A vague sadness hangs over the Ohio countryside, even though the trees hang on to their last vestiges of summer green. I flew into Cleveland’s airport last week. This was once one of America’s largest cities, and even though the airport remains a hub for Continental Airlines, the place has the feel of a small, regional terminal. The nice part is that people are nicer in a less crazed and crowded setting, but I keep asking myself, "this is Cleveland?"
Yes. I can see the changes as we drive out of town, on the way to my conference at Kent State University. Buildings that held large businesses a decade ago sit empty. The big Ford plant sits looking vulnerable. While I was there, Eaton, the city’s largest Fortune 500 headquarters, announced it was leaving downtown for the suburbs. This is a downtown that has revived itself well and is a transit hub. Yet the Eaton bigs seem oblivious to the future of higher gas prices, as well as shameful as stewards of their hometown. Everybody talks about how bad the economy is, with high unemployment and job insecurity. The change in the vibe of this state from a decade ago is so real and raw you can’t miss it. No wonder Ohioans threw out the Republicans — the party that wrecked America — in 2006. And yet, McCain has an edge if the polls are to be believed, and one wonders.
Still, Ohio is a state synonymous with white flight and de facto segregation. Apart from some successful downtowns and a few still-lovely upper-class neighborhoods, the big cities are heavily black, while their numerous suburbs are white. It’s a class thing, but it’s also a race thing. And it may well be that Ohioans won’t vote for a black man. How they think Republican John Sidney McCain III, continuing the policies of 25 years of "conservatism," will help them is beyond me. But these are emptional responses beyond the reach of rational persuasion.
veOhio reinvented itself smartly after the "Rust Belt" decline of the early 1980s, and its manufacturing was the most productive in the world. But it wasn’t the cheapest. And Ohio, along with Michigan, are examples about how globalization as it’s done now, produces losers as well as winners in America. This proud state has been brought low. And, as is now becoming obvious, we’re not going to be able to have an economy based on "financial services." We need a new approach to trade. It’s as simple as that. And blocking the discussion by screaming "protectionism" won’t cut it. If America doesn’t manufacture and create well-paid, secure blue-collar jobs, we’re done. The McCain-Palin ticket and all it brings in train — con dogma, corporate control, etc. — has nothing to offer in this debate. Want four more years of the same?
This week, I came back to Phoenix for the Big Read, sponsored by the West Valley Arts Council. With the collapse of the Arizona Book Festival, this is all that’s left for a major book event in "the nation’s fifth largest city." Thank goodness the Arts Council could pick up some slack. It’s ungodly hot. When I was a kid, the temperature this time of year would have been ten degrees cooler — but that was when the city was smaller and surrounded by citrus groves and fields. I swear City Hall is keeping the thermostats higher at Sky Harbor. It’s a gigantic airport, but built entirely around the car. In Cleveland, I could take light rail downtown. Detroit has a beautiful new terminal served by a train. Sky Harbor is all cars. The rental car "facility" is bigger than the terminal of many cities. Drive, baby, drive.
Not much has changed since I left a year before. Tempe now has a gigantic skyscraper, wildly out of place and apparently in trouble. Downtown Phoenix has a handful of completed buildigs, but nothing like what you would expect from "the nation’s fifth largest city." Still vast numbers of parking lots and empty land — even more than when I left. The big towers promised by various sharpies and hawked by boosters are now reverting to blighted vacant lots. The good news is that light rail is in and looks great. It offers the central city, and thus the region, a backbone to fill back in with a more sustainable and enjoyable lifestyle. The stations look fancy, but very blazing hot. The dainty little sun sails won’t do much practical to protect riders, and that should be a concern. There’s no question light rail will be used — those bus routes are way over-capacity — but can Metro lure more than poor people? Phoenix had very little of the residential infill around the rail line that has been seen in most other cities. Still, it’s a start. Yet nothing is done for commuter rail; a city needs both. It’s also good ASU has moved ahead with more buildings downtown — the campus, too, promises good things.
All the nuts in the Kookocracy are still at work. The place is in its worst economic downturn I can remember. Little is being done to address the monumental challenges facing Arizona. As I say, not much has changed.
Am I homesick? No. I’ve seen lots of friends — even just running into people. But this is not my city anymore. I do feel an obligation to provide the context and history and dissent you won’t read locally. I believe Phoenix’s destiny will have national implications. And, sure, a part of my heart will always be here. I felt better when I got back from the miles of lookalike suburbs and was in comforting, shaded, memory laden streets of the historic districts of Midtown.
In my travels, I keep coming back to the idea of "unsustainability is now." The hollowing out of our industrial heart, as Wall Street rapes the wealth it took 100 years to create and Americans are working at Wal-Mart. The nasty and brutish business of flying on airlines ruined by "market forces" and, unlike any advanced country, no rail alternatives. This vast migropolis in the desert, spreading out, waiting for more people, with its creeping calamities in resources,education and economic diversification. With a hostility to research and a climate of political extremism, Google bailed. And all the failed real estate agents are asking, "what now?" This is what unsustainability looks like.
Continuity and stewardship are somewhat interchangeable concepts that undergird successful communities. Phoenix and Cleveland are on opposite ends of the spectrum but almost to the point of opposite extremes touching one another. Cleveland has a wealth of unutilized assets while Phoenix has a wealth of lifestyle immigration. Neither city has the collective will to galvanize its best possibilities.
American history screams at us from Cleveland’s abandoned neighborhoods just as it does from Arizona’s intransigent refusal to invest in the future. Both are ultimately escapes from the understanding that despite our varying levels of melanin, this is one nation. The American reaction to historical tragedy has been to deny its scope while perpetuating its damage.
Either we engage reality and the future or we collapse as a civilization. Parts of America are trying to do this. Parts of America are in stark refusal to do so. Any look at the electoral map will show you how we’re lining up.