Chris Thompson sent this out today:

Do you recognize this description of our city:

�Cleveland: Seriously. Not just the Lake Erie shoreline has been redone to add to the attraction of the lakeside Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, but the Cuyahoga River no longer bursts into flames when somebody flips a cigarette butt into it. Now you have trouble getting a reservation at the bistros on “the Flats” beside it. All of this knit into a 100-kilometre string of parks and greenbelt called “the Emerald Necklace.” The waterfront development caused Runner’s World, of all publications, to call Cleveland, of all places, America’s “premier turnaround town.”�

Even if it isn�t a completely accurate description of our waterfront, it is interesting that some still hold Cleveland up as a model. Of course, �Slinger� couldn�t resist a dig at Cleveland and ends his column with: �Imagine Cleveland showing us the way. How humiliating.�

About the new Brewed Fresh Daily graphic?

Email from Steve Goldberg:

Just got my issue of Inside Business today and look who’s on the inside cover, none other than you.

One of the coolest things I’ve been watching is the online discussions happening in a Yahoo! Group around Ohio City. Check it out.

Tony Houston blogs:

“Isn’t it disturbing that Cleveland is the third most segregated city in the country and also, at the bottom of every social, educational, health and poverty index? Clevelanders must be engaged to travel outside of these community silos and be encouraged to visit other places. We must to do it. As long as we wait for ‘leadership’ to do it, it will be too late.”

Jack Ricchiuto describes meta-questions which are “the questions we raise about the questions we should be raising”. He asks the profound:

What questions would get people connecting and collaborating more?

Time to vote for a venue! Don’t forget you non-bloggers can attend these too. I’d love to see some of you readers show up.

Hey! Some positive media coverage in the local paper. It’s good to see something about the issue that need to be addressed in this town:

“The American Dream should be about more than owning a house, it should be about owning a business. Carlos Guzman, acting regional director for the federal Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency, told an Urban League of Greater Cleveland gathering at The Plain Dealer yesterday that entrepreneurship should be taught to schoolchildren. Owning a business is one of the surest paths to wealth, said Guzman, who directs his agency’s Chicago office, which covers Ohio. Yet the percentages of minority-owned businesses, particularly those owned by African-Americans, lag the percentages of minorities in the general population. “

How long ago was that ECityCleveland breakfast I attended when George Fraizer said pretty much the same thing? We’ve got to be fast about this sort of thing. Let’s do something about it!