The oft-maligned Opportunity Corridor promises a reinvigorated sense of white privilege in town, planting a supposed cherry on top of the forced abandonment leveled against some of Cleveland’s poorest neighborhoods. Opportunity!
It’s an opportunity lots of wealthy people are really enjoying. But all that hand-wringing and mustache-twirling takes up so much time that they totally passed up a good opportunity to complement the propaganda on Cleveland.com with a slightly more transparent outfit. …Like a website of their own.
Interesting illustration: Terry Egger, CEO of the Plain Dealer Publishing Co., has had his hands in the Opportunity Corridor for years. It’s unsurprising, really, that both of those endeavors have fallen flat in the digital sphere. The Plain Dealer just can’t get it right, and opportunitycorridor.com was left on the shelf from the project’s inception.
Left on the shelf, that is, until an enterprising group of opponents got a hold of it and shed some much-needed light on the project.
Grassroots citizens group Clevelanders for Transportation Equity picked up the domain name and began publishing articles on the project’s “progress.” Here’s a sampling of the group’s views:
This $325 million project, we believe, is a poor use of Ohio’s increasingly precious transportation resources. It will displace families and entrench car dependency. We also have concerns about the equity implications of this project, which runs through four highly transit dependent populations and offers really nothing to improve transit service.
And a quick summation of what looms on the horizon:
We would like to see the project improved to provide some benefit to Cleveland’s large transit-dependent population, to provide some benefit for the condition of Cleveland’s existing roads, to avoid displacing families and businesses. Or we would like to see it stopped altogether.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2013.
I am less than convinced that you understand what “white privilege” means.
Perhaps Hopwin you can tell us about that time recently the state of Ohio forced 60+ white families to move out of their homes so they could build a highway through their neighborhood.
Hilarious.
Currently there is no easy way to get to University Circle. As long as this or another project makes it easier to get there, I see it as a win for the city overall. The nice thing is, if a better idea comes along, there’s still time to change it and go with the new proposal. So, if you don’t like this proposal, get thinking and submit a better one. Otherwise, it’s probably going to happen.
like this proposal or hate it, something needs to be done. i avoid that area because its a bitch to get there and i have to watch out for people that walk (not run or even jog) across the street when you have the green light, as well as stupid traffic camera traps. if they want to revitalize the university circle area (which will benefit the residents around there) then some kind of improvement on getting there needs to be made.
Um… University Circle is revitalized. You’d know that if you weren’t “avoiding that area because its a bitch” (sic)