Cleveland Ranks No. 1 On Poverty List

[OhioChick]

City Ranked No. 12 Year Ago

POSTED: 11:26 am EDT August 29, 2006
UPDATED: 12:22 pm EDT August 29, 2006

CLEVELAND -- The city returned to the top of the U.S. Census Bureau's ranking of poorest big cities, reclaiming the unwanted title from Detroit.

Cleveland had 32.4 percent of its 452,200 people living below the poverty level in 2005, according to the American Community Survey released Tuesday. Last year, Cleveland fell to No. 12 on the list. City leaders celebrated when the 2005 survey put the city's poverty level at 23.2 percent, down from the nation-leading 31.3 percent the year before. But some questioned how the ranking could fall so far in just 12 months.

"I'm shocked," said Myron Robinson, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Greater Cleveland. "We're stuck with it and we've got to do something about it. It just seems that we as a community have got to pull our resources closer together and try to move together to come up with a concerted effort. We're so fragmented."

Two years ago, in the middle of a hotly contested presidential campaign focused on Ohio, Cleveland's spot as the nation's poorest city quickly became a political lightning rod. The city's leaders began numerous efforts to try to combat the problem, including forming a group to study the issue.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/9754826/detail.html

[Ian David]

1. They can start by kicking all the Republick Party out of power. n/t

[OhioChick]

2. If I'm not mistaken.....

Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) is the "bluest" area in all of Ohio.

[maseman]

3. You are correct

Cleveland is the bluest area in Ohio. But the state has done NOTHING to help Cleveland.

Let Ken Blackwell walk into the Black churches in East Cleveland and let's see how long his bullshit rhetoric lasts there.

[asthmaticeog]

6. The city and county are run by an entrenched Dem party machine,

which is ultimately not much better, sadly.

[GOTV]

11. I agree...

... we've not been well served by Jimmy Dimora and the entrenched do nothing dem power structure here.

We're blue out of habit and that allows for this kind of ineffective political sink hole to fester.

[IChing]

4. Please read this thread on the plight of children not just in Cleveland

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2802542

[Demeter]

5. I'm Guessing New Orleans Earned A Lifetime Exemption?

having been drowned out of existance?

[KamaAina]

9. Actually it was mostly the poor who were drowned out of existence

or exiled to cities all over the map, from Houston to Atlanta, without a realistic way to return given that most public housing units are still closed (many slated for demolition) and rents spiked by 40 percent. :(

The people who are back in, about half the pre-K population, are largely middle-class to wealthy. Look for the Bush**ies to start crowing about how they "solved" the problem of massive intractable poverty in New Orleans. :puke:

[plasticsundance]

7. I'm from Cleveland originally

I go back to visit my family from time to time. I wonder how many of the local MSM bubbly talking heads in Cleveland will report this and how widely. Anyone that lives there now, I'd be interested to know.

The best political leader that came out of Cleveland was Dennis Kucinich, and I remember how he was demonized by many, including the local media for how he tried to change the city in the 70's as its mayor.

[asthmaticeog]

8. It'll be big news.

We won this dubious honor a couple of years ago. Reporting and commentary were incessant, and it proved to be the coffin-nail in the horrible mayoral administration of Jane Campbell. It's likely to go down the same way again, only probably with more anger this time, at least from the print media. They'll surely call for explanations as to why we're yo-yoing from 1 to 12 to 1 again.

[telleophone]

10. But it still

is heavily controlled by the Democrat party. Even the Cuyahoga County comissioners are democrats. The fact that they're building $600k townhomes all over downtown while anywhere past E.40th st. are rundown. You need to get the businesses in without so much tax abatement that it does benefit the people.