Cleveland has faced, and continues to face, some significant challenges. As Cleveland sheds its rust belt image, we must decide who is the "enemy." In other words, against whom must the City compete to continue our renaissance? Like most major urban areas, Cleveland is faced with significant social and economic challenges. Cleveland must deal with these issues at a time when federal budgets are shrinking, local revenues are stagnant and the role of government is questioned. Overcoming these challenges is the only bump in the road to the 21st Century city where all citizens have a desirable and safe city in which to live, work, raise a family, shop, study, play and grow old.
My approach to revitalizing Cleveland was crafted around five goals: public safety, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, education, and race relations. The rationales were deceptively simple. Improving public safety makes residents and non-residents feel better about living and working in the City. Revitalizing neighborhoods creates the housing stock needed to cause people to want to live in the City. Without a good school system providing a quality education for our children, a city has no future and is without a trained workforce. Generating economic development, in the neighborhoods especially, is a way to create jobs for residents. Confronting the issue of race relations is a way to build on the culturally diverse strengths that comes from the presence of over 70 nationality groups in Cleveland. Safety, housing, education, jobs and race relations remain the focus of my Administration.
A set of core principles is the foundation for development improvements. The first principle is that any development program should enhance the climate necessary for citizens to be economically self-sufficient and for citizens and private companies to prefer Cleveland as a place to live and do business. The second is that development programs should not exclude any area or neighborhood of Cleveland and instead should build upon the unique opportunities and assets found in each area. The third principle is that activities undertaken must account for regional competitive forces with programs and policies seeking to reverse the out-migration of businesses and residents from the City.
The "core city" is defined as the downtown and near downtown neighborhoods. Physical development and attention to poverty-related social conditions are keys in an effort to positively transform the economic conditions faced by business and residents alike. This means a rejection of the "downtown versus neighborhood" dichotomy in favor of a "downtown plus neighborhood" approach to the competitive struggle within regional and national market places. A critical mass of downtown commercial, entertainment, office and residential development is a catalyst for near-downtown neighborhood development. A vibrant downtown is among the reasons people choose to buy a new home in a near-downtown neighborhood. Conversely, mixed income redevelopment of inner city neighborhoods encourages businesses to maintain plant, offices, and other investments in downtown and nearby commercial corridors. The "core city" strategy links downtown development with development in near-downtown neighborhoods.
The "core city" objective is not totally focused on bricks and mortar. A very large part of it is focused on strong labor force development. The effects of poverty on the climate for neighborhood economic growth is so perverse that physical development by itself will fail. Accordingly, we made a heavy investment in helping Clevelanders acquire the education, skills and connections necessary for them to become financially self-sufficient. City "labor force" objectives are integrated with economic development strategy.
The second objective involves maintenance of relatively strong outer-ring residential neighborhoods. Contrary to conventional wisdom, property values in many Cleveland neighborhoods have appreciated in recent years. Each of the outer-ring neighborhoods are the size of small suburbs and are the largest source of income and property taxes collected by the City and School Board for vital services. It is critical that "the best quality city services for the best price" be delivered to outer-ring residents. Essential to success has been the encouraging of the maintenance of owner-occupied one and two family homes, "grocer anchored" shopping centers, and the development of new neighborhood town centers to stem the "leakage" of City consumer spending to the suburbs.
The third objective is to direct capital investment programs to improve access for both goods and services to Cleveland neighborhoods, commercial districts and industrial concentrations. Several areas of the City are poorly served by the existing road and bridge network and by the public transportation system. Investments in the system are required to improve access, reduce congestion and make Cleveland more competitive locationally as a place to live and do business.
The Department of Community Development provides capital for investment in housing development projects through the Housing Trust Fund. Access to the Neighborhood Development Investment Fund is also available for large scale housing developments. The Neighborhood Bond Program provides funding to support infrastructure improvements for residential developments. The Land Reutilization Program is the vehicle though which the City assembles and "banks" vacant lots for planned large-scale commercial, residential or industrial development.
Work force development issues are addressed through the Empowerment Zone's Job Match Program. In the forefront on the workforce issue is the Department of Personnel and Human Resources utilizing the Joint Training Partnership Act, the Full Service Employment Network, the "School-To-Work" program and the Summer Youth Employment Training Program.
City government also provides the critically needed leadership necessary to develop the public and private partnership that help focus community-wide initiatives on job development and neighborhood revitalization issues.
Crime has gone down almost 19%. This decline can be directly attributed to several different factors, among which are change to civil service structure of the police administrative force, community policing initiatives, and efforts of the Community Relations Board to bring neighborhoods and the Police together through the Community Police District Committees.
Neighborhood revitalization became very evident with the construction of over 2,300 new homes and the rehabilitation of over 3,000 current housing units. A reform-focused Board of Education and the creation of programs to train high school students for the jobs of the future began the process of jarring mind-sets in an effort to dramatically improve the education system of the City. Economic development, with a focus on neighborhoods and downtown, helped create over 10,000 jobs in the six years since 1990. Even race relations showed an improvement as racially motivated hate crimes declined 72% from 1990 to 1995.
One of the most impressive improvements, and one that strongly impacts on the achievement of all the five goals, has been in the area of service delivery. Our "Cleveland Competes" initiative is slowly being felt throughout City government, and is dramatically improving service delivery. Costs to repave City streets have dropped from $6.56 a square yard to $4.50 a square yard. Downtown trash receptacle collection costs have dropped from $35.55 per week to $12.11 per week. The savings generated have been reprogrammed to open two new Emergency Medical Service stations. Efficiencies were achieved in street sweeping as well. All City residential streets were swept five times in 1995, the most ever in Cleveland history.
Progress has been made, yet the course is not fully reversed. Cleveland neighborhoods still have many challenges facing them.
We have a clear vision for the new American City called Cleveland and it can be best summarized in the City's Mission statement, which my administration has embraced: We are committed to improving the quality of life in the City of Cleveland by strengthening our neighborhoods, delivering superior services, embracing the diversity of our citizens, and making Cleveland a desirable, safe city in which to live, work, raise a family, shop, study, play and grow old.