In 1969, when the Cuyahoga

Today the air in Chattanooga is remarkably clear, as is the water in the Tennessee River.  The city has recently begun positioning itself as one of the country’s “green” communities.  While water quality in the Cuyahoga is also dramatically better than it was almost 40 years ago, our region doesn’t seem to have made the same strides in rebuilding and repositioning itself as a Mecca for environmental restoration as economic development—this despite the fact that the 1969 fire is recognized by most as the catalyst that launched the environmental movement in the United States.

This has bothered me since moving to the region some four and a half years ago.  What place is better positioned than Cleveland and the surrounding Cuyahoga Valley region to be the shining example of environmental restoration as economic development?  What are we doing wrong?  What are we doing right that people just don’t know about? What would we have to do to get another cover story in Time Magazine come June 2019, the 50^th anniversary of the story about “the river that caught fire”?

The similarities between Chattanooga and Cleveland are pretty significant.  Both were manufacturing cities that saw their industries and populations decline.  Brain drain became a serious issue in each place.  Both have industrial, working rivers that also serve recreational users along certain stretches.  And both are surrounded by wonderful parks and natural recreational amenities that attract significant numbers of visitors annually.

But while Chattanooga has built something of a reputation for itself as a clean community, the outside perception of Cleveland is pretty much a blank slate at this point.  Outside Magazine called Chattanooga a “Top Ten Dream Town.”  I’m not sure anyone from Outside Magazine even knows where Cleveland is.  The Financial Times of London—long a favorite paper of TechFutures—had this to say back in 2004:

“Why has Chattanooga succeeded in its revitalization while other midsize manufacturing towns in the midwest and northeast are stagnating or deteriorating? Its principle advantage is an activist citizenry. Community leaders have learnt to harness this through a process called ‘visioning’ and ‘the Chattanooga Way’… Public-private partnerships have swiftly implemented the visions. Community power has been harnessed to give Chattanooga a role in building 21st century manufacturing.”

And so I made a visit recently to Chattanooga to see for myself if the city really had made the dramatic changes it claimed to have made, and to see if there were any lessons we might learn and apply here.

Chattanooga is essentially a rust belt city in the south.  One that has, for the most part, successfully reinvented itself as its manufacturing base eroded and its children left for better opportunities elsewhere.  The story is far from perfect and nowhere near finished, however.  Yes, the downtown population is increasing and yes, more young people are staying or returning when they form families and look for a place to raised their children, but the region in and around Chattanooga has not seen “explosive” job growth as a result of the improvements made during the last two or three decades. 

Ask around and most people will tell you that at least half the improvements in air quality came from the closure of the manufacturing facilities that were the source of the problem to begin with.  But they will also tell you that the business community in Chattanooga recognized the city was in crisis, and that drastic action needed to be taken.  And Chattanooga is still a manufacturing city in many respects, just like

Over the next few posts we’ll explore these questions in greater detail. But I can tell you this:  I came away from my visit to Chattanooga convinced that there is absolutely no reason that Cleveland, the Cuyahoga River Valley, even all of

Think of it: if we put our minds to it there is no reason we couldn’t get another Time Magazine Cover story—“That Was Then, This Is Now”—featuring the dramatic and positive changes in the region we accomplish during the coming decade…

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Policy, General Economic Development, Strategy, Manufacturing, Innovation, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.