There's no surf in Cleveland USA

Oh, Cleveland, how you've taken it on the chin. You get knockout punches in the national media about an epidemic of house foreclosures. The Rock Hall doesn't even hold its awards banquets where the Hall is located. I tell ya: growing up in a place that is lampooned on Saturday Night Live leaves a self-esteem bruise that is slow to heal. Got Cleveland Vice? You betcha! (On the same night in '86 when the 'Mats were on the show!) Poor Cle: you can't make a living, can't walk the streets, and worst of all, can't field a winning baseball team.

The economic history of the city is similar to a number of northeast industrial cities where the canal provided the original impetus for growth (1825-1855), railroads cemented it (1860-1890) and then heavy industry produced goods for the developing world. In the first half of the 20th Century, the fields of communications, energy, and transportation were energized by Cleveland residents and companies who contributed their innovations.

Then the slide began. In 1950 the city was fifth largest in population in the entire U. S. of A. By 2000 it had tobogganed to 40th.

Now, we can take refuge that the future of Cleveland's economy is based on its artists bringing their particular North Coast Cloudland aesthetic to the world. As it was in the '70's when Pere Ubu, the Electric Eels, the Dead Boys, the Mirrors, ruled the mean streets of the decaying industrial town, a whole new crop of songsters, sirens, and sonic deadbeats will rise again.