Terminal 7 of the John F Kennedy Airport in New York City was my first glimpse at America. It was nothing like the Kotoka International Airport in Accra and yet it rivaled Heathrow in London. Walking off that British Airways flight into the terminal, I knew I was always going to end up here somehow. The America I saw vividly in my childhood dreams — ostentatious billboards, wide highways, big houses, and much freedom — was not the America Ta-Nehisi Coates described in Between the World and Me, a book I read a few months earlier, and so I was even more curious to see it, to live it, to experience it in its entirety.
For many the glittering image of America Hollywood offers never fades, but for me, I was robbed of it — blessed and cursed by knowing, through my education and my work in some of Cleveland’s historically disinvested neighborhoods. In my travels across the US — from Chicago to Ogunquit [ME], Boston to Detroit, Kalamazoo to Gainesville [FL], from Durham to San Juan — my understanding of the country has deepened and so has my scholarship. I am not oblivious to the checkered reality of American cities, the divide between North and South, East and West, and the highways that have ripped communities apart. America is a land of many paradoxes — rich yet poor, free yet bound, a shining light yet bleak darkness. A nuance that one must live to understand.
This piece was initially meant to be a grounding piece, an introduction of Kwame, a Ghanaian expatriate living in Cleveland, who has things to say, places to go, and things to do. But there are more pressing issues like who and what will it take, collectively, to lead Cleveland into its triumphant future? In this piece, I posit many questions for us, native and expatriate, young and old, Black and White, to ponder collectively.
The cities that are taking bold steps to fail fast are also the cities that are failing forward. As far as the adoption of innovation is concerned, it is not the recreant who wins, but the bold who see the dawn before many others do. Cleveland must lean into its potential for greatness.
Let’s start with a few facts you already know.
Cleveland has the highest poverty rate among large US cities. As of 2019, over 114,000 people were living in poverty in this city. One of every three Clevelanders is living in poverty. Infant mortality rates remain among the highest in the country; in 2020 out of 13,183 children born 99 did not celebrate their first birthday; 73% of whom were Black infants. The City remains one of the worst digitally connected cities in the country and it has high adult illiteracy rates. The city can’t recycle its waste, and children are still getting lead poisoned. There are a plethora of challenges confronting this city today, some of which have always been there, but that is not the important thing.
During a recent symposium, Building the 21st Century City, organized by the Urban Land Institute and the City of Cleveland, the futurist Ben Hammersly espoused a concept of “organizational spacetime”: in the continuum of innovation across time, where do you stand? When I pondered this, I thought critically about the city itself. Where do we stand in the continuum of revolutions that have happened and are happening?
The world itself is on the cusp of another industrial revolution — a symbiosis of man and machine, socio-cultural space with artificial intelligence, big data and quantum computing, mechanical processes making way for automation. Traditional approaches are making way for new approaches to emerge.
Some critics have pointed out that automation and many of the things encapsulated by the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” are still decades away. Even if I agreed with this assertion, inadvertently these critics inadvertantly make a strong case for the need to be prepared.
How are we collectively preparing for the future that is upon us?
The tectonic shifts happening will are just beginning and will accelerate. Many cities are experimenting and adopting new approaches to solving old problems. The cities that are taking bold steps to fail fast are also the cities that are failing forward. As far as the adoption of innovation is concerned, it is not the recreant who win, but the bold who see the dawn before many others do. Cleveland must lean into its potential for greatness. No child should have to go to bed without a meal, no child should die from lead poisoning, every child deserves to have stable, high-speed internet at home, no parent should have to choose between the next meal and keeping the lights on. There are pressing issues but there are also incredible opportunities on the horizon.
The revolution is here. It will transform in some fundamental ways how cities evolve, how residents interact with one another, and with their socio-cultural and physical environments, the governance of cities, who makes decisions around how public resources are spent, and who has a decision-making voice. There are many opportunities and there are perils — we have to choose! I pray we choose wisely.
Opportunities and Perils
There is widespread consensus that with these changes will come widespread social inequality. Indeed, the social and racial inequalities of today are the results of past designs, our collective actions and inactions. There was a time in the history of this city when it compared and competed with other great American cities and was a leading industrial city in its own light. This was seen in many examples including Ford Motors facilities on the east side of Cleveland along Euclid Avenue, East 72 St., and St. Clair Ave. which accommodated the company’s Cleveland operations, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co, Sherwin-Williams, etc.
This city has a heritage of innovation that capitalized on the industrial revolution in its time to become one of the most prosperous cities in the country. (The conversation around prosperity for whom and the example of people like Winston Willis is a whole conversation for another day.) But cleaving to this history is not enough. As a matter of fact, it’s silly, a fool’s glory. But there are lessons to be learned from that history. There were investments in infrastructure, innovation, in the attraction and nurturing of talent — both home-grown and immigrant — that drove this growth.
So, what happened? Industry and leadership did not evolve; with stagnation died the promise of a great city.
What is the way forward?
My answer is – a revolution.
“Evolution through...revolution is the touchstone of progress”.
Professor Klaus Schwab, who has been at the vanguard of conversations around this industrial revolution, noted in his book:
“This revolution is different, in the terms of the speed at which these changes are occurring. It is not enough to want to catch up with the times and pace but organizations, businesses, and governments must be swift in their response, proactive in their actions, futuristic in their solutions, and visionary in their planning”.
The urgency of this moment is that those who do not embrace this revolution and run at a pace as swift as the pace of other changes will be left behind and punished for their delinquency.
Cleveland’s tragedy is that it rode the wave of innovations and industrial revolutions to build the great metropolis of our collective nostalgia but at some point became hostile to change and ceased its continued evolution.
To reclaim its destiny, there is an urgent need to summon our collective power in deciding where Cleveland goes from here. That decision in itself is embedded in who we choose to lead not just our councils and wards, but the city itself.
A revolution in thought and action
A true revolution is not improvement here and there that puts ‘band-aids’ on the social and racial inequities that plague our city and region. Reform alone is not enough. Reform is the language of the content, revolution is the true language of change. As Angela Davis recently opined “Reform is a myth and reform is the glue that has held these institutions together”
Revolutions in thought are about decluttering to make space for new institutions, new ideas, and new leaders to emerge. A true revolution is the complete intolerance for those social and racial inequities, a rejection to make way for a new reality.
I am particularly excited about this year’s mayoral race, as it will be the first that I am witnessing in the moment. I have been keenly following not only the bold and active but also the subtle and silent campaigns of those who aspire to lead Cleveland into the promised land. While I do not pretend to know what is best for this city, I will suggest the kind of leadership we must have to overcome the decades of stagnation, the dire racial inequities, the struggling neighborhoods, and usher this city into a future of shared and equitable prosperity.
Indeed, the amelioration of the social, political, and economic circumstances of this city will require leaders who think as (wo)men of action and act as (wo)men of thought, of leaders who are bold and courageous, of leaders who understand the present but also appreciate the future and can envision it. Anything else is futile, a waste of our collective time and efforts.
It is important that we pay attention to the little things; like the use of technology in the campaigns, public addresses and responses, how ideas are being articulated, and how the community itself is mobilized. We need to understand that public experience alone is not enough, neither age nor political pedigree is dispositive. This mayoral election has to be about ideas, bold and revolutionary ideas, and the intellectual capacity, drive, and passion to deliver on them.
The call to boldness is not just for candidates but also for individuals, and perhaps even institutions. Although most institutions cannot overtly endorse candidates, what if our institutions and organizations articulated their own visions for Cleveland for the electorate to consider.
Now is the time to be bold! The time for Cleveland to seize the moment and catapult itself into the future is now!
As we choose our next crop of leaders – let us be bold in our choices! The future of “The Land” depends on it!
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Kwame Botchway is a Ghanaian expatriate who moved to Cleveland in 2017 to earn a graduate degree from Case Western Reserve University. He currently lives in Cleveland and has worked with organizations including the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities, Neighborhood Connection, and presently with Cleveland Neighborhood Progress. A former journalist, Botchway is very actively engaged with the World Economic Forum and a number of different organizations both in the US and overseas. The opinions presented in his articles are his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is associated.
