You would have to be a hermit to have not heard about the Forbes magazine article. They arbitrarily ranked Cleveland as the number one most miserable city in the nation. You can say what you want about me or my family, and I will ignore what you say about my friends, but I get pretty hot under the collar when you put down my city. Being a transplant here, I know the rest of the world. I chose to move here a decade ago, and Even though there have been some definite culture shocks, I have not been sorry. One of the best things about Cleveland and its citizens is seeing them rally-whether it is for something (like a bridge with pedestrian access on I-90) or against something (like closing churches).
I thought that when I wrote my thoughts on the Forbes magazine article that I would be alone in my ranting and singular in my disgust. To my surprise, there have been a grand assortment of responses! The Plain Dealer had an article by Phillip Morris. Blogs went crazy (whew, I’m not the only one!) and posted a host of rebuttals. Readers went off their rockers posting comments both for and against Cleveland and some said some very poignant and smart things. Responses were not limited to just Ohioans though. Texans even weighed in. My family has been here, and they didn’t have a bad thing to say about our town (and my family is not known for holding back). My favorite response was one I found late last night on a blog called Northcoast Lifestyle. Written by Kyle Roth, this blog just features cool things about Cleveland. He made beautiful montage of images from his flickr site come alive in a way that showed how cool Cleveland can be!
Be sure to view the whole montage at his blog site.
We Clevelanders are afunny lot in an “I can say it, but don’t you dare!” kind of way. When the Positively Cleveland held its hastily made tourism video contest, the response was overwhelming:
And we all laughed at the tongue in cheek response that ended with “at least we’re not Detroit!”
Clevelanders are a proud lot, and while we are first to say what is wrong with our city, we are first to come up with a possible solution. If you have ever been to any public meeting, then you know we are first to stand up and complain to city council about how we have too much crime, or not enough parking or even too much snow. But we also will quickly come up with a Facebook page that tells Forbes to flake off. Clevelanders are quick to respond, full of ideas (both good and bad), vocal in their opinions, and warm and caring about their neighbors, and proud of their town.
I guess I am home.
