Herman states that Cleveland's local leadership appear clueless to the problem and to the solution of encouraging immigration and entrepreneurial spirit--how do we change that??

Brooklyn Centre recently lost an amazing Liberian family...who else has been driven away??

To resettle Cleveland?  By closing schools, churches and demolishing housing??  Who will work the reimagined farms??

International Services Center probably has some experience and ideas. I met Karin Wishner this past week. She seems pretty savvy and on top of what might help. We were discussing the reimagining Cleveland garden they'll be working on in the Clark Metro neighborhood. Entrepreneurship opportunities in local food abound.

The African-American families to be pillaged by the rape of the Opportunity Corridor speculation--have every right to be suspicious of the new "urban planning" panacea--Immigrants, Inc.

Chris Ronayne--you need to stop playing along with the swindlers.  I recently caught the name of the CDC director at Fairfax--his name is Jay Gardner.  He worked at Old Brooklyn Development Corporation.  Enough said??

 
I am sorry, Susan--opportunities for local food producation and entrepreneurship, do not abound. 

Opportunity is just that - it is potential energy, not kinetic. An opportunity can lie in wait for a long time before someone makes it into a reality. So Clevelanders that you mention may be slow on the uptake, but others are not. Alenka Banco was not slow on the uptake and she's still saying yes. Ed Hauser didn't save Whiskey Island by saying no, he said yes everyday for 10 years. Maurice Small says yes everyday. You do, too. Every time you say yes to a library patron, it is a step toward making a positive opportunity a reality.

I would also point out that Detroit has led in the urban community garden movement. They've been at it for a long time. It's industrial farming that is upsetting no land grab advocates there. A six lot urban garden in the Clark Metro neighborhood might be a good thing and might be a way to engage immigrant communities. It hasn't even begun yet. I am not willing to condemn the idea before it is even launched. I think it is a good idea. What comes of it is yet to be revealed.

I don't believe in panaceas, just small actions. As you say, "We have to extend our hand to these immigrants and make their story, the story of America.  We all lose, if we do not help these people." Indeed, perhaps that is exactly what may happen in the garden this summer.

I can't make sense of the innuendo about Chris Ronayne and Jay Gardner.

I most likely will not make tonight's author event -- please would someone go and relate back?

I am sure Mr. Herman's book is well-intentioned, but if he has any affiliation with the Plain Dealer and their attempts at social engineering, then the book will surely leave me cold. 

Cleveland--we are being brainwashed and hoodwinked by a bunch of snake-oil, carpetbaggers--using nostalgia to conjure up some old time remedies to the crisis inflicted upon us by their own real estate greed.  The Greektown Gang's Land Bank and GCP's Reimagining Cleveland are mirage solutions.  

But, don't look too closely, because these feel good fantasies are nothing but hocus pocus and vaporous--Pouf. 

Cleveland HAD immigrant settlement houses and HAD urban garden programming through the schools...these were dismantled by the same folks touting the lies. 

And, they will be long gone with your money, by the time we all realize, we've been taken, again.

Referenced in today's PD--take the Puerto Rican Parade and Festival--grow it to encourage identity and migration to Ward 14.

Pay me later...http://www.caribanatoronto.com/