Lee Chilcote on "Marketing Cleveland to the People that Live Here"

Now that the idea of building a new convention center has gone kaput, perhaps it's time to consider a much simpler, but more eloquent notion: market Cleveland to the people who live here.

I know, I know. It sounds simple-minded. The prevailing wisdom says that, in order to foster a vibrant economy, we need to attract visitors. Not only does a convention center contribute to a "multiplier effect" that will provide economic benefits to other businesses, such as hotels and restaurants, but the people that visit will spread the word back home about our glinting new convention center - and about our city.

I believe that - to an extent. Yet I also believe that most Clevelanders really don't know what Cleveland has to offer. Our city of balkanized neighborhoods, which a hundred years ago housed over 150 different ethnic groups, many speaking their own language, has yielded to a region of balkanized suburbs - over 50 in Cuyahoga County alone. Those of us that don't live in the city - and even those of us who do, but only know our part of it - have forgotten the amenities that Cleveland's neighborhoods offer.

Building a convention center won't create more housing downtown, or in the neighborhoods. Building a convention center won't support the neighborhood business districts - such as West 25th Street in Ohio City, Broadway Ave. in Slavic Village or East 185th Street in Collinwood - that we must nurture if we are to provide the amenities that make Cleveland a place that people want to live, and place they want to move to.

What's the point in making a public investment of half a billion dollars, if the people that benefit won't stray from downtown, and will leave after a few days? Ideally, we don't want people to come to Cleveland with a suitcase - but with a moving van.

So here's a simple idea. If the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Cleveland really wants to market Cleveland, then reach out to the people that live here. Organize a series of "Cleveland Neighborhood Tours" that offer, for a reasonable price, an opportunity to visit our culturally rich, eclectic neighborhoods. Offer evening and Saturday tours. Tie the tours into neighborhood business districts' efforts to market themselves.

Don't just throw a party for people that come to visit. Throw a party for us. It might help the Convention and Visitors Bureau to regain some of its credibility within the community. It couldn't hurt.

Case in point. I am a graduate student at the College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. This summer I was selected to participate in the Cleveland Foundation's summer internship program. The program placed sixteen interns at non-profit groups and public agencies across the city. Once per week, we conducted site visits to our hosts. We toured the new Cleveland Environmental Center with the Green Building Coalition; learned about the history of Prospect Avenue with the Cleveland Restoration Society; and visited Kentucky Garden in Ohio City with the Cleveland Foundation's Neighborhood Connections program.

Our response, almost universally, was wow - Cleveland has this? Many of us are actually from here. Yet it was not until someone helped us peel back the onionskin that covers our city that we began to understand what our city has to offer.

During the internship, I worked with Neighborhood Connections, a new small grants program of the Cleveland Foundation that offers grants of up to $5,000 to neighborhood-based groups in the city. This innovative program is helping to build the strength of grassroots groups in our neighborhoods - the very things that will improve the quality of life of the city's neighborhoods, so that people will want to move back here. In the first round of the first year, the program funded a diverse group. Grantees include "City Xpressionz," a graffiti festival in Ohio City sponsored by Cleveland Public Art, an arts and gardening program for youth in Hough organized by the E. 81st Street Club, and a neighborhood street party to celebrate diversity spearheaded by the Mill Creek Activities Committee in Slavic Village.

As a part of my internship program, I helped to organize a neighborhood tour for the Grant Making and Monitoring Committee, a group of Cleveland residents that reviews and makes decisions on applications to Neighborhood Connections. The committee organized the tour so that they could learn more about the neighborhoods, and do hands-on grant making through visiting the grantees.

"We wanted to learn more about neighborhoods other than our own," Carol King Johnson, a longtime resident of the Cudell neighborhood, told me after the tour. "This tour showed us all of the things that Cleveland's neighborhoods have to offer."

So - here's my pitch. I have an idea to help our city, and it won't cost $500 million. Dedicate a portion of the revenues allocated to the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Cleveland to provide Neighborhood Tours of Cleveland. Visit various non-profit organizations, neighborhood businesses, housing developments, parks and other amenities. Throw a party for Cleveland-ers, and invite the whole damn city.

If you build that, maybe they'll come. From Cool Cleveland reader Lee Chilcote leechilcote@yahoo.com (:divend:)