an account and post content and comments themselves). The letter to the editor was titled "Lead Paint - You Are Idiots" and was received from someone named Kim Falk (he authorized publication of his name) and the email address was from Sherwin Williams. A little googling and I learned he is an employee there - a very enthusiastic and loyal one, to be sure... he was responsible for Sherwin-Williams donating paint to help in the repair of the Pentagon after 9/11. So I was not surprised to read he is protective of his company in defense of them being sued over lead. Still, I was intrigued by the language he uses in his editorial, published below.