Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of
Ohio
and the county seat of
Cuyahoga
County
, the most populous county in the state.
The
municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore
of Lake
Erie
, approximately 60 miles (100 km) west of
the Pennsylvania
border. It was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the
Cuyahoga
River
, and became a manufacturing center owing to its location at
the head of numerous canals and railroad lines.
With the decline of
heavy
manufacturing, Cleveland's businesses have diversified into the
service economy,
including the financial services,
insurance, legal, and
healthcare sectors, though
the city's population has continued to decline.
Cleveland is also home
to the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame
.
As of the
2000 Census,
the city proper had a total population of 478,403, and was then the
33rd largest city in the United States, (now estimated as the
40th
largest due to declines in population) and the second largest
city in Ohio. It is the center of
Greater Cleveland, the second largest
metropolitan area in Ohio.
The
Cleveland-Elyria
-Mentor
Metropolitan Statistical
Area which in 2000 ranked as the 23rd largest in the United
States with 2,250,871 people. Cleveland is also part
of the larger Cleveland-Akron
-Elyria
Combined Statistical Area,
which in 2000 had a population of 2,945,831, and ranked as the
country's 14th largest. Like many former urban manufacturing
centers of the U.S.
Rust Belt, Cleveland
as a city has collapsed from a population of 914,000 in 1950 to
less than half that today.
National
media began referring to Cleveland as "the mistake on the lake" in
the 1970s, in reference to the city's financial difficulties, a
notorious 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River
(where industrial waste on the river's surface
caught on fire), and its struggling professional sports
teams. The city has worked to shed this nickname ever since,
and in recent times the national media have been much kinder to the
city, using it as an exemplar for
public-private partnerships,
downtown revitalization, and
urban
renaissance.
In studies conducted by The Economist in 2005, Cleveland and
Pittsburgh
were ranked as the most livable cities in the United States, and the
city was ranked as the best city for business meetings in the
continental U.S. The city faces continuing challenges, in
particular from concentrated
poverty in some
neighborhoods and difficulties in the funding and delivery of
high-quality
public
education.
Residents of Cleveland are usually referred to as "
Clevelanders." Nicknames
for the city include "
The Forest
City," "The Cleve," "Sixth City," and "C-Town."
History
Cleveland
obtained its name on July 22, 1796 when surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company laid out
Connecticut
's Western
Reserve into townships and a capital city they named
"Cleaveland" after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland. Cleaveland oversaw
the plan for the modern downtown area, centered on the Public Square
, before returning home, never again to visit
Ohio. The first settler in Cleaveland was Lorenzo Carter,
who built a cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. The Village
of Cleaveland was incorporated on December 23, 1814.In spite of the
nearby swampy lowlands and harsh winters, its waterfront location
proved to be an advantage.
The area began rapid growth after the 1832
completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal
. This key link between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes
connected the city to the Atlantic Ocean
via the Erie Canal and
later via the St. Lawrence
Seaway; and the Gulf of Mexico
via the Mississippi
River. Growth continued with added railroad links.
Cleveland incorporated as a city in 1836.

Map of Cleveland in 1904
In 1836,
the city, then located only on the eastern banks of the Cuyahoga
River, nearly erupted into open warfare with neighboring Ohio
City
over a bridge connecting the two. Ohio City
remained an independent municipality until it was
annexed
by Cleveland in 1854.
The site flourished as a halfway point for
iron ore from Minnesota
shipped across the Great Lakes and other raw
materials (coal) carried by rail from the
south. Cleveland emerged as a major American manufacturing
center, home to numerous major
steel
producers, as well as a number of
carmakers, including
gasoline cars
Peerless,
People's,
Jordan,
Winton (first car driven
across the U.S.),
steam car builders
White and
Gaeth, and
electric car
company
Baker. By 1920,
Standard Oil founder
John D. Rockefeller had made his fortune and
Cleveland had become the fifth largest city in the country. The
city was a center for the national
progressive movement, headed locally by
Mayor
Tom L. Johnson.
Many Clevelanders of this era are buried in
the historic Lake View
Cemetery
, along with James
A. Garfield, the
twentieth
U.S.
President.
In
commemoration of the centennial of
Cleveland's incorporation as a city, the Great Lakes Exposition debuted in
June 1936 along the Lake
Erie
shore north of downtown. Conceived as a way
to energize a city hit hard by the
Great Depression, it drew 4 million
visitors in its first season, and 7 million by the end of its
second and final season in September 1937.
The exposition was
housed on grounds that are now used by the Great Lakes
Science Center
, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and Burke Lakefront Airport
, among others.Immediately after
World War II, the city experienced a brief
boom. In sports, the
Indians won
the
1948 World Series and the
Browns dominated professional
football in the 1950s.
Businesses proclaimed that Cleveland was the "best location in the
nation". The city's population reached its peak of 914,808, and in
1949 Cleveland was named an
All-America City for the first time.
By the 1960s, however, heavy industries began to slump, and
residents sought new housing in the suburbs, reflecting the
national trends of
white flight and
urban sprawl. Like other major American
cities, Cleveland also began witnessing racial unrest, culminating
in the
Hough Riots from July 18, 1966 –
July 23, 1966 and the
Glenville
Shootout on July 23, 1968 – July 25, 1968. The city's nadir is
often considered to be its
default
on its loans on December 15, 1978, when under Mayor
Dennis Kucinich it became the first major
American city to enter default since the Great Depression.
National
media began referring to Cleveland as "the mistake on the lake"
around this time, in reference to the city's financial
difficulties, a notorious 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River
(where industrial waste on the river's surface
caught on fire), and its struggling professional sports
teams. The city has worked to shed this nickname ever since,
though in recent times the national media have been much kinder to
the city, using it as an exemplar for
public-private partnerships,
downtown revitalization, and
urban
renaissance.
The metropolitan area began recovery thereafter under Mayors
George Voinovich and
Michael R. White.
Redevelopment within the city limits has
been strongest in the downtown area near the Gateway
complex
—consisting of Progressive Field
and Quicken Loans Arena
, and near North Coast Harbor
—including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
, Cleveland Browns Stadium
, and the Great Lakes Science Center
. Although Cleveland was hailed by the media
as the "Comeback City," many of the inner-city residential
neighborhoods remain troubled, and the public school system
continues to experience serious problems.
Economic development,
retention of young professionals, and
capitalizing upon its waterfront are current municipal priorities.
In 1999, Cleveland was identified as an emerging
global city.
Geography
Topography
According to the
United
States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of
82.4 square miles (213.5 km²), of which, 77.6 square
miles (201.0 km²) is land and 4.8 square miles
(12.5 km²) is water. The total area is 5.87%
water.
The
shore of Lake
Erie
is 569 feet (173 m) above sea level; however, the city lies on a
series of irregular bluffs lying roughly parallel to the
lake. In Cleveland these bluffs are cut
principally by the Cuyahoga
River
, Big Creek, and Euclid
Creek. The land rises quickly from the lakeshore.
Public Square
, less than a mile (2 km) inland, sits at an
elevation of 650 feet (198 m), and Hopkins Airport, only
five miles (8 km) inland from the lake, is at an elevation of
791 feet (241 m).
Climate
Cleveland possesses a
humid
continental climate (
Koppen climate classification
Dfa), typical of much of the central United States, with
very warm, humid summers and cold, snowy winters.
The Lake Erie
shoreline is very close to due east-west from the mouth of the
Cuyahoga west to Sandusky
, but at the mouth of the Cuyahoga it turns sharply
northeast. This feature is the principal contributor to the
lake effect snow that is typical in
Cleveland (especially east side) weather from mid-November until
the surface of Lake Erie freezes, usually in late January or early
February.
The lake effect causes snowfall totals to
range greatly across the city: while Hopkins Airport has only
reached 100 inches (254 cm) of snowfall in a given season
three times since 1968, seasonal totals approaching or exceeding
are not uncommon in an area known as the "Snow Belt
", extending from the east side of Cleveland proper
through the eastern suburbs and up the Lake Erie shore as far as
Buffalo, New
York
. Despite its reputation as a cold, snowy
place in winter, mild spells often break winter's grip with
temperatures sometimes soaring above 70 °
F (21 °
C).The
all-time record high in Cleveland of 104 °
F (40 °
C) was
established on June 25, 1988, and the all-time record low of
−20 °F (−29 °C) was set on January 19, 1994. On average,
July is the warmest month with a mean temperature of 71.9 °F
(22.2 °C), and January, with a mean temperature of
25.7 °F (−3.5 °C), is the coldest. Normal yearly
precipitation based on the
30-year average from 1971 to 2000 is 38.7 inches
(930 mm). Yearly precipitation rates vary considerably in
different areas of the Cleveland metropolitan area, with less
precipitation on the western side and directly along the lake, and
the most occurring in the eastern suburbs.
Parts of Geauga
county
receive over 44 inches of liquid precipitation
annually.
Government and politics

Cleveland City Hall
Cleveland's position as a center of manufacturing established it as
a hotbed of
union
activity early in its history. This contributed to a political
progressivism
that has influenced Cleveland politics to the present.
While other parts of
Ohio, particularly Cincinnati
and the southern portion of the state, have
historically supported the Republican Party, Cleveland
commonly breeds the strongest support in the state for the Democrats; At the local
level, elections are nonpartisan. However, Democrats still
dominate every level of government.Cleveland is split between two
congressional districts. Most
of the western part of the city is in the
10th District,
represented by
Dennis Kucinich. Most
of the eastern part of the city, as well as most of downtown, is in
the
11th
District, represented by
Marcia
Fudge. Both are Democrats.During the
2004 Presidential
election, although
George W.
Bush carried Ohio by 2.1%,
John Kerry carried Cuyahoga County 66.6%-32.9%,
his largest margin in any Ohio county.The city of Cleveland
operates on the
mayor-council
form of government. The
mayor is
the
chief executive of the
city, and the office is held in 2008 by
Frank G. Jackson. Previous mayors of Cleveland
include progressive Democrat
Tom L.
Johnson, United
States Supreme Court
Justice Harold Hitz
Burton, Republican Senator
George V. Voinovich, two-time Democratic Ohio
Governor and Senator, current Representative
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio's 10th district,
Frank J. Lausche, and
Carl
B. Stokes, the first African
American mayor of a major American city.
Demographics
At the 2005-2007 American Community Survey Estimates, the city's
population was 41.0% White (35.8% non-Hispanic White alone), 54.2%
Black or African American, 1.0% American Indian and Alaska Native,
1.8% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 4.3%
from some other race and 2.1% from two or more races. 8.3% of the
total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.As of the
2000 Census, there were
478,403 people, 190,638
households, and
111,904 families residing in the city. The
population density was 6,166.5 people per
square mile (2,380.9/km²). There were 215,856 housing units at an
average density of 2,782.4 per square mile (1,074.3/km²). The
racial makeup of the
city was 50.99%
Black or
African American, 41.49%
White, 1.35%
Asian, 0.30%
Native American, 0.04%
Pacific Islander, 3.59% from
other races, and 2.24%
from two or more races. 7.26% of the population was
Hispanic or
Latino of any
race. Ethnic groups include
Slovenes (10%),
Germans (9.2%),
Irish (8.2% ),
Poles (4.8%),
Italians (4.6%), and
English (2.8%). There are also substantial
communities of
Hungarians,
Arabs,
Romanians,
Czechs,
Slovaks,
Greeks,
Ukrainians,
Albanians,
Macedonians,
Croats,
Serbs,
Lithuanians,
Puerto Ricans,
Koreans, and
Han
Chinese.
The presence of Hungarians within Cleveland
proper was so great that the city once boasted the highest
concentration of Hungarians in the world outside of Budapest
.
There were 190,638 households out of which 29.9% have children
under the age of 18 living with them, 28.5% were
married couples living together, 24.8% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 41.3% were nonfamilies.
35.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.1% had
someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average
household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.19. The
population was spread out with 28.5% under the age of 18, 9.5% from
18 to 24, 30.4% from 25 to 44, 19.0% from 45 to 64, and 12.5% who
are 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For
every 100 females there were 90.0 males. For every 100 females age
18 and over, there were 85.2 males.The
median income for a household in the
city was
$25,928, and the
median income for a family was $30,286. Males had a median income
of $30,610 versus $24,214 for females. The
per capita income for the city was
$14,291. 26.3% of the population and 22.9% of families were below
the
poverty line. Out of the total
population, 37.6% of those under the age of 18 and 16.8% of those
65 and older were living below the poverty line.
Schools
Cleveland was hit hard in the 1960s and early 1970s by
white flight and
suburbanization. While the city's total
population declined, Cleveland Public Schools' enrollment had
increased: 99,686 in 1950, and 134,765 in 1960, and 148,793 in
1963. Cleveland Public Schools financially struggled with a growing
student population, and a declining tax base due to regional
industrial decline and depopulation of the metropolitan and urban
areas in favor of the suburbs.
After World War II, middle-class jobs and families migrated to the
suburbs leaving behind predominantly low-income student enrollment
in the Cleveland Public School system.
On December 12, 1973, the
National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Cleveland
Chapter filed suit, Reed vs. Rhodes, against the
Cleveland Board of
Education in Cleveland's
United
States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to
racially integrate Cleveland Public Schools, claiming that the
public schools were at least partly at fault for Cleveland's
housing segregation into ethnic neighborhoods. Between August 31,
1976 and 1984, Chief
United
States District Judge Frank J.
Battisti issued over 4,000 court
orders including implementation of
forced-busing of Cleveland Public
Schools, the case was appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals,
which by 23 Aug.
1979 upheld Battisti's earlier orders, and
was later upheld on appeal by the Supreme
Court of the United States
. From 1970 to 1980, Cleveland experienced a
24% decline in population (from 751 thousand to 574 thousand),
which was part of a longer-term on-going trend from 1950 to
2000.
Demographia estimates that Cleveland's
1980 population would have been 5% higher (606 thousand) without
mandatory busing.
Mandatory busing was one of several factors which sped up the
migration from out of Cleveland by those who could afford to. The
administrative and operational expense of complying with mandatory
busing and other federal court orders caused a dramatic increase in
overhead expenditures per student, while declining tax revenues
resulted in lower expenditures on actually educating public school
students.
In 1996, Martin Hoke, Cleveland's 10th. District United States
House Representative was quoted: "Children are now bused from a
predominantly black school on the east side of town to a
predominantly black school on the west side of town. More than half
a billion dollars has been spent on desegregation activities since
1978-money that could have been used to buy textbooks, upgrade
science laboratories or purchase new computers. When kids attend
schools miles away from their homes, what working parent is able to
attend sporting events, parent-teacher conferences, and home-room
parties? Busing has contributed significantly to the decline of our
urban centers."
The combination of many factors resulted in declining enrollments.
Before mandatory busing, in 1976, minority enrollment in Cleveland
Public Schools was 58%, by 1994 it was 71%. By 1996, Cleveland
Public Schools total enrollment was half of what it was
pre-mandatory busing. In 1991, Ohio had a new proficiency test for
9th. grade students which the majority of Cleveland Public Schools
students did not pass. By 1994, almost 50% of the system's students
were failing to graduate from high school, and many
graduates who did not qualify for
entry-level
jobs, with many employers increasingly requiring secondary or
post-secondary degrees due to more information technology-related
jobs and other changes in the overall economy.
In March 1994, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People's Cleveland Chapter, Reed vs. Rhodes plaintiff,
challenged the fairness of the Ohio 9th. grade proficiency test as
an Ohio secondary school graduation requirement for
African-American students; the subsequent federal court settlement
agreement(s) left the 9th grade secondary school graduation
requirement intact and unchanged in 1994 and subsequently. Prior to
mandatory busing, Cleveland Public Schools graduation rate was 75
percent, by 1996 it had dropped to 26.6 percent. Although mandatory
busing ended in the 1990s, Cleveland continued to slide into
poverty, reaching a nadir in 2004 when it
was named the poorest major city in the United States. Cleveland
was again rated the poorest major city in the U.S. in 2006, with a
poverty rate of 32.4%.
Changing demographics
Cleveland Demographics
Year
|
Total
|
African
American
|
Percent
|
Caucasian
|
Percent
|
Hispanic non white
or
Latino
|
Percent
|
Asian
|
Percent
|
American
Indian
or
Alaskan
Native
|
Percent
|
Native
Hawaiian
or
Pacific
Islander
|
Percent
|
2006 Estimate |
406,427 |
216,421 |
% |
155,575 |
% |
33,038 |
% |
6,942 |
% |
1,132 |
% |
0 |
% |
2000 Actual |
467,702 |
243,939 |
% |
198,510 |
% |
34,728 |
% |
6,444 |
% |
1,458 |
% |
178 |
% |
1990 Actual |
505,616
|
235,405
|
% |
250,234
|
% |
23,197
|
% |
|
% |
|
% |
|
%
|
Cityscape
Architecture
Cleveland's downtown architecture is diverse.
Many of the city's
government and civic buildings, including City Hall, the Cuyahoga
County Courthouse, the Cleveland Public Library
, and Public Auditorium
, are clustered around an open mall
and share a common neoclassical architecture.
Built in
the early 20th century, they are the result of the 1903 Group Plan
, and constitute one of the most complete examples
of City Beautiful design in
the United States. The Terminal Tower
, dedicated in 1930, was the tallest building in
North America outside New York City
until 1967 and the tallest in the city until
1991. It is a prototypical
Beaux-Arts skyscraper.
The two newer skyscrapers on Public Square,
Key
Tower
(currently the tallest building in Ohio) and the
BP
Building
, combine
elements of Art Deco architecture with
postmodern designs.
Another
of Cleveland's architectural treasures is The
Arcade
(sometimes called the Old Arcade), a five-story
arcade built in 1890 and
renovated in 2001 as a Hyatt Regency
Hotel. Cleveland's landmark ecclesiastical architecture
includes the historic Old Stone Church
in downtown Cleveland and the onion domed St.
Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral
in Tremont.
Running east from Public Square through University Circle is
Euclid Avenue, which was known for its
prestige and elegance. In the late 1880s, writer
Bayard Taylor described it as "the most
beautiful street in the world." Known as "Millionaire's Row",
Euclid Avenue was world-renowned as the home of such
internationally known names as
Rockefeller,
Hanna, and
Hay.Cleveland is home to four
parks in the countywide
Cleveland Metroparks system, the
"Emerald Necklace" of
Olmsted-inspired parks that encircles
the region.
In the Big Creek valley sits the Cleveland
Metroparks Zoo
, which contains one of the largest collection of
primates in North America. The other
three parks are Brookside Park and parts of the Rocky River and
Washington Reservations. Apart from the Metroparks is Cleveland
Lakefront State Park, which provides public access to Lake Erie.
Among its six parks are Edgewater Park, located between the
Shoreway and Lake Erie
just west of downtown, and
Euclid
Beach Park and Gordon Park on the east side. The City of
Cleveland's Rockefeller Park, with its many Cultural Gardens
honoring the city's ethnic groups, follows Doan Brook across the
city's east side.
Neighborhoods
Downtown Cleveland is centered around
Public
Square
and includes a wide range of diversified
districts. Downtown Cleveland is home to the
traditional Financial district and Civic Center, as well as the
distinct Theatre District, which houses Playhouse
Square Center
, and mixed-use neighborhoods such as the Flats
and the Warehouse District
, which are occupied by industrial and office
buildings and also by restaurants and bars. The number of
downtown housing units in the form of
condominiums,
lofts, and
apartments has increased over the past ten years.
This trend looks to continue with the recent revival of the Flats,
the Euclid Corridor Project, and the success of East 4th Street.
Cleveland
residents often define themselves in terms of whether they live on
the east side or the west side of the Cuyahoga River
. The east side comprises the following
neighborhoods: Buckeye-Shaker Square
, Central, Collinwood
, Corlett, Euclid-Green, Fairfax, Forest Hills,
Glenville,
Payne/Goodrich-Kirtland Park, Hough, Kinsman, Lee
Harvard/Seville-Miles, Mount Pleasant, Nottingham, St. Clair-Superior,
Union-Miles Park, University
Circle, Little Italy,
and Woodland Hills. The west side of the city includes the
following neighborhoods: Brooklyn Centre, Clark-Fulton, Detroit-Shoreway, Cudell,
Edgewater, Ohio City
, Tremont,
Old Brooklyn, Stockyards, West
Boulevard, and the four neighborhoods colloquially known as
West Park: Kamm's Corners,
Jefferson, Puritas-Longmead, and Riverside. Three neighborhoods
in the Cuyahoga Valley are sometimes referred to as the south side:
Industrial Valley/Duck Island, Slavic Village
(North and South Broadway), and Tremont.
Several inner-city neighborhoods have begun to
gentrify in recent years. Areas on both the
west side (Ohio City, Tremont, Detroit-Shoreway, and Edgewater) and
the east side (Collinwood, Hough, Fairfax, and Little Italy) have
been successful in attracting increasing numbers of
creative class members, which in turn is
spurring new residential development. Furthermore, a live-work
zoning overlay for the city's near east side
has facilitated the transformation of old industrial buildings into
loft spaces for artists.
Suburbs
Cleveland's older inner-ring or "first"
suburbs include Bedford
, Bedford Heights
, Brook
Park
, Brooklyn
, Cleveland Heights
, Cuyahoga Heights
, East Cleveland
, Euclid
, Fairview
Park
, Garfield Heights
, Lakewood
, Maple Heights
, Parma
, Shaker
Heights
, South Euclid
, University Heights
, and Warrensville Heights
. All are members of the Northeast Ohio
First Suburbs Consortium.
Culture
Fine arts

Fountain outside of the Cleveland
Museum of Art
Cleveland
is home to Playhouse Square Center
, the second largest performing arts center in the
United States behind New York's
Lincoln Center
. Playhouse Square includes the State
, Palace
, Allen
, Hanna
, and Ohio
theaters within what is known as the Theater
District of Downtown Cleveland. Playhouse Square's resident
performing arts companies include the
Cleveland Opera, and the
Great Lakes Theater Festival.
The center also hosts various
Broadway
musicals, special concerts, speaking engagements, and other
events throughout the year. One Playhouse Square, now the
headquarters for Cleveland's
public
broadcasters, was originally used as the broadcast studios of
WJW Radio, where
disc jockey Alan Freed
first popularized the term "
rock and
roll".
Located between Playhouse Square and
University Circle are the Cleveland
Play House and Karamu
House
, a well-known African American performing and fine
arts center, both founded in the 1920s.Cleveland is also
home to the
Cleveland Orchestra,
widely considered one of the finest
orchestras in the world, and often referred to as
the finest in the United States. It is one of the "
Big Five" major orchestras in the
United States.
The Orchestra plays in Severance
Hall
during the winter and at Blossom
Music Center
during the summer. The city is also home to
the
Cleveland Pops
Orchestra.There are two main
art
museums in Cleveland.
The Cleveland Museum of Art
is a major American art museum, with a
collection that includes more than 40,000 works of art ranging over
6,000 years, from ancient masterpieces
to contemporary pieces.
Museum of
Contemporary Art Cleveland
showcases established and emerging artists,
particularly from the Cleveland area, through hosting and producing
temporary exhibitions.
Film and television
Cleveland has served as the setting for several major films,
including
The Fortune
Cookie (1967) with
Walter
Matthau and
Jack Lemmon,
Major League (1989),
Major League II
(1994),
Antwone Fisher
(2002) and
Welcome To
Collinwood (2002). Cleveland is also the setting for the
film
American
Splendor, the lifelong home of writer
Harvey Pekar and also the setting for most of
his
autobiographical comic books,
upon which the film was based. The city was also the setting for
the popular television
sitcom
The Drew Carey Show
which starred Cleveland native
Drew
Carey. Also, the widely beloved holiday film
A Christmas Story (1983), while set
in Indiana, drew many of its external shots from Cleveland.Because
of its architecture, its proximity and its ease of access,
locations in Cleveland are often used by filmmakers as a stand-in
for other places. For example, a complex battle scene that was set
in New York City in
Spider-Man
3 was filmed in Cleveland in April 2006. The popular
action film Air Force One, with Harrison Ford, William H Macy,
Glenn Close, Dean Stockwell and Gary Oldman had its opening shots
filmed above and inside Severance Hall on University Circle, home
of the Cleveland Orchestra.
The Video-Game to Film adaptation of Double
Dragon was filmed notably in an abandoned warehouse along
Cleveland's Lake Erie shoreline, the Cuyahoga River
along the Flats, and Cleveland's Terminal
Tower-Tower City Mall.
Literature
Cleveland was the home of
Joe Shuster
and
Jerry Siegel, who created the comic
book character
Superman in 1932. Both
attended
Glenville High
School, and their early collaborations resulted in the creation
of "The Man of Steel".
D. A. Levy wrote :
"Cleveland: The Rectal Eye Visions".
Cuisine
Cleveland's many immigrant groups have long played an important
role in defining the regional cuisine. Polish and Eastern European
foods, such as
beer,
pierogi,
corned beef, and
kielbasa are popular in and around the
city, as are foods associated with Cleveland's Irish and Italian
immigrants. The Polish Boy Sandwich is a local favorite at many BBQ
and Soul food restaraunts. Residents like
Hector Boiardi (
Chef
Boy-ar-dee) and
Michael Ruhlman
have been noted for their contributions in the culinary world.
The
West Side
Market
is home to vendors selling many kinds of ethnic
food, as well as fresh produce, and ethnic restaurants can be found
in the Little Italy,
Slavic
Village
, and Tremont
neighborhoods, among others.
Cleveland has become increasingly relevant to contemporary gourmet
and haute cuisine. Chef Michael Symon (Lola, Lolita) has been one
of the most vocal promoters of Cleveland area restaurants.
Culinary scene
Beginning in 2007, Cleveland's culinary scene began to receive
international attention. In early 2008, the
Chicago Tribune called Cleveland America's
"hot new dining city". The national food press—Gourmet, Food &
Wine, Esquire and Playboy.com—heaped praise on several Cleveland
spots this year for best new restaurant, best steakhouse, best
farm-to-table programs and great new neighborhood eateries.On
November 11, 2007, Cleveland chef
Michael
Symon helped brighten the spotlight on Cleveland's culinary
scene when he was named "
The Next
Iron Chef" on the
Food Network
reality TV show by the same name.
Anthony Bourdain highlighted the city's
food scene on a 2007 episode of his
Travel Channel show "
Anthony Bourdain: No
Reservations".
Tourism
Five miles (8 km) east of downtown
Cleveland is University Circle, a
concentration of cultural, educational, and medical institutions,
including the Cleveland
Botanical Garden, Case Western Reserve
University
, University Hospitals,
Severance
Hall
, the Cleveland Museum of Art
, the Cleveland Museum of Natural
History, and the Western Reserve Historical
Society. Cleveland is also home to the
I. M. Pei-designed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
, located on the Lake Erie waterfront at North Coast
Harbor downtown. Neighboring attractions include Cleveland
Browns Stadium
, the Great Lakes Science Center
, the Steamship Mather Museum
, and the USS Cod
, a World War II
submarine.Cleveland is
home to many
festivals throughout the year.
Cultural festivals such as the annual
Feast of the
Assumption in the Little Italy neighborhood, the Hellenic
Heritage Festival at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in the
Tremont neighborhood, and the Harvest Festival in the Slavic
Village neighborhood are popular events.
Vendors at the
West Side
Market
in Ohio City offer many different ethnic foods for
sale. Cleveland hosts an annual
parade
on
Saint Patrick's Day that
brings hundreds of thousands to the streets of downtown.

300
Fashion Week Cleveland, the
city's annual fashion event, is one of the few internationally
recognized fashion industry happenings in North America. The show
is considered by many to be the best in the
Midwest—perhaps second only to
New York for fashion weeks in
the US.In addition to the cultural festivals, Cleveland hosted the
CMJ Rock Hall Music Fest,
which featured national and local acts, including both established
artists and up-and-coming acts, but the festival was discontinued
in 2007 due to financial and manpower costs to the Rock Hall. The
annual
Ingenuity Festival and
Notacon conference focus on the combination
of art and technology. The
Cleveland International
Film Festival has been held annually since 1977, and it drew a
record 66,476 people in March 2009. Cleveland also hosts an annual
holiday display lighting and celebration, dubbed Winterfest, which
is held downtown at the city's historic hub, Public Square.
Sports
Current sports teams
Cleveland's
professional sports
teams include the
Cleveland
Indians (
Major League
Baseball),
Cleveland Browns
(
National Football League),
Cleveland Cavaliers (
National Basketball
Association),
Cleveland City
Stars (
United Soccer
Leagues), and
Lake Erie
Monsters (
American Hockey
League). The
Cleveland Indians
last reached the
World Series in
1997, losing to the
Florida Marlins, and have not won the series
since
1948.
Between 1995 and
2001, Progressive
Field
sold out 455 consecutive games and held a Major
League Baseball record until it was broken in 2008. The
Cleveland Cavaliers are experiencing a renaissance with Cleveland
fans due to
LeBron James, a native of
nearby Akron and the number one overall
draft pick of 2003. The Cavaliers won the
Eastern Conference in 2007,
but were defeated in the
NBA Finals
by the
San Antonio Spurs.
The
original Browns, who last won an NFL championship in 1964 (three
years before the creation of the Super
Bowl), relocated to Baltimore, Maryland
to become the Ravens after the 1995 season, thus sparking
controversy and bitter feelings toward then-owner Art Modell, as well as an intense rivalry between
the two cities; however, a new Browns team was created as a
replacement, making its debut in 1999. The city's recent
lack of success in sports has earned it a reputation of being a
cursed sports city, which
ESPN validated by proclaiming Cleveland as its
"most tortured sports city" in 2004. The city's current soccer
team, the
Cleveland City Stars,
play in the
USL First Division.
They play their home
games at Middlefield Cheese Stadium
in Bedford.
Past teams
The tradition of professional hockey in Cleveland started with the
original
Cleveland
Barons in 1937. Cleveland fielded an
NHL team, also called the
Cleveland Barons, from
1976 to
1978, which was later merged into
the
Minnesota North Stars (now
the
Dallas Stars). The city has had
other major and minor-league hockey teams in the past including a
second
AHL team named the Barons from 2001
through 2006, the
Cleveland
Lumberjacks of the
International
Hockey League and the
Cleveland
Crusaders of the
WHA.
Cleveland was also home to the
Cleveland Rockers, one of the original
eight teams in the
WNBA in 1997.
However, in 2003, the team folded after owner
Gordon Gund dropped the team from operation.
Cleveland also fielded two
indoor
soccer teams, the original
Cleveland
Force of the
NPSL. This team
folded in 1988. They were replaced for the 1989-1990 season by the
Cleveland Crunch of the
Major Indoor
Soccer League . After readopting the nickname "Force" in 2002,
the team ceased operations in 2005 after having won three league
championships in the 90s.
Future teams
In 2005,
Major League Soccer
commissioner
Don Garber announced that
Cleveland was one of several top areas in contention for an
expansion team in 2007. Delays in
securing a
soccer-only
stadium have now prevented any such team from beginning play
until at least 2012, but the Cleveland area is still a contender
for expansion.
Other sports
The
Mid-American Conference
(MAC), an NCAA Division I athletic conference, moved its
headquarters to Cleveland in 2000.
In conjunction with the move, the MAC
Men's Basketball Tournament was also moved to Quicken
Loans Arena
established itself on the Cleveland sports
scene. The MAC Tournament is the biggest college sporting
event that the city hosts on an annual basis. The Tournament
consistently ranks among the top 10 conference basketball
tournaments in average attendance, thanks in large part to the
support of more than 300,000 MAC alumni that live in Northeast
Ohio.
Other sporting events held in Cleveland
include the Champ Car Grand Prix
of Cleveland
, the Cleveland
Marathon, and the Ohio Classic
college football game. The
city hosted the
Gravity Games, an
extreme sports series, from 2002 to
2004, and the
Dew Action Sports
Tour Right Guard Open in 2007.
Local sporting facilities include
Progressive
Field
, Cleveland Browns Stadium
, Quicken Loans Arena
and the Wolstein Center
.
Media
Cleveland is served in print by
The Plain Dealer, the
city's sole remaining daily
newspaper. The
competing
Cleveland Press
ceased publication on June 17, 1982, and the
Cleveland
News ended its run in 1960. Cleveland is also home to
Cleveland Scene, an
alternative weekly paper, which
absorbed its competitor, the
Free
Times in 2008.
Cleveland, combined with nearby Akron
and Canton
, is
ranked for 2008–2009 as the 17th largest television market by
Nielsen Media
Research. The market is served by stations affiliated
with major American networks including: WKYC
(channel
3, channel 17 digital NBC), WEWS
(channel
5, channel 15 digital ABC), WJW-TV
(channel
8 digital Fox), WOIO
(channel
19, channel 10 digital CBS), WUAB
(channel
43, channel 28 digital MNTV), and
WBNX-TV
(channel 55, channel 30 digital The CW). Cleveland is also
served by WVPX
(channel
23 digital ION), Spanish-language
channel WQHS-TV
(channel 61, channel 34 digital Univision), WDLI-TV
(channel 17, channel 39 digital TBN) and WVIZ
(channel
25, channel 26 digital) PBS. A national
television first was
The
Morning Exchange on WEWS, which defined the morning show
format and served as the inspiration for
Good Morning America.Cleveland is
also served by 29
AM and
FM radio
stations directly, and numerous other stations are heard from
elsewhere in
Northeast Ohio, which
serve outlying suburbs and adjoining counties.
Economy

Downtown Cleveland as viewed from
Edgewater State Park
Cleveland's location on the Cuyahoga River
and Lake
Erie
has been key to its growth. The Ohio and
Erie Canal
coupled with rail links helped establish the city
as a major American manufacturing center. Steel and many other manufactured goods emerged as its
industries.The city has sought to diversify its economy to become
less dependent on its struggling
manufacturing sector. Cleveland is the
corporate headquarters of many large companies such as
Eaton Corporation,
Forest City Enterprises,
Sherwin-Williams Company and
KeyCorp.
NASA
maintains
a facility in Cleveland, the Glenn Research Center
. Jones Day, one
of the largest law firms in the world, traces its origins to
Cleveland, and its Cleveland office remains the firm's
largest.However, in recent years, the Cleveland area has lost
nearly a dozen corporate headquarters, including
TRW,
OfficeMax,
BP,
National City
Corporation and Oglebay Norton, mostly through acquisitions or
mergers. In 2005, Duke Realty Corp., one of the area's largest
landlords, announced it was selling all of its property in the
Cleveland area because of the stagnation of the market; however,
the company continues to maintain a large office building portfolio
in the southern suburbs. The commercial real estate market
rebounded in 2007 as office properties were purchased at a record
pace. From the beginning of July to the end of September, 2007,
there was one residential foreclosure for every fifty-seven homes
in the metropolitan area, and ten percent of the city's homes are
now vacant, due in part to the rise in foreclosure filings. Many of
the foreclosed homes are vacant and have been
vandalized.
Cleveland's largest employer, the Cleveland
Clinic
, ranks among America's best hospitals as
tabulated by U.S. News & World Report.
Cleveland's healthcare industry includes
University Hospitals
of Cleveland, a noted competitor which ranked twenty-fifth in
cancer care, and MetroHealth
medical center.Cleveland is an
emerging area for biotechnology and
fuel cell research, led by Case Western
Reserve University
, the Cleveland Clinic, and University Hospitals of
Cleveland. Cleveland is among the top recipients of
investment for biotech start-ups and research. Case Western
Reserve, the Clinic, and University Hospitals have recently
announced plans to build a large biotechnology research center and
incubator on the site of the
former Mt. Sinai Medical Center, creating a research campus to
stimulate biotech
startup companies
that can be spun off from research conducted in the city.

The "tech czar" and other city leaders
work at City Hall.
City leaders stepped up efforts to cultivate a technology sector in
its economy in the early 2000s. Former Mayor
Jane L. Campbell appointed a "tech czar" whose job
is to actively recruit tech companies to the downtown office
market, offering connections to the high-speed fiber networks that
run underneath downtown streets in several "high-tech offices"
focused on the
Euclid Avenue area.
Cleveland
State University
hired a Technology Transfer Officer to work full
time on cultivating technology transfers from CSU research to
marketable ideas and companies in the Cleveland area, and appointed
a Vice President for Economic Development to leverage the
university's assets in expanding the city's economy. Case
Western Reserve University participates in technology initiatives
such as the OneCommunity project, a high-speed fiber optic network
linking the area's major research centers intended to stimulate
growth.
OneCommunity's work attracted the attention
of Intel
and in
mid-2005, Cleveland was named an Intel "Worldwide Digital
Community" along with Corpus Christi, Texas
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
, and Taipei,
Taiwan
. This distinction added about $12 million
for marketing to expand regional technology partnerships, create a
city-wide
WiFi network, and develop a tech
economy. In addition to this Intel initiative, in January 2006 a
New York-based think tank, the Intelligent Community Forum,
selected Cleveland as the sole American city among its seven
finalists for the "Intelligent Community of the Year" award. The
group announced that it nominated the city for its OneCommunity
network with potential broadband applications. The OneCommunity
Network is collaborating with
Cisco
Systems to deploy a cutting-edge wireless network that could
provide widespread access to the region. Cisco is testing new
technologies in wireless "mesh" networking. OneCommunity and Cisco
officially launched the first phase in September 2006, blanketing
several square miles of University Circle with wireless
connectivity. Additionally, Cisco Systems acquired the former
Aironet Wireless Networks, which was based in the Greater Cleveland
area, to form its wireless networking product lineup and maintain a
facility in the region.
Education
Public schools
The
Cleveland
Metropolitan School District is the largest
K-12 district in the state, with 127
schools and an enrollment of 55,567 students during the 2006–2007
academic year. It is the only district in Ohio that is under direct
control of the mayor, who appoints a
school board.
Private schools
Colleges and universities
Cleveland is home to a number of colleges and universities.
Most
prominent among these is Case Western Reserve
University
, a world-renowned research and teaching institution
located in University Circle. A private university with
several prominent graduate programs, Case was ranked 38th in the
nation in 2007 by
U.S. News & World Report.
University Circle also contains
Cleveland Institute of Art, the
Cleveland Institute of
Music, and the
Ohio College of Podiatric
Medicine.
Cleveland State University
(CSU), based in downtown Cleveland, is the city's
public four-year university. In addition to CSU, downtown
hosts the metropolitan campus of
Cuyahoga Community College, the
county's two-year higher education institution, as well as
Chancellor University, a private
four-year school that focuses on business education.Ohio Technical
College is based in Cleveland.
Transportation

A collection of fixed and movable
bridges crosses the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland.
Airports
Cleveland Hopkins International
Airport
is the city's major airport and an international airport that serves as
one of three main hubs for Continental Airlines. It holds
the distinction of having the first airport-to-downtown rapid
transit connection in North America, established in 1968. In 1930,
the airport was the site of the first airfield lighting system and
the first air traffic
control tower.
Originally known as Cleveland Municipal Airport, it was the first
municipally owned airport in the country. Cleveland Hopkins is a
significant regional air freight hub hosting
FedEx Express,
UPS
Airlines,
United States
Postal Service, and major commercial freight
carriers.
In addition to Hopkins, Cleveland is served
by Burke
Lakefront Airport
, on the north shore of downtown between Lake Erie
and the Shoreway.
Burke is primarily a commuter and business airport.
Port
1992 aerial view of the Cleveland harbor, with the mouth of the
Cuyahoga River in the foreground.
The
Port of
Cleveland
, located at the Cuyahoga River
's mouth, is a major bulk freight terminal on
Lake
Erie
receiving much of the raw materials used by the
region's manufacturing industries.
Railroads
Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides
service to Cleveland, via the Capitol Limited and
Lake Shore Limited
routes, which stop at Cleveland Lakefront Station
. Cleveland has also been identified as a hub
for the proposed
Ohio Hub project, which
would bring
high-speed rail to
Ohio.Cleveland hosts several inter-modal freight railroad
terminals.
Mass transit
In 2007, the
American Public
Transportation Association named Cleveland's mass transit
system the best in North America.Cleveland currently has a
bus and
rail mass transit system operated by the
Greater
Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA). The rail portion is
officially called the
RTA Rapid
Transit, but is referred to by local residents as
The
Rapid. It consists of two
light
rail lines, known as the Green and Blue Lines, and a
heavy rail line, the
Red Line. In 2008, RTA completed installing a
bus rapid transit line, for which naming
rights were purchased by the Cleveland Clinic and University
Hospitals, called the "Health" or Silver Line, which runs along
Euclid Avenue from downtown through
University Circle, ending at the Stokes-Windermere Transit
Station.
Inter-city bus lines
National
inter-city scheduled bus service is provided at a Greyhound station, located just behind
Playhouse
Square
theater district. Lakefront Trailways provides regional
inter-city bus service to popular destinations from their terminal
south of Cleveland in Brookpark, Ohio
.Akron Metro,
Brunswick Transit
Alternative,
Laketran,
Lorain County Transit, and
Medina County Transit provide
connecting bus service to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit
Authority.
Geauga County
Transit and
Portage Area
Regional Transportation Authority also offer connecting bus
service in their neighboring areas.
Major highways
Three two-digit
Interstate
highways serve Cleveland directly.
- Interstate 71 begins just
southwest of downtown and is the major route from downtown
Cleveland to the airport. I-71 runs through the southwestern suburbs
and eventually connects Cleveland with Columbus
and Cincinnati
.
- Interstate 77 begins in downtown
Cleveland and runs almost due south through the southern suburbs.
I-77 sees
the least traffic of the three interstates, although it does
connect Cleveland to Akron
.
- Interstate 90 connects the two
sides of Cleveland, and is the northern terminus for both I-71 and
I-77. Running due east–west through the west side suburbs, I-90
turns northeast at the junction with and I-490, and is known as the
Innerbelt through downtown. At the junction with the Shoreway, I-90
makes a 90-degree turn known in the area as Dead Man's
Curve
, then continues northeast, entering Lake
County
near the eastern split with Ohio State Route 2.
Cleveland is also served by two three-digit interstates,
- Interstate 480, which
enters Cleveland briefly at a few points and
- Interstate 490, which
connects I-77 with the junction of I-90 and I-71 just south of
downtown.
Two other limited-access highways serve Cleveland.
Crime
Based on the
Morgan Quitno Press 2008
national crime rankings, Cleveland ranked as the 7th most dangerous
city in the nation among US cities with a population of 100,000 to
500,000 and the 11th most dangerous overall.Violent crime from 2005
to 2006 was mostly unchanged nationwide, but increased more than
10% in Cleveland. The murder rate dropped 30% in Cleveland, but was
still far above the national average. Property crime from 2005 to
2006 was virtually unchanged across the country and in Cleveland,
with larceny-theft down by 7% but burglaries up almost 14%.In 2009,
a Cleveland
neighborhood located near
the intersection of Cedar Avenue and 55th Street ranked the 21st
most dangerous neighborhood in the United States.
History
A study in 1971–72 found that although Cleveland's crime rate was
significantly lower than other large urban areas, most Cleveland
residents feared crime. In the 1980s,
gang
activity was on the rise, associated with
crack cocaine. A task force was formed and was
partially successful at reducing gang activity by a combination of
removing gang-related graffiti and educating news sources to not
name gangs in news reporting.
Distribution
The distribution of crime in Cleveland is highly
heterogeneous. Relatively few crimes take
place in downtown Cleveland's business district, but the perception
of crime in the downtown has been pointed to by the Greater
Cleveland Growth Association as damaging to the city's economy.
Neighborhoods of higher socioeconomic status in Cleveland and its
suburbs have lower rates of violent crime than areas of lower
status, and even controlling for this factor, areas with higher
populations of
African Americans
have higher violent crime rates. A study of the relationship
between
employment access and crime in
Cleveland found a strong inverse relationship, with the highest
crime rates in areas of the city that had the lowest access to
jobs. Furthermore, this relationship was found to be strongest with
respect to economic crimes. A study of
public housing in Cleveland found that
criminals tend to live in areas of higher affluence and move into
areas of lower affluence to commit crimes.
International relations
Sister cities
Cleveland has twenty
sister cities:
See also
References
General references
External links