In a Next City feature titled “The Post-Hero Economy,” writers Jennifer Bradley and Bruce Katz share an edited excerpt from their upcoming book "The Metropolitan Revolution."

While the book (and Next City feature) does not solely focus on Cleveland, it does pay a fair amount of attention to our city when it comes to economic development.

In an effort to boost the economy the Cleveland Plain Dealer offered a solution. “Talk to civic leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, builders, business people,” then-editor Doug Clifton wrote in 2001. “They all agree: Greater Cleveland must get serious about creating and backing a master plan for economic development or face economic extinction.”

"The problem was, 'Greater Cleveland' didn’t exist. There was no single, overarching entity charged with creating a plan for Cleveland and its neighbors in the northeast corner of Ohio -- and just as importantly, it was hard to imagine any single entity that could take on the task."

Read the rest of the feature story here.