Writing for Switchboard, the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Kaid Benfield examines a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland that illustrates the importance of a dense urban core.
 
The study reveals that cities that maintained their core densities between 1980 and 2010 -- like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Chicago -- saw overall growth of their greater metro regions. While cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, which suffered massive urban population losses at the hands of sprawl, experienced a disproportionately greater share of regional population losses.
 
The conclusion is that the hollowing out of urban centers thanks to suburban sprawl does more than just simply shift population around: It harms the overall success of the greater metro region. Failure to address suburban sprawl will only exacerbate the problem.
 
Read the rest of the article here.
 
See the Cleveland Fed's study here.

A writer for the Washington Post files a post about Cleveland Indians Snow Days, which takes place at Progressive Field from Thanksgiving to mid-January. The family-friendly attraction is a festival of winter sports, with ice skating and tubing facilities installed in a place that typically sees a different sort of sliding.

"My husband and I have been making annual summer pilgrimages to Cleveland for several years now to visit his family, and the trip always includes a baseball game," she writes. "Thanks to his grandmother, we’re treated to premium seats just a few rows back from the first-base line.

"I’d always figured that it would be nearly impossible to get any closer to the actual field, but for less than the cost of one of those game-day tickets, an all-access Snow Days pass puts you smack in the middle of the turf, with unlimited tubing, skating and holiday cheer."

Check out the rest of it here.

"Thinking about moving? You should consider Cleveland."

So begins an article in The Atlantic Cities, which discusses recent investments totaling $7 billion in Cleveland's economic diversification, infrastructure and the arts.

Among projects mentioned are the $560 million makeover for University Hospitals Case Medical Center, $465 million convention center and medical mart, $350 million casino, and development in University Circle, including Uptown and the new Museum of Contemporary Art.

Also mentioned is Global Cleveland, which hopes to attract 100,000 new residents within the next ten years.

And the Ohio Department of Development just launched InvestOhio, a $100 million tax credit program to help small businesses attract investment, grow and create jobs.

Read the rest of the article here.

Cleveland chef Jonathon Sawyer was included in TIME magazine's year-end list of top 10s, which covered topics ranging from music and literature to gadgets and memes. Sawyer earned the #7 spot on the list of Top 10 Food Trends.

Penned by TIME food writer Josh Ozersky, who visited Greenhouse Tavern this summer, the item calls out artisinal vinegars and bitters as a hot new food trend. Sawyer's hand-crafted vinegars make their way into numerous dishes at his E. Fourth Street restaurant.

"The one thing you generally expect of new, laboriously made products at restaurants is that they will be good. But even bad can be good -- if by "bad" you mean sour or bitter," writes Ozersky. "The nation's avant-garde mixologists, mustachioed and otherwise, have taken up the creation of house-made bitters as part of their advanced drink programs, and their kitchen counterparts are following suit, with vinegars so complex and intriguing that they are sometimes served straight up between courses. Jonathon Sawyer serves half a dozen in tasting dishes at his Greenhouse Tavern in Cleveland."

Ozersky gets one detail wrong, however, when he writes, "Happily, they are for dipping fries rather drinking." Greenhouse mixologist Kevin Wildermuth does indeed use house-made vinegars in his cutting-edge cocktail program -- and the results are eye-opening.

Read the entire list here.

On Monday, November 14^th, the Board of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) approved 88 grants totaling $1,029,164 for its 2012 Project Support cycle. The awards include traditional PS I grants and the new Project Support II, a small grant program that provides awards of up to $5,000. Grants range in value from $625 to $49,333.
 
This year garnered the largest number of applications in CAC’s history. A total of 131 organizations submitted Intent to Apply materials, of which 118 of were eligible. This is an increase of 45% from the previous year, which was also a record-setter.
 
The largest recipient is Scenarios USA, a nonprofit that that uses writing and filmmaking to foster youth leadership in under-served teens. The smallest is River Valley Ringers, a community handbell choir in Cleveland Heights. Others include EcoWatch, Building Bridges, LakewoodAlive, and numerous neighborhood development corps.

See all the grants here.

A new Cleveland-centric book joins the slowly growing bookshelf of info-packed guides to our fair city. Written and self-published by Cleveland State University urban planning grad Justin Glanville, New to Cleveland: A Guide to (re)Discovering the City is targeted both to new arrivals as well as those who'd like to rediscover their city.
 
Readers will find general information about various Cleveland neighborhoods, including listings of restaurants, stores and cultural institutions. But also advice on where to send your kids to school, insights on the Cleveland real estate market, and the best neighborhoods for students, artists, professionals, retirees and those who want to live car-free or car-light.
 
The 250-page book includes more than 50 full-color illustrations by local artist Julia Kuo. The book is also printed in Cleveland.
 
The guide book is only the second to be written specifically about present-day Cleveland, the other being Avalon Travel's Moon Cleveland, penned by Fresh Water editor Douglas Trattner.
 
There will be a launch party from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 14 at Happy Dog.
 
Books are available online and at this weekend's Bazaar Bizarre.

"For the inductees [to the Rock Hall], the reward can be enormous," writes Janet Morrissey for the New York Times. "Weekly record sales for a performer or band leap 40 to 60 percent, on average, in the weeks after selection, says David Bakula, a senior vice president at Nielsen SoundScan. While winning a Grammy often helps one album, a nod from Cleveland can lift an entire back catalog."
 
In an article titled, "Battle of the Bands (and Egos) for the Rock Hall of Fame," Morrissey describes the so-called hall-of-fame effect that reignites the careers of long-forgotten starts.
 
"In 2009, good news from Cleveland bolstered the career of Wanda Jackson, 'the queen of rockabilly,' who gained fame in the mid-1950s and 60s. After Ms. Jackson was inducted, she collaborated on an album with Jack White of the White Stripes. Suddenly Ms. Jackson, who is now 74, was everywhere."
 
Morrissey also described the selection process, which is shrouded in secrecy and controversy.
 
Read the rest of the liner notes here.

Great Lakes Brewing Co. continues to rack up the gold.

At this year's World Beer Championships, America’s oldest international beer competition, Great Lakes snagged multiple gold medals. The Ohio City brewery's Dortmunder Gold Lager, Eliot Ness Amber Lager and Oktoberfest all took home ribbons.
 
The World Beer Championships are considered one of the top beer judging events in the craft beer industry.
 
Drink in the rest of the good news here.

If a quilt panel were created to represent your life, what would it look like? Clevelanders have the opportunity to see panels that honor the lives of local people who have died of AIDS -- panels created by their family and friends for the national AIDS Memorial Quilt. The public is invited to view portions of the quilt at MetroHealth Medical Center until Wednesday, Dec. 7. 
 
Among the local stories behind the panels: Ana Rodriguez was a spirited young girl who found out she was born HIV positive just before her parents died of AIDS in the late 1990s. Instead of letting it get her down, Ana became the first child to openly have AIDS in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and toured the country helping others cope with the disease before her death in 2004.
 
Daily viewing of the quilt panels -- 8 panel sections measuring 12 square feet -- will hang from the ceiling of MetroHealth’s Rammelkamp Atrium through Dec. 7. The public is invited to view the display each day from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

For more info click here.

"Put the Needle on the Record" is a new book by Lakewood resident Matthew Chojnacki. It is available locally at Room Service, Music Saves and DuoHome.

Here are the liner notes:

"From a dream of a vinyl collection, Chojnacki presents and compares more than 250 vinyl single covers that represent nearly every prominent '80s musician. However, this is not just a pop-cultural feast for the eyes. From hundreds of hours of interviews, Chojnacki allows the designers and visual talent behind Madonna, Prince, Pink Floyd, Queen, Adam Ant, Iron Maiden, The Clash, Pet Shop Boys, Van Halen, and more to tell the unheard stories behind the decade’s most iconic images."

"Cookie and Kate," a food blog penned by a magazine art director, featured a travelogue of the author's recent visit to Cleveland. She was here as a guest of Positively Cleveland, which frequently hosts out-of-town writers for what's known in the biz as Food Fam Trips.

"Last month, I had the privilege of touring Cleveland and visiting some of the city’s finest dining establishments and sustainable local farms. I had never been to Cleveland before and had very little preconceptions about the city, although I must admit that the Drew Carey Show’s theme song played in my head every time I thought of Cleveland."

"I was thoroughly impressed by the chefs and the farm owners we met with during the trip. Each expressed his or her sincere dedication to improving the city’s economy through the food industry, by using sustainable techniques that would benefit Cleveland’s inhabitants in both the short and the long term. Chefs partner with nearby farms to ensure that they can serve super fresh, high quality ingredients. They support each other, often in friendly competitions, in ways that challenge their culinary artistry and encourage the community to support local agriculture."

Stops in cluded Brandt Evans' Pura Vida, West Side Market, Ohio City Farm, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Chef’s Garden and Culinary Vegetable Institute and Fireland's Winery.

Read more about her experiences here.

A recent article in the New York Times titled "Cleveland Turns Uptown Into New Downtown," written by Keith Schneider, lauds the emerging Uptown arts and entertainment district in University Circle.

With the goal of "rebuilding the city’s core according to the new urban market trends of the 21st century -- health care, higher education, entertainment, good food, new housing and expanded mass transportation" -- the new Uptown project is becoming the new downtown for University Circle.

"When it is finished next year, the new $27 million Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Farshid Moussavi, will perch, like a lustrous black gem, at the entrance to the district, at Euclid and Mayfield Road. A pedestrian plaza designed by James Corner Field Operations, a designer of the High Line elevated park in New York City, separates the new museum from two four-story, mixed-use residential buildings under construction on the north and south sides of Euclid."

“There are 5,000 more jobs here than in 2005,” Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc., is quoted in the story. “About 50,000 people work here. The number of residents grew 11 percent since 2000. And there are 10,000 people who live here now.”

Read the rest of the good news here.

"Conventional wisdom holds that the forward-looking coastal enclaves of the United States are where we're supposed to expect cutting edge experiments in building a green economy," writes Andrew Leonard for Grist. "But if Ted Howard has his way, every activist who wants to promote green jobs and economic growth should turn instead to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, for inspiration."

In an article titled, "A co-op movement grows in Cleveland," Leonard writes of the Evergreen Cooperatives, which were launched by the Cleveland Foundation in collaboration with Ted Howard from the University of Maryland.

Evergreen is a collection of worker-owned green businesses that leverage the needs of Cleveland's largest institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, and University Hospitals.

Read the rest of the good news here.

"A study involving Eli Lilly & Co.'s experimental drug evacetrapib showed it was able to boost good cholesterol levels while lowering the bad kind," writes Jennifer Corbett Dooren for the Wall Street Journal.
 
"The study was presented Tuesday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was funded by Eli Lilly and led by doctors at the Cleveland Clinic."
 
Evacetrapib is designed to inhibit cholesteryl ester transfer protein, or CETP, which is involved in transferring cholesterol particles from HDL -- the "good" cholesterol -- to LDL, referred to as "bad" cholesterol.

Read the rest here.

Cleveland Public Library (CPL) was ranked one of the top four libraries in the country, receiving the highest possible rating of five stars in the Library Journal’s America’s Star Libraries 2011.
 
Library Journal’s Index of Public Library Service ranks more than 7,000 library systems in four categories: library visits, circulation, program attendance, and public Internet usage. Cleveland Public Library ranked 4th out of all library systems nationwide in its category and improved its overall ranking because of increases in circulation and higher usage of computers as even more community members turn to libraries for resources in these tougher financial times.
 
“The Library Journal’s ranking is just more proof that Cleveland Public Library is providing superior service and value to our city and region by promoting both a love of books and reading while propelling Cleveland forward through our community-based programming,” CPL executive director Felton Thomas said. “It’s exciting to see that our signature collections and progressive community agenda are making a difference.”
 
Check out the rest of the rankings here.

In an article on the increased focus on patient satisfaction at hospitals, Wall Street Journal writer Laura Landro highlights positive measures taken at The Cleveland Clinic.
 
Titled "A Financial Incentive for Better Bedside Manner," the feature illustrates how a patient's opinion of a hospital is greatly shaped by how they are treated both in and out of the operating room.
 
"Cleveland Clinic Chief Executive Delos "Toby" Cosgrove, a heart surgeon by training, says he had an epiphany several years ago at a Harvard Business School seminar, where a young woman raised her hand and told him that despite the clinic's stellar medical reputation, her grandfather had chosen to go elsewhere for surgery because 'we heard you don't have empathy.'" Landro writes.
 
To improve the Clinic's patient-satisfaction scores, which ranked below the national average, the hospital opened an Office of Patient Experience, and began putting "caregiver" on the badges of all employees. More than 40,000 staffers -- from doctors to parking attendants -- were put through training programs on delivering ideal patient experiences. The hospital launched HEART -- hear the concern, empathize, apologize, respond and thank. It developed a Healing Services team to offer complimentary light massages, aromatherapy, spiritual care and other holistic services. There were more than 18,000 services offered in 2010.
 
Since 2008, the Cleveland Clinic's overall hospital ratings have increased by 89%. And compared to last year, the annual volume of complaints the hospital has received will show a 5% decline over last year.

Check out the rest of the report here.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown received props from Ellen Kanner -- the Edgy Veggie -- for his recent introduction of the Local Food, Farms and Jobs Act as part of the 2012 Farm Bill. The Act will increase funding to small farmers pursuing national organic certification and to underserved communities seeking greater access to fresh, local produce.

"Processed food is anything but local and in most cases anything but nourishing," she writes for Huffington Post. "It's come at a cost to our health and hasn't helped the environment or our floundering economy. On the other hand, real, nourishing food comes with real, nourishing fringe benefits."

Demand for "real, nourishing food" can be tracked in the growing number of local farmers markets across the country -- over 7,000, up 250 percent from 1984.

"True, there are twice as many McDonalds, but local produce is inching up on processed, and that has everything to do with consumer demand. We're voting with our forks and our wallets, and we're voting for local food that nourishes us and our communities. For every buck you spend on jalapenos grown by your neighborhood farmer, two-thirds of that dollar stays in your community. Spend the same dollar at a big box store and more than half your money flies away.

"Factory farming, climate change and the Farm Bill are issues so big, they're sometimes eye-crossing. But the Local Food, Farms and Jobs Act shows we're ready to take them on. We're ready to be nourished."

Read the whole HuffPo post here.

The Cleveland Foundation is in the process of recruiting organizations to host interns for its popular Summer Internship Program. The deadline is November 30.
 
The foundation's Summer Internship Program provides a limited number of college students or recent graduates an opportunity to work in Cleveland-area nonprofit organizations or governmental agencies during the summer months. All interns are required to work full-time as designated by their host organization. In addition, interns attend a weekly seminar highlighting key organizations and programs being conducted in the local nonprofit and public sectors. The Foundation provides funding to the organizations to host the interns.
 
For more info click here, or contact Nelson Beckford, Program Officer at The Cleveland Foundation.

Ruth Reichl, the former editor of Gourmet magazine and restaurant critic for The New York Times, was recently in town to take part in the Cleveland Public Library's Writers & Readers series. She spoke to a packed house this past Saturday.
 
Once safely home, Reichl blogged of her recent experience in Cleveland -- and she admits it far exceeded her expectations.
 
"My plane did not land until nine at night, and I was expecting a hungry evening. What a surprise, then, to walk out of my hotel, near ten o’clock, and find East Fourth Street packed with people, the restaurants jammed, the air alive with excitement. This was not the vision I’d had," she writes.

"I turned into Lola, a dark, sexy little place, for a perfectly lovely dinner. Crisp oysters.  Plump pirogi filled with beef cheeks. Tender slices of tongue on suave slices of mushroom. A rare ribeye ringed with smoked onions and accented with blue cheese. Hearty fare - but wonderful - and served with one terrific wine after another."

"But it was the Greenhouse Tavern, the following day, that really blew me away. Jonathon Sawyer has created a fascinating menu, totally his own, and three days later I’m still thinking about some of his dishes."

Reichl singles out Sawyer's steamed clams in foie gras, field mushrooms steamed en papier, and his crispy hominy with pork cracklings, which she describes as "spicy stoner food."

Of our beloved West Side Market, Reichl coos, "It’s a vibrant place that reminded me more of the great markets of Europe than anyplace I’ve seen in America. Some of the purveyors have been there since the start, and they’re still turning out old-time, hand-made smoked meats and charcuterie that’s hard to find anywhere else. I arrived home with a suitcase filled with obscure German and Hungarian sausages - a fine way to remember Cleveland."

Read the rest of her love note here.

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Cleveland Public Art (CPA) have issued a call for artists to design up to nine murals to adorn Cleveland’s new Innerbelt Bridge, which currently is under construction.
 
The new bridge's design includes several opportunities for murals in key locations where the bridge will create underpasses. Two of these areas are in Tremont, at Fairfield Avenue and West 14th Street. The other location is at Ontario Street, just south of Carnegie Avenue.
 
A public information session regarding the public art murals and the application process will be held on Tuesday, November 8th from 4 to 7 p.m. at Cleveland Public Art (1951 West 26th, Street #101) in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood.
 
For more info click here.