What The Hell Happened To Ohio? Episode 1 - East Cleveland

East Cleveland looks like a bomb went off. This makes Ohio look terrible!
I’ve been to a lot of messed up rundown places with terrible poverty and the worst crime in the country and I’m rarely intimidated. But there was something about East Cleveland that didn’t sit right. Maybe it was the reputation - it’s widely known as a no-go zone for pretty much everyone in the area. It was certainly the way it looked. But it was a feeling, an energy on some of the back roads of east Cleveland that made me feel unsafe, exposed and at times, doubting my decision to get back into there.
So this is East Cleveland. I’m gonna get to the terrible parts in a bit but before we go there, we have to understand why we’re here. This is St Clair Avenue, one of the main drags through what has become one of this nation’s worst hoods.
But you know how this story begins, right? It wasn't always like this here. Going back to 1950 there were 40,000 people here and things were jammin. This was the most densely populated Cleveland suburb back then. Up until the late 60s, east Cleveland was known as a stable and well-run city. Many people here made a fortune in iron ore, coal, steel, shipbuilding and railroads as this place was a mini boomtown during the second industrial revolution. But then demand for American manufacturing declined, and this place went to the dumps.
In the late 60s, real estate prices crumbled and the black population moved in. In 1960, East Cleveland was 2% black but by 1980 it was 87% black, making it the second-highest black population in the nation. Today, it’s 93% black and the city’s population is less than half of what it was at its peak.
There’s 17,000 people here now, living in conditions that on many blocks look third world. Look at this place. It’s only 7 miles from Cleveland. 40% of the homes in this city are vacant and 40% of people here don’t even have a car.
#ohio #moving
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