Cleveland

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
-Bob Dylan

Some Cleveland-area businesses, officials, and citizens were frustrated in June when what was believed to be a flash mob disrupted an arts fair in Cleveland Heights. Take a peek:

Officials estimate that nearly 1,000 youth showed up spontaneously. Apparently there were random fights (though little information about these fights is provided in either the video or the Cleveland Plain Dealer's account).

This event, along with other alleged violent flash mobs, spurred Cleveland city council member Zach Reed (pictured, right) to introduce an ordinance criminalizing the use of social media - Facebook, Twitter, etc. - to organize crowds.

Under existing law, any member of a flash mob can be charged with disorderly conduct or other offenses carrying jail if there is a disturbance. Reed's legislation would have added a misdemeanor charge for summoning a crowd through social media. A first offense carried a $100 fine.

Reed said the new measure moved beyond "antiquated legislation" that never imagined social media.

To his credit, Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson vetoed that legislation this week, noting that while he is sympathetic to it's goal, the ordinance was not narrowly tailored enough to pass constitutional muster.

Reading about this on the heels of reading an articulate post by Sam DuPont at NDN - which calls for more examination of how social media can enhance civic engagement and social capital, I'm thinking about this flash mob issue in a few ways.

First, Reed's proposal to specifically criminalize social media-induced flash mobs is ridiculous. The last thing we need is another petty law on the books that we ask police officers to enforce, especially when we already have laws that address the issue. If a large group of people convenes and is hellbent on disrupting an otherwise peaceful event with violence, then the laws should be enforced. Some comments from festival attendees actually suggest that the Cleveland Heights PD efficiently defused the mob.

But instead, Reed - while admirably looking to solve the problem - throws the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Reed's proposed ordinance is far from being narrowly tailored. An Ohio ACLU official points out that the law could penalize innocent citizens; should two or three friends agree to meet up somewhere to talk, dance, listen to music, or whatever, and several others show up and cause problems, the two or three friends would bear the responsibility under this ordinance. In fact, what Reed proposes would have criminalized the actions of those young people abroad who used social media to gather and rally against their oppressive governments and in support of democracy. Effective government can't simply pass a broad, sweeping law and - voila! - expect results.

I'm not arguing that there isn't a problem to be solved when people congregate with the intention of disrupting a community. However, the question Cleveland and its suburbs should be asking is not "How are these youth organizing," as this legislation does, but "Why?" I wonder if it has something to do with 25 percent of teenagers in this country being unemployed? Perhaps many youth have nowhere left to gather, other than 24 hour Wal-Marts?

What is this subculture resisting? Perhaps it's not the suburban couple or family, but a society and community that seems to have forgotten about them?

I hope Zach Reed reads Sam DuPont's blog post. DuPont doesn't view social media as a menacing threat to society. Instead, he suggests that our communities and young people could benefit from a leveraging of these technological tools to increase social capital.

[I]f this generation is to rebuild American social capital, it needs fora in which to connect, build bonds, and establish the mutual obligations of social relationships. While the primary causes Putnam points to are immense, historical shifts, the secondary causes can be largely boiled down to the resultant decline of membership in general community organizations: churches, Rotary clubs, PTAs, etc. It's hard to imagine most of these organizations making a powerful comeback among the Millennial generation, and we're left with the question of where, exactly, Millennials will come together to build social bonds.

Another cause Putnam identifies as contributing an additional 10% toward the decline in social capital is "suburbanization, commuting, and sprawl." This trend has reoriented American communities away from the neighborhoods, downtown areas, corner bars, and public squares where social capital was once forged, to a landscape dominated by highways and strip malls where the closest thing to a shared public space can be found in the Caverns of Walmart. And so, in addition to the evaporation of civic groups, our shared physical spaces are also disappearing, and the question of where social capital can be created in the 21st century becomes still more confounding.

As you've no doubt guessed by now (Sorry this took so long. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. Brevity is for cowards.), the point I'm driving toward is this: with the decline of community organizations and associations, and the disappearance of shared public spaces, I look to new network technologies to bridge some of those gaps, and help create the shared public spaces of the 21st century.

Perhaps instead of fearing and resisting social media and flash mobs, the local government in Cleveland and its suburbs could make an effort to learn about and embrace these phenomena, while also trying to understand how to improve youth quality of life in the area? Yes, cities like Cleveland and the suburbs have lots going on and many priorities in these tough times, but ignoring youth issues and rejecting their culture is not effective problem-solving, it's sinking like a stone.

I've written a few times now about larger cities in the Rust Belt (largely the Detroit to Buffalo corridor, with Pittsburgh included), what they're lacking, and how they can bounce back. I'll continue to write about this because of my relative familiarity with the region and because I am genuinely interested in revitalizing these cities with youth in mind.

Yesterday I came across a piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, published a week ago, that glowingly describes the successful renaissance neighboring city Pittsburgh has undertaken. The article frames Pittsburgh as a good example of what can be done to weather the recession. Pittsburgh, which faced its own economic turmoil 25 years ago with the closing of the steel mills, has since diversified its economy, investing in higher education (Pitt, Carnegie Mellon) and healthcare (UPMC hospitals), but also developing tech and green industries as well. As the article describes, this approach has attracted Millennials to the city, taking the place of the Boomers who fled the area over the last few decades.

The bust also caused a seemingly disastrous -- but ultimately beneficial -- shift in demographics. When the jobs left Pittsburgh, so did a generation of baby boomers. Today, that void has been filled by "millennials" -- those 27 years old and younger. It's no accident that Pittsburgh is one of the few cities to offer free Wi-Fi within its borders.

Meanwhile, the city's substantial elderly population, living on the safety net of Social Security, pensions and Medicare, is less affected by a recession than younger working folks.

"The city has done a remarkable job of reinventing itself because it had to," said Michael Edwards, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, a nonprofit group that works with businesses, civic organizations, foundations and elected leaders on developing the city's 100-block downtown. "We're trying to build a city for the future."

Much of that future is moored in the past. The Pittsburgh Technology Center, an office park on the site of a former Jones & Laughlin steel mill, is a research hub employing 1,000 people and one of the best examples of brownfield redevelopment in the nation.

Of course, I'd do well to point out that the mayor of Pittsburgh is a Millennial himself. 28 years old, Luke Ravenstahl is a Pittsburgh native who was elected to Pittsburgh's City Council (youngest ever) in 2003. Two years later, Ravenstahl was elected City Council President, and when Mayor Bob O'Connor passed away in office, Ravenstahl succeeded him. Ravenstahl was officially elected mayor in November of 2007 by a 64 to 35 percent margin.

While many of the students from Pittsburgh who I work with in Erie don't say much about the mayor, they quite clearly are proud of their hometown. Of course it doesn't hurt that the sports teams attract a following, but they seem to identify with the region. It's interesting that when I hear someone that is a native of a Cleveland suburb introduce themselves, they always say the name of that town. When I hear someone from Pittsburgh tell others where they're from, they always say "Pittsburgh," and only provide the smaller hamlet upon request.

So the pertinent question, then, is what happened with Pittsburgh? How do Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities get to the point where the brain drain's impact is negligible and we create some positive energy in and about these communities?

Not surprisingly, I'd argue that much of it has to do with targeting the younger Millennials -- those who will be going to colleges in these cities in the next couple years and those who already live in these areas. And whether these are explicit appeals -- like the Pittsburgh wi-fi network mentioned above, or the hiring of a "bike-pedestrian coordinator" to make the city more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly -- or implicit -- like the collaboration-heavy route Pittsburgh took to climb out of its own mess -- they seem to be successful.

The Plain Dealer published a sidebar to its article examining what Pittsburgh did to revive its city in order to extrapolate some of the strategy for Cleveland. Check out the Millennial-friendly values buried in these steps:

1. Regionalize. Pittsburgh has lost population, but regional ties give it as much -- or more -- clout in Harrisburg as Philadelphia. Cuyahoga County could streamline county government and forge a regional coalition for more power in Columbus.
2. Develop and use the waterfront. From Pittsburgh's old convention center, there wasn't a window that allowed a glimpse of the river. The new waterfront convention center has a boat dock from which visitors can catch a pleasure cruise.
3. Develop educational leadership. Carnegie Mellon University was once a good regional school. Now it's a great university of international renown. Plagued by abrupt changes in leadership and budget woes, Case Western Reserve University has not grabbed that mantle.
4. Cooperate. Recognizing that their fates are entwined, corporate and labor leaders in Pittsburgh have been successful at setting aside many of their differences to work for a common good.
5. Strategize. Like Cleveland, Pittsburgh's philanthropic and business communities have had open checkbooks. Pittsburgh often has had a sharper vision of how the money should be spent.

Finally, not only should our local governments be targeting Millennial values when developing and reinvigorating communities; we should also be doing all that we can to include Millennials, even recruiting the most passionate of them to run for office. We can see Ravenstahl's impact on Pittsburgh. Getting Millennials involved automatically forces the discussion off of ego-based controversies in the present and pushes it toward the future, answering questions like what the population will look like 25 or 30 years down the road, and what do we need to do to meet that population's needs.

It seems that collaboration, technology, and big ideas go a long way toward rebuilding our cities. Who better to be involved in this effort than Millennials?