For decades, Cleveland, Ohio, has been the perfect symbol of a greying US economy. Consistently ranking as one of the poorest cities in the country, Cleveland has been home to massive manufacturing shut downs, declining population, and a brain drain, not to mention one of the most infamous environmental disasters in US history, the burning of the Cuyahoga river.
Given its history, Cleveland would be the last place most people would look for the beginnings of a green revolution. In fact, even as a Cleveland native, I arrived home from the East Coast for a summer of environmental organizing expecting to find a disorganized and ineffectual movement, if one existed at all. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen firsthand the quiet building of a green economy.
Here’s one example of what I’m talking about. I woke up this morning to a press release from Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), announcing the $600,000 grant from the state of Ohio to fund the school’s Green Academy, a program aimed at training residential building contractors and builders in green building techniques. The program kicks off in the fall, and the curriculum will spread statewide by the spring of 2009. Over three years, Tri-C will train over 300 builders and contractors in green design and energy efficiency.
But that’s not the only program Tri-C is working on. They are currently working with Oakland, California, on developing basic green jobs training curriculum in four other fields: deconstruction, energy retrofit, solar installation, and wind technology manufacturing. Aimed at women and prisoner re-entry, the program is intensely hands on and intensely focused on developing basic skills. Tri-C aims at an introductory class size of 150. Check out this awesome article from the Plain Dealer for more info.
The amazing thing about both of these programs is that the infrastructure is already there. Tri-C has been training in construction trades for almost 45 years. Better yet, the manufacturing infrastructure is here, sitting idle, waiting for workers to build the wind turbines and solar panels that will power the future.
I could go on and on about different programs I’m learning about, but I’ll save them for other posts. And that’s thing that’s most amazed me about Cleveland, this concept of all the pieces already being in place carries over into every aspect of a green revolution. (did you know that the city won an award for the best public transportation system in North America for 2007?). On a larger level, Cleveland may be awesome, but I bet these same pieces exist in every city, in every region across the country. We don’t need to do all the innovating ourselves. For our movement to succeed in a big way, and quickly, we need to connect the dots.
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Is that windmill real? I don’t remember seeing that in Cleveland.
Yes, the windmill’s real, it went up in May. It’s right in front of the Great Lakes Science Center. You can get more info about it at http://www.gcbl.org/blog/david-beach/new-symbol-for-the-lakefront
er, May of 2006, make that.
elizabeth, you make me feel hoooottt in here!!!!
Hey Elizabeth, if you wanna get engaged in Climate Challenge and Power Vote work this summer, get in touch: matt [at] energyjustice [dot] net / 315.450.6628
-Mattie from Columbus, Ohio Student Environmental Coalition-
I’m also an Ohio native, and while I think all this is super exciting, my concern is that Ohioans just can’t wait for the “green revolution” to get here and provide jobs for everyone. One of the reasons that I moved from Ohio was the lack of well paying jobs not just in my field, but in any field. Combine that with the devaluation of homes (far preceding the current mortgage crisis), it’s really tough to live there.
I’ve seen attempts by other cities, like Toledo where I lived for eight years, to reinvent themselves as “green economies” or focusing on a “creative class” by taking advantage of the cheap rent and low home prices. But, these cities have not taken anything beyond the beginning steps to nurture small entrepeneurs or create a real social safety net for its citizens.
So yes, there’s a huge opportunity there, but I have yet to see cities really invest in them. Thanks for your post!
Hi Elizabeth,
I was reading your blog “A Rust Belt Revolution” and I thought it was interesting because of my work at JustMeans. Also, I’m going to be a junior this fall and I’m studying abroad in London too!
As you mentioned about Cleveland, the infrastructure and opportunity for green jobs is exploding. Through the JustMeans social media platform, individuals have access to over 2000 jobs that are offered by socially responsible companies or in the field of sustainability, environmental management and more.
If you think JustMeans could be interesting to your readers, let me know and I can arrange a tour of our platform or I can answer any of your questions.
Thanks,
Ashley Fidel
JustMeans New York Associate
http://www.justmeans.com
afidel@justmeans.com
They’ve also got a fairly large new solar array in front of the science center too! I was in Cleveland last June for the Solar 2007 conference and the site of the wind turbine just down the street, spinning away in the strong lakeshore winds was pretty inspiring. It was a stronger lure for me this energy nerd than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next door (although I spent quite a few hours there too!).
Cleveland is working hard to capture to power of green re-industrialization. A sustained commitment to invest in a new, clean, affordable American energy future can secure a new era of sustained economic prosperity AND slash our greenhouse gas emissions. Cleveland may be a model of what that future looks like.
I’m also a Northern Ohio native (Sandusky/Kent, in the Cleveland area) who hopes that Cleveland can turn it around. But it’s hard for me to imagine going back there from San Francisco at this point.
The shore of Lake Erie does have a lot of wind power potential, though, I can testify to that.
It’s true that Northern Ohio and the state as a whole are still dealing with a lot of really troubling issues, ranging from pollution to racial inequality. When I was applying for college, I basically left with the conviction that I’d never come back. Now, I’m not so sure. For as many really bad, entrenched problems as I see here, I see so many more people working on solutions. And not just talking about them, but really implementing them quickly. Working in downtown Cleveland with all of these people is electric, I keep finding out new things. get this- the city has its own community foundation with nearly 2 billion in assets. And they’re focusing on green development.
Jen, I totally agree that Ohioans can’t wait for wind turbine factories to be built. Part of the beauty of this program at tri-c is that it is at its core a construction training program. When I talked to the person developing the curriculum, he said that the planned breakdown is largely general technical training (safety, hand tools, general construction) and that the green training is a sort of competitive advantage in the workforce. He mentioned that contractors that apprenticed the women participating in his deconstruction pilot program universally said that they were better dry-wallers than the crews they had actually hired.