In recent years, Cleveland Municipal School District has opened 14 new high-performing public schools rated Excellent or Effective by the State. The Cleveland Plan, approved this summer by state legislators, will pave the way for even more improvements to the district's schools, making it more likely that urban parents will choose to remain in the city.

Tim Tramble of Burton Bell Carr Development Inc. tried for years to recruit a healthy eatery to the Kinsman neighborhood of Cleveland. When he found an entrepreneur willing to open a Subway here, however, the corporate chain nixed the idea.

The area, which has been dubbed "The Forgotten Triangle" because of the poverty and lack of opportunity rooted here, is a food desert that does not have a grocery store within a one-mile radius. That is a problem for the area... Read more >

Bad Girl Ventures will host its third business education series that culminates with the chance for female participants to win a $25,000 loan. The nine-week session begins on September 19 at the Lakewood campus of University of Akron.
 
Classes cover everything from legal and accounting to business plans and marketing to improving credit scores to resources available for financing.

“We try to hit on everything on the mind of the small business owner,&rd... Read more >

Northeast Ohio's 80-plus young professional organizations play a critical role in plugging new talent into Cleveland. Research shows that there’s a 90-day window from when people move to a city to influence them and give them reasons to stay. Once plugged in, these YPs are helping to reshape the city’s future.

What's next? It's a question we all wish we had the answer to. But for folks looking to settle down, that question undoubtedly refers to place. In this running series, Fresh Water explores emerging Cleveland neighborhoods that are primed for growth. This week, writer Joe Baur examines Slavic Village.

It's not unusual for former students to approach Larchmere resident Joe Golden on the street and tell him how much they enjoyed taking his classes. The 60-year-old Cleveland resident has been teaching martial arts out of The Golden School of Urban Self-Defense -- a dojo located in his basement -- for several decades now.

"In the black community, there are a lot of young people who don't have any dads in the house," says Golden. "They're missing ... Read more >

In the best of cases, getting a book published can take one to three years from start to finish. Or, you can do it the way Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek did with Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology. The pair of Cleveland writers managed to compress the entire Sisyphean process into an implausible three-month timeframe.

The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have invested millions of dollars in public money to help make urban development projects happen over the years. But do they provide the maximum benefit to the taxpayers paying for them?

Amanda Woodrum, a researcher at the liberal think tank Policy Matters, says that Northeast Ohio leaders have not always maximized the public benefits of development projects. Yet cities like Cleveland have a tool at their disposal called Community... Read more >

Several Cleveland-based funding organizations have gotten together and pooled their money to help small businesses that otherwise would not have access to the capital they need to grow.

Under the Economic Community Development Institute (EDCI), which officially announced the launch of its Cleveland office on July 17, the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Huntington Bank, U.S. Small Business Administration, Commission on Economic Inclusion, The Business of Good Foundatio... Read more >

What if we viewed Cleveland as a startup? "The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar," argues tech blogger Jon Bischke. You need to build stuff that people want. You need to attract talent. And you need capital to get your fledgling ideas to a point of sustainability.

On the heels of two successful biomedical job fairs, Global Cleveland, in partnership with NEOSA, will host a week-long online IT job fair August 20 to 24.
 
The demand for tech people is high. In a recent survey of area technology companies, 82 percent have current job openings and 73 percent expect to hire additional staff this year. The job fair is designed attract qualified technology professionals from not only Cleveland, but across the country.
 
&l... Read more >

Despite support through entrepreneurial assistance programs, area minority business owners say they still experience barriers -- some subtle, others not -- in their goal to contribute to the local business community. Finding success, many explain, is ultimately up to them.

Believe to Achieve, a program that teaches young people kindness, caring and respect as a means of achieving lifelong success, this year helped dozens of at-risk girls graduate from Collinwood High School.

Now the leaders of Project Love, the nonprofit that is spearheading the program, are planning to expand Believe to Achieve to 12 schools across the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD). They are currently seeking funding for that initiative.

"l ascri... Read more >

In this Fresh Water video, John Copic, a Collinwood native and publisher of the Collinwood Observer, takes viewers on a walking tour of his neighborhood. Stops along the way include Raddell's butcher shop, Chili Peppers Mexican Grill, Star Pop, Beachland Ballroom, Blue Arrow Records and Boutique, and the Slovenian Workmen's Home.

A partnership between Cleveland State University and the Northeast Ohio Medical University hopes to reach students as early as middle school and inspire them to consider a career in medicine.

Now, a recently awarded $500,000 grant from the Mt. Sinai Foundation will help to support a crucial piece of this program -- a mentoring program to ensure the success of students being trained as primary care physicians.

The three-year grant will focus on linking students wi... Read more >

Jim Russell, a geographer studying modern migration patterns, writes frequently on the topic of "Rust Belt Chic." The phrase, which refers to the increasing appeal of Rust Belt cities, has been popping up like mad in the national media. Recently, Russell put boots on the ground in C-Town.

The Famicos Foundation, a nonprofit community development group serving Glenville and Hough, recently completed a green renovation of the historic Doan School building into affordable apartments.

According to the Famicos Foundation website, "Originally constructed in 1904 and expanded in 1906 and 1950, Doan School, located at 1350 East 105th Street, is a national landmark that fell victim to the foreclosure epidemic.  The structure was designed by Frank Barnum, ... Read more >