Believing in Cleveland : managing decline in the "best location in the nation" / J. Mark Souther.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Detractors have called it "The Mistake on the Lake." It was once America's "Comeback City." According to author J. Mark Souther, Cleveland has long sought to defeat its perceived civic malaise. Believing in Cleveland chronicles how city leaders used imagery and rhetoric to combat and, at times, accommodate urban and economic decline.

Souther explores Cleveland's downtown revitalization efforts, its neighborhood renewal and restoration projects, and its fight against deindustrialization. He shows how the city reshaped its image when it was bolstered by sports team victories. But Cleveland was not always on the upswing. Souther places the city's history in the postwar context when the city and metropolitan area were divided by uneven growth. In the 1970s, the city-suburb division was wider than ever.

Believing in Cleveland recounts the long, difficult history of a city that entered the postwar period as America's sixth largest, then lost ground during a period of robust national growth. But rather than tell a tale of decline, Souther provides a fascinating story of resilience for what some folks called "The Best Location in the Nation."

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Historian Souther's meticulously researched book reexamines and, in his own word, "complicate[s]" the understanding of the efforts expended by city politicians, civic leaders, and economic development professionals in their attempts to slow or reverse urban decline since WWII. Cleveland's elite split their time and other resources between managing perception and trying to effect substantive improvement. The specific phrases changed over time, but the underlying tensions between optimistic boosterism and gritty if not downright depressing reality remained. Three other constants emerge in Souther's account. A persistent, deep-seated localism pitted downtown, neighborhood, and business interests against one another. Without the slightest sense of irony, Cleveland leaders could publicly announce new development projects while privately but openly doubting their effectiveness. A pernicious racism enforced boundaries and undercut best efforts. Readers will wonder if any of the projects proposed but abandoned would have produced different outcomes. A cast of characters reminiscent of a Russian novel and an almost endless list of organization abbreviations tend to overwhelm. Throughout, Souther (Cleveland State Univ.) maintains a balanced, dispassionate tone. Comparisons with similar cities seem worthy of further exploration. What here was systemic and what was unique to Cleveland? Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; professionals. --R. Bruce Way, The University of Toledo