All is not well in Forest City...

Fresh off the heels of the New York Time's Sunday Magazine feature article on the foreclosure catastrophe befalling Cleveland, a terrible report hitting the national wires this morning about a man who, according to CPD, shot and killed his wife and four other people, including a pair of twin two year olds. This happened at West 89th and Denison, or approximately 10 blocks from my lovely home. My heart goes out to the families of those affected, and my utmost support goes out to the neighborhood and the Cleveland Police Department, who are still hunting down the suspect.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It seems that of late, what was intended to be a pro-Cleveland site has become littered with tales of poverty, crime, and tragedy. It is terribly unfortunate that the city so many love is being demoralized and demolished, one police blotter item or news headline at a time. I have always been an ardent supporter of Mayor Jay Williams of Youngstown, whose approach to the city of Youngstown has helped to revitalize the community. His approach, to 'right-size' the city in terms of the reality of the population, not hoping for a return to its industrial heyday, could provide Cleveland with valuable lessons. A bright spot this past week has been the passage in the Ohio legislature of a measure to create a Cuyahoga County Land Bank that "allows officials in the state's most populous county to set up a non-profit land reutilization program to accept or buy foreclosed or abandoned properties." This will give the County much greater authority to tear down the hundreds of blighted shells, once homes, that litter much of the East Side, and increasingly, the West. What is to be done with those newly 'green spaces' has not been decided, but it gives everyone an opportunity to imagine the possibilities...