I Do Not Miss Cleveland

When I left Cleveland, I left a numbing mindset of clutching ever backward towards the past. I admit that one of the things I loved about Cleveland was the presence of big industry- steel, railroads, foundries, auto plants, and more. But, I love these things as functional giants, not the rotting hulks in closed-up mills and yards, and the ornamentation they have become in the entertainment district known as the Flats. These things made Cleveland a first-class city in around 1890. No more.

I left the punishing greed of the Democratic Party that rules northeast Ohio to the point that statewide, Ohio's Republicans are left of Indiana's Democrats. I gave myself a full 9.5% raise just by leaving Ohio, saving 4% in state income tax, 3.5% in municipal tax, and 2% in sales tax. The Democratic Party was innovative around 1900, with Mayor Tom. L. Johnson, the capital 'P' Progressive who made Cleveland the first city in the U.S. to own an electric utility. In better than 100 years, the Democrats have more or less owned the city, and look at the result. It was a first-class city that was loaded with towering industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller, and was an immigrant magnet around 1900. No more.