Production and distribution of City Club forums and Ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to creating conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It is Friday, February 14th, and it is a privilege to introduce today's forum, which is the annual Nelson E Weiss Memorial Forum, a part of the City Clubs Authors and Conversation series.

It is also a privilege for me to be here today and to introduce this subject on Valentine's Day because it is a subject that I love.

I fell in love for the very first time as a young child when I was visiting my aunt and uncle in downtown Chicago and staying with them in the condo that they had made their home.

I fell in love with the texture of the city, the way the parks and the green spaces and the walking paths interact with the lake and the river.

The sound track of the city from the l rattling through the loop to sounds coming from dive bars and so many languages that I had never heard being spoken on city streets.

But our cities have been challenged in recent years.

The pandemic left our streets deserted, our businesses shuttered, and our understanding of how we work, where we work, and how that interacts with how we live has been changed.

Probably for the foreseeable future.

And to the murder of George Floyd left us all wounded and we watched as civil unrest took place in all of our cities.

But all of this demands that we rethink how we plan for cities.

What is our vision of cities as we move forward?

And how do we want all of that to meet our needs as citizens in these great American cities?

Our guests today are the authors of The Case for Cities, a 38 chapter book that draws on the expertise from the academic, professional and civic sectors.

It outlines how we can build both cities of choice and cities of justice.

Joining us on stage to discuss the book and what is needed to promote a viable urban resurgence is Terry Grundy, associate professor at the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati.

He is a passionate urbanist and teaches courses on ethics and social justice.

Dr. Danilo Palazzo, director of the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati.

He is the author of numerous books on urban design.

Before moving to Cincinnati, he was on the faculty of the Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy, and Carlo Walker, the director of Environmental Justice and equity at the World Resources Institute.

Carla has over two decades of experience driving impactful initiatives at the intersection of government advocacy and strategic planning.

Moderating the conversation is Lee Fisher, Dean at Cleveland State University College of Law.

Former lieutenant governor of Ohio.

And in case you missed it, the next president of a bottomless university.

We're going to call him President Fisher moving forward.

If you have any questions for our speakers, you can text it to 3305415794.

And City Club staff will work to get it into the Q&A portion of the program.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming Terry Grundy, Dr. Palazzo and Carla Walker.

President Fisher.

The floor is yours if you.

I'm not sure if she introduced yourself with that skateboarder, the president of University Sick Link.

And she deserves a lot of love.

Yeah.

At the outset, I want to say I have the great privilege of knowing both Nelson Wise and Richie preparing both real heroes, wonderful community leaders.

So it's an honor today to be the moderator of program in honor of Nelson Wise and Richie, when I had a job right before I became dean of Claiborne State's Law School.

I was the president and CEO of a national organization called CEOs for Cities.

And I also had the privilege of being a senior fellow at the Lavin College of Urban Affairs, where I worked very closely with Richie, and we actually did a joint publication together.

He really did most of the research and the writing and he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant and a pioneer.

And most of all, when I think of Richie preparing, I think of the word fearless.

He was fearless.

And those are the best kinds of leaders.

So honor to the wisest.

I also want to acknowledge that there are a lot of people in the audience here today that I know who could be panelists up here.

There are actually a lot of urban experts in the room.

If I start mentioning names, I will get in trouble.

But you know who you are.

But I will take the privilege of acknowledging at least a couple of people at the table of Cleveland State University College of Law.

First, I want to acknowledge some of our law students and ask them to stand.

Now, I will be honest with you.

I teach a leadership course and they're getting extra academic credit.

But nonetheless, they still have the option of coming or not.

Kate, Of course, is at our table.

My long time friend, the mayor of Lakewood, Megan George, is at our table and I've got two family members at the table.

My wife, Peggy is on Fisher, former president and CEO for 18 years of the diversity center of Northeast Ohio.

And my brother in law, Matt Zohn, former councilman and the city of Cleveland for 20 years.

Today happens to be his birthday.

It's not just Valentine's Day in Cleveland.

Yeah.

Oh.

And I think some of you know that Peggy's and Matt's mother and father both served in the Cleveland City Council.

So there's been a zone representing the Detroit Shirley neighborhood for more than 40 years.

Okay.

This panel is not, however, about my family.

So that'll be enough for that.

I want to begin by saying that the reason I'm here today is that my friend Terry Grundy, more than a year ago, asked me if I would write the forward of this book from my former head at CEOs for Cities.

And I was really honored.

And I have to say, this is one of the most impressive and beautiful not just impressive, but actually beautiful.

Not just content, but the artwork of this.

You really do want this.

It's very impressive when guests come over, really just have it on the coffee table.

They will be they will consider you an urbanist immediately.

So and Carl and I go decades back.

Well, and Danilo and I, I know him by reputation because he's obviously he's he's got an international reputation as head of the school of planning.

So, Terry, I'm gonna ask you the first question.

How did this book come about?

Why did you write the book?

You know, Lynn, everybody in this room remembers COVID.

And when it first dawned on us that it was going to change everything and everybody in this room remembers that moment when we heard about the killing of George Floyd up in the Twin Cities.

For people like us on this panel.

And I think really for all of you, we just worried very deeply that this could take all of the wind out of the sails, of the very signifier account resurgence that we were seeing in Granville cities like Cleveland, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and name any other city.

That's an old legacy city.

We had suffered, suffered, suffered for decades, loss of population, loss of investment.

But finally we were beginning to see a resurgence in many of these cities.

In Cincinnati, we began to see even population increase once again.

And it seemed to us that all of that could have been swept away by what was happening.

And indeed, as you remember and you remember almost within minutes, those people who always are beating the drums against urbanism and against America's legacy cities were using these events to demonize a city like Cleveland cities replaces of crime and disease and disorder.

So we felt that we just had to do something.

And I have to say that for Danielle on Carla and me, it wasn't a question of making a book.

I know that we academics make books.

It was a moral thing.

We had to do what we could to to combat that negative drumbeat against cities.

So we had a series of online conversations.

They were funded by the Halo Foundation in Cincinnati.

They extended over about 11 months, I think, to know there were hundreds of people, maybe thousands from all over the world participated, some from up here.

They were fabulous.

We brought together urbanists and urban activists and political leaders of all kinds entrepreneurs, artists, food people, environmental lists.

And it was terrific.

That followed up with a series of online articles with our media partner, which is a civic online journal in Cincinnati called Soapbox Cincinnati.

And then after that, you know, we professor types looked at each other and they said, whoa, there's a lot of material there.

We have to bring a book out about this.

And so at that point, we determined to bring those rich conversations to you in the form of books.

But and I just want to emphasize this before I finish up here.

It's not about a book.

It's about Cleveland.

It's about Cincinnati.

It's about Detroit.

It's about all of those, you might call them second tier legacy cities, which suffered so much from this 1970s until the resurgence began to happen.

It's about them and it's about being sure that we create constitute ourselves as a movement for revitalization of our cities.

Now, let me just say, without getting us into fraught territory, we were dealing with the pandemic and the civil unrest that followed George Floyd's killing Big problems, yesterday's problems.

And today, we are seeing a new political era emerge.

And I'm here to tell you that it is not going to be friendly to ancient cities like Iran, to great legacy cities like Cleveland.

And so the same moral force that caused us to start this some years ago is just as important today, probably even more so.

And it's not about us.

It's about us.

Thank you, Terry.

Carla, you have an extraordinary background.

And in fact, we worked together years ago when you were the chief of staff to Mayor Mark Mallory, the mayor of Cincinnati.

And we have a number of current and former mayors in the audience who are on the front lines of urbanism today.

And we salute all of you.

Yes.

Can you talk about your perspective from your years in urbanism, particularly when it comes to things like green cities and environmental, environmental justice and resilience?

So I'm going to take a page from Terry and how he was really talking about the purpose of this book and what this is really about.

But what we are really doing with this.

By the way, can I just say one thing?

No matter what question I ask, just say what you want to say.

Yeah.

Yeah, That was the chip.

That's my role as a moderator, because sometimes my questions may be off base just to say what you want to say.

Okay.

Okay.

But I think it's important to note, as Terry was mentioning, right, of when we were writing, when we were doing all of this activity, we were in the middle of COVID and the what people call the racial racial reckoning.

I'll use hand quotes because people call it that, but there is still a lot more work that needs to be done before we have a racial reckoning in this country.

But in terms of like how cities were dealing with these issues, we also had back in 2017 when this was happening, 2018, when this was happening 2019, 2020, we had a situation where the federal government was pulling back on funds for cities.

And we're looking at that now right where you call these yesterday problems.

And I my eyebrow went up because we're like, oh, it's we're not done with those problems.

So cities, I think, are the way in which they dealt with that during that first Trump administration.

We can really kind of look at what the playbook was then to get some lessons from that.

Pull that into tape, dust off that playbook, revise it based off of the fact that, hey, we have been in this situation before.

We know where we're going, We know what we need to do and start looking at how strategies around climate change and resilience and adaptation at activity can be integrated into into our city strategies and bring along all people and all of the residents.

And this is something that cities can do.

When you're thinking when I think about it, you can do it by looking at coalition building, right?

You can look at new financing mechanisms, what's happening at the state level to address some of these issues.

Right.

You can begin to create these new innovative public private partnerships to address some of these issues.

So there are ways in which I think cities can navigate through this based off of what they already have done in the past.

Right.

Based off of the networks of stakeholders that they already have in this, you know, whether it's the institutions, the educational institutions, it's a corporate community.

Let's not forget just everyday citizens and the civic civil society groups.

But there's a way to navigate through this and begin to see the light, even as we're faced with the possibility that urban centers are being targeted for reducing funds or targeted in the sense of policies from the federal government.

Right.

The immigration issues, the reduction of funding for education, even the clawback of the tremendous amount of funds that came through the IRA and the Biden climate policies that really delivered investment into our cities and in some cases, investment into cities and communities that have been historically left out of these kinds of transitions.

And so I think we we I'm hoping I'm not too naive here.

There is a way in which we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but be more but be or be realistic about what we are faced with today.

And I think this book talks a lot about like how our sectors of our city being used as tools to revitalize them.

Right.

I mean, there's a lot of lessons in this book that you can draw from around arts, around entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship.

I mean, I think we can there's a way to navigate through this kind of darkness and do it in a way that you at the end of this, we can still, you know, come out, cities can come out, you know, not unscathed, but, you know, with a few fewer cuts and bruises than what we did when we came through the last administration.

I would call it realistic optimism.

I like that.

Thanks for that, Neal.

You've written on so many aspects of urbanism as it pertains to entering suburbs.

In fact, the mayors here today, former and present, are really all the mayors of the inner ring suburbs that are adjacent to the city of Cleveland.

You've talked about that.

You've written about that.

You've written about placemaking, the role of arts and culture.

Talk about your perspective that you bring to the book.

Thank you for the question.

I would talk about education.

Okay.

Like I said, and tell us that that's telling someone education, would you?

Yes.

Okay.

No, I think it's not far from the answer.

And I think I mean, talking about what Terry and Carla talked before, from where I see the lighting at the end of the tunnel, I see from the perspective of being the head of the school or planning that teach to future planning, which is a way actually to see how to enhance the value of cities by improving the capacity of future planner to deal with that.

So it's a different point of view, but it's a point of view that actually is very dear to me because that is what I what I do.

So for instance, we deal a lot with this kind of distinctions between urban and suburban.

We have students that come from suburbs and sometimes we have parents of the students that do not understand exactly what we are doing, especially when we're dealing with the urban, urban, inner city issues like what are the past.

We had examples of students that told us as instructor we were doing a studio.

TR And they would say, Well, my dad and my mom do not like that.

Actually, we're going down in OCR.

OCR is over.

The Rhine is I mean, you probably most of you know the the change that that neighborhood had in the past.

And so the education is not just about the techniques of planning, but about how to understand the diversity that difference is the, the role of inclusivity, the role of urban ecosystems that cannot leave, you know, city cannot live without the suburbs.

And so when we make the case for cities, we are not making just the case for more urban core.

We are not making the case for for downtown.

We are making the case actually for the ecosystem to actually support that.

And when we make that case in particular, I mean, most of us, or if not all the educator, the editors of the book, our faculty.

So we are teaching.

And so we deal with the future of of planning and the future of the planning technician.

So I don't know if I answer your question, but that was my answer.

Like I said, I don't remember even what the question was was great, sadly.

Okay.

Okay.

I know I like to hear examples of successes and you mentioned one.

So this is really a question for all three of you.

And that is you mentioned Over-the-Rhine.

I've I, I've been there a number of times.

It's quite the transform transformational story.

Are there any stories anywhere around the country you can tell, starting with your hometown of Cincinnati, if you want, about how it's actually working?

And there's more reason for optimism as a result.

Anybody want to start with that?

Well, I'd like to just touch on that, if I could for a second.

One of the great themes in the book, and I do hope you'll get a copy, is the apparent but not real tension between repositioning your city as a city of choice and guaranteeing that your city is and remains a city of justice.

When you tell the story of Over-the-Rhine, it's a great historic American neighborhood.

It might well have been the most densely populated urban neighborhood in America in the 1890s, for instance, stuffed with Germans that really give it its name.

And that city had been that neighborhood had been sadly disinvested.

And many other neighborhoods in Cincinnati starting at about the 1970s.

Everyone in this room knows about white flight, disinvestment, all of that draining out of urban center city neighborhoods of the life that they had had for generations and generations.

So there has been, as DeLillo indicated, a very dramatic resurgence of that particular historic neighborhood.

It's probably the hippest neighborhood in America today, with all due respect to some very hip neighborhoods in Cleveland.

Do come down, visit us.

But but I must say that within minutes, there were people who appropriately reminded us that when all of the prosperous white people had left, that neighborhood and several others in Cincinnati, there were still people who were living there who kept the lights on to the degree that the lights were kept on.

And these were people who don't have a lot of choice about where they live.

They were living in the inner city because that's where, you know, political and economic forces forced them.

And so one of the things that was clear to us as we pull this book together is how do you in a city like Cleveland simultaneously create the kind of city in which people who have choice about where they live want to live?

Because if people have a choice about where they can live, don't want to live in your city or your neighborhood, that really is the last one to leave.

Turn out the lights.

Okay.

So you have to emphasize amenities and culture and the arts and green and walkability and hip coffee shops and bookstores and all those things, which we all love.

Of course.

And incidentally, which people who have been low income living in those neighborhoods, they kind of like those things, too.

It's just that they couldn't afford them.

But on the other hand, we have to be sure that the city, as we do that city like Cleveland, remains a city in which those people who came there because they didn't have choice, perhaps generationally, still feel that it's a good city for them.

They feel appreciated and loved and welcomed, and they think that they can get a fair shake.

Now, there will be a lot of people who will say it's this or that.

If you're going to go City of Choice, you've just got to forget about those people.

It's all over for them.

Don't know where to go.

Good luck.

Okay.

But it can't be that way because we are in your city as a pioneer.

We are ethical people.

And this is a moral city.

Since Cleveland has been a beacon of morality in city government and city affairs all along this club for goodness sake.

So here's the the the thing you I we have to figure out as we labor for the future of our city, even with this very dangerous new climate, we have to figure out how to simultaneously affirm city of choice and city of justice.

We believe Carla and Danielle and I that these not only don't war with each other, but they can be used productively together.

There really are planning strategies and justice strategies and cultural strategies that can make these things work together for the benefit of the city.

If I could just jump in here, please.

Yeah, well, somebody has to stop and they know how.

One of the examples.

Yeah, right.

I know they should put you in the middle.

It's called a Grundy magnet.

An example of that is green cities and greening cities.

Right.

Greening your cities.

And like having a just and city of choice.

These things are, in my opinion, inextricably linked.

Right.

Cities that invest in green infrastructure or or that invest in climate strategies or resilience strategies.

These are the cities that can position themselves better to be beacons of of of like for for new people to come in and move in.

Right.

This is these are they positioned themselves to support better economic development.

Right.

Growing small businesses.

They definitely support climate resilience and protecting citizens and communities that are most disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation.

So an example, right, is I'll speak about City of Cincinnati that was also part and Cleveland, I think was part of the American Cities Climate Challenge.

And this was an effort that was funded by Bloomberg.

It had 20 or 25 different cities that once the US was pulled out of the climate, it was attempted to be pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord during the first Trump administration.

Bloomberg said cities are actually the engines where this kind of work is being done, and there's a ton of cities that are already kind of moving forward in developing climate strategies.

These climate strategies were tied to social cohesion, economic development.

So there is this link between what a green, what a city trying to make itself more resilient, more green, and how that city develops into a a place where people feel like everyone feels like they belong and they have these amenities that they have access to.

Regardless of wherever you live in whichever community you're living in a city.

And that's again, like that was 20 or 25 cities that were really investing in that kind of cohesive, connected, co-created strategy.

That's also something that's happening again with another group of Bloomberg Cities now looking at not just what's the green piece and what's the green strategy, but how can the work that's being done at the city level through green strategies help drive racial economic equity?

So it's not this and this is being examined and explored in 20 different cities across the country.

Very, very proud to say that Ohio has four of those cities, if I'm not mistaken, that are a part of that that initiative.

So it's out there.

We need to do so much more work to promote that.

That is a way to develop your city strategies.

You know, I want to go back to something Terry said, because another title for this book could be Cities of Choice.

Cities have Justice, because that is the pervasive theme all throughout the book.

Danilo, can you talk about that?

And of course, anything else you want to talk about?

Of course.

Yeah, I would talk about water.

Oh, T.R., let's go back over the Ryan Oak record.

No.

I would go back to water, but actually it includes those two terms, City of Choice and City of Justice.

Otis, I think is the four for Cincinnati, but not just for Cincinnati.

I think it's a kind of a national model is the epitome of the transformation of inner cities.

Was the advantage of a robust building stocks that actually were all the same style.

And so everything was capped.

But we did realize, I mean, living in Cincinnati, educating in Cincinnati and in starting Cincinnati, that there's a very fine line.

It's like being blade runners when you talk about water because you don't know where goes into gentrification or goes into reclaiming the city for the people.

It's a it's a fine, fine line.

It's a weakened problem.

I mean, something that it's very hard to solve.

And so, again, that city of choice and city of justice, where is a city of choice for someone?

It might not be a city of justice for someone else.

So that fine line is something that we are still interrogating about.

I mean, we I mean, are we giving justice to the people that live there?

Are we giving choice to the people that want to live there, but actually only those that can afford to live there?

So, I mean, it's a but I do I would want to say that is definitely a step up in comparison to other example.

If we think about Saint Louis protocol, I mean, that is a famous aspect of the city of Saint Louis many years ago, the word these two social housing areas, one was called Pruitt and one was a go, one was where black, one was where white at one point.

I mean, the the clash between the two, we are talking about 1950s.

I mean, what was the decision of the city of Saint Louis to turn down all.

And so now there's an empty area where once was in I go so is that was the kind of a solution to solve the problem.

And it was not, of course.

And so we are lucky that at least in in in in in OTR, another strategy, another way to deal with with those issues have been and been implemented.

You know not perfect not perfect before you say anything.

Terry, hold that thought, because we're now coming to the favorite my favorite part of City Club forums.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A, where the moderator becomes totally irrelevant, although you could argue already irrelevant.

But so let me just do this one.

This is the where I have a script.

Okay.

For our live stream and radio audiences, I'm Lee Fisher, dean of the Cleveland State University College of Law, and the moderator, former moderator for today's conversation.

Today, we are joined by three authors of the book, The Case for Studies.

We're discussing what is needed to promote a sustainable urban resurgence.

With me on stage is Grundy, adjunct associate professor at the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Danilo Palazzo, the director of the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati.

And Carla Walker, the U.S. Director of Environmental Justice and Equity at the World Resources Institute.

We welcome questions from everyone City Club members, guests, as well as those joining our live stream and City Club talk or live radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to text the question, please text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And city Club staff will try to work it into the program.

And the only difference in these questions is that you actually do have to answer those as opposed to mine.

Okay.

Let's go to the first question.

Fantastic form this morning.

Cities are the epicenter of innovation and has really revolutionized our country.

My question is, with new federal executive orders coming out, new policies that are coming out of Washington.

It seems like a lot of the opportunities and challenges that exist in cities are under assault.

How would you engage with federal policymakers, federal elected officials, and still advancing the work of cities?

By the way, he's also the former president of the National League of Cities.

Oh, excellent.

Okay.

Who wants to go first?

I'll be happy to talk to a course that's challenging.

This is another one, two minute.

I want to say very candidly that I don't think any of us in this room know yet.

We do not know how much damage is going to be done to cities and to many other things that we care about as a result of the new political climate that's emerging.

We just don't know.

And so one of the things that we have to be, I think, most alert to is how to turn back inward into the local political, cultural, civic and social environment to create the highest possible degree of solidarity so that we can, to the degree we're able, help to solve many of our urban problems without having to rely upon the federal resources that might not there.

And I only want to add this if you want to know why cities lost so much ground between 1970 and, let's say about 2010.

One of the answers to that question is the draining away of what some people call social capital.

By that I mean social cohesion amongst ourselves.

You know, the old divide and conquer strategy.

And, you know, we became alienated from one another geo spatially, people moved to suburbs and didn't relate to the people in the city anymore.

And suburbs didn't talk with the suburbs.

And, you know, white people didn't talk to black people and no one talked to anybody until we come to be a nation in which everybody seems to be biting everyone else all of the time when you don't know what to do politically.

The most valuable thing you can do is build community.

Yeah, I agree.

And on saying Valentine's Day, when we're talking about love, we better be talking about love.

I mean, real effective political love.

Just basic, basic.

I care for you as a human being.

Oh, this Valentine's Day on the street.

I love this.

Okay, good.

I mean, I do want to say a couple of things.

When we we have no idea.

I agree with Terry.

We have no idea what the damage is going to be.

But I think for cities, to your point or your question about how do you how do you work with federal entities under this cloud?

Right.

One monitor, take data.

Take data just so you know what's going on in your city.

So you know what?

How the relaxing of federal funding or removal of federal funding is impacting your constituents because then the data helps you tell the story.

Right.

I would say do the monitoring and collect the data because we already know they're not collecting the data.

They've already scrubbed those sites from with the of data.

So we need to figure out how to explain what is actually happening at the local level.

Second thing, and this is what Terry was saying, that collective coordination, that collaboration and the co-creating of the various stakeholders at the local level, right.

This includes folks in this room, urban planners, other civic leaders.

But I would be remiss to be up here and not say that part of that stakeholder group are your citizens, right?

Cities are made up of people, regardless of what job you have or where you're you know, where you're who you're funding and supporting at the at the bottom level.

Right.

The common denominator is where the city is made of people.

So you have to make sure that you're engaging them in these conversations, in these discussions.

Right.

Citizen engagement, civic engagement.

Right.

People are using that.

And throwing that around is like a really cool little term, but it's actually a process and it's a relationship that elected leaders have with their constituents.

It's not a one off.

You have to involve and engage.

Then you have more information on the story where you go back and talk to your federal, your congressional representatives, and you're letting them know this is actually what's happening.

You are hurting people.

Right.

Or I don't know.

I can't remember from political days what we used to call it.

But like, you don't want to just talk about the bad things.

You want to talk about the good things.

Right.

We call it pessimism, right?

Yeah, right.

I think and my my I would think is like slap and clap.

Like you don't want to write old political terms, but you definitely want to be able to keep lines of communication open with them, even even if it is challenging.

Right.

Because I think cutting off that communication allows people in power to direct the narrative.

And if they are directing the narrative and they're controlling everything, it's that much harder for for us to actually make an impact.

I mean, you want to answer?

No, I love this.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's go to the next question.

Obviously, Faustina happens to be an LLM graduate of our law school.

Go ahead, Faustino.

Good afternoon.

Distinguished panelists.

First, you know, of course, I'm from a small city in Africa, specifically Monrovia.

From everything I've heard today, it's clear that there are so many factors responsible for the advancement and growth of cities.

So my question is, in your view, which is the most important factor responsible for the growth of Cleveland?

Thank you.

The leader you must answer this question.

The most important factors.

Well, that's a very good question.

I would prefer to answer the first.

I'm here.

Well, I would say cohesion.

I would say that even entering in some way the previous question, I'm moderately optimistic or realistic optimist about about cities because we have seen in other parts of the world where cities and covenant of majors, covenant of mayors, covenant of people, communities actually have been able to face something that was happening at the national or international level.

So I think that cohesion, the community organization like this one that we are exactly in, have the power and the role to actually to to change those things or at least to stop and and provide a different narrative.

Of course, is different in Monrovia than than in in Italy or in in Cleveland, of course.

I mean, there are different elements that might have different success for what I know about the United States, having been here for 13 years now.

Community are the strongest component of the American society.

I'm very proud of I mean, being part of the community of my district is called Clifton in Cincinnati.

And it's I mean, that is something that actually is the very strong power.

I mean, when you are part of the community, sometimes those divisive ideas just go down because, I mean, you just are in a second in the background because the community is so important.

So I think that community is definitely an important factor either, if you want to add to that.

I would like to say that demographics are destiny, and whether your city will survive and thrive largely depends on who will come and live in it.

Okay.

That's what really counts.

And so I think that from my own point of view, and I think most of you probably would agree at least some degree, the most important thing you can be doing is making your city the type of place where we're the most productive, creative and progressive people in our American society want to live and to be sure that it stays a place where those people who have been true to the city for all of these long decades, when other people were going with the trends of the moment and living in it or out of it, want to stay and feel that they're getting a good shake.

Now, if you think that that's just another way to talk about cities of choice and cities of justice, you're completely right.

But it comes down to your city, Cleveland, our cities, Cincinnati, or any city who's going to live there.

And if you're not getting the bright young people, I'm seeing these wonderful young Cleveland State students over here.

I'm seeing a lot of other young, talented people.

If if you folks aren't wanting to come to the city and stay in the city and many more like you, then the city cannot possibly be all that it should be to be an engine of in American society.

Just a friendly amendment.

Well, it's a question.

I'm just saying that I agree with both my panel.

It can only it's up here.

The one thing I would add here is within cities, there is a need to have a sense of who is most at risk, who's not at the table, who doesn't have access to some of these amenities like this.

Right.

Who, who, who?

What needs to happen to make sure that those individuals in the city are not left behind or are a an afterthought?

Right.

In the development of regenerating Riverside, losing neighborhoods, D'Angelo talked about gentrification there.

There are ways that you can still develop a city.

And I think an important factor in developing a city is ensuring that you're doing so in a way that doesn't cause additional harm, specifically to residents who have already been harmed.

And we need to be thinking about that, right?

This is like centering those folks are prioritizing, prioritizing the needs of people that have been left out.

And we're in a political climate where when you talk about things like that, some folks think that it means somebody is getting something instead of them receiving something.

It's not.

And they versus like an us and them and an either an or.

We're all in this together.

The pie is big enough.

And so people are getting a larger slice of the pie intentionally.

And that's what we have to start figuring out how to address on a communal level.

Right.

But then, especially on a policy level.

Thank you.

Next question.

Good morning.

Danilo mentioned future planners, right.

What efforts are being made now to make sure that our future planners are as diverse as this room with us from could be a little bit more diverse.

But what efforts are made are being made now to make sure our future planners are as diverse as our cities that we live in.

And studies show that we need to reach kids and middle school and high school to get them to think about being a future.

I graduated from Shaker.

I never knew what a future planner was until I came out of college.

I didn't.

In the cities I grew up, I didn't know what a future planner looked like.

I didn't see one every day.

I had never met one until I graduated and started working for the city.

So back to my question.

I apologize.

What efforts are we making now to make the title city planner look sexy to a seventh grader or to a high schooler?

Thank you.

Yeah, Well, welcome to my ward.

We are actually having issues not just to have a diverse population among our students, but also having students because it's hard actually to explain not what is a future planet, but what is a planner and what is planning.

And and so awareness of planning is one element or one step in order to have a more a more diverse group of of students.

There are several reasons why we do not have enough diversity among our students.

And I would say that definitely is do I mean it's school By school?

I would say I mean a college that is called design, architecture, art and planning.

You can explain to a high school students what is design, and you don't have to explain.

You don't have to what is art, You don't have to explain what is architecture.

Then when it goes to planning, you have to write.

And that is the that is the hardest part.

What we did realize recently, we have before this book, we we published another book which route religion was called Diversity and Awareness in Planning.

And we collected chapters from from different scholars from all over the world that try to understand how to raise that awareness of planning and also diversity.

And there are examples from different places.

I mean, one reason why, for instance, we have less planners in, in, in United States in the school is because we do not to teach geography to how to our high school students, which is something that actually in Australia has been reintroduced in New South Wales in order to have and they actually are seeing actually that there is a trend that is positive about that.

We need to realize that actually the number of African-American and Latino planners I'm on the American Planning Association board is one of the lowest, actually is lowest than the number in the percentage in the overall population of the of the United States.

We did realize that the number of planners in the United States is almost half of the number of planners pro-cop to it than in UK or in Australia.

There are more planners per capita in Canada, that you, the audience, to remember, because this will be your last chance to talk.

Oh, no.

Okay.

Oh, no.

Okay.

Just love from memory.

I will ask you, freshman, I would say university.

And I'm just glad to be here today to be here 19 years old and get this wisdom.

My question to you is hearing is wisdom.

How is it how can we make sure more of my peers get this wisdom?

Because we spoke on who is at the most resource of these communities in the inner city.

And I believe the most risk is the youth We see, the youth we're dropping every day.

You're just a teen girl shot in the head last week.

So I'm asking what can we to you what can you do to make sure one, the youth is informed about what's going on, how we can play a part of building our communities and what make us feel like our voice is heard as well.

So that way we don't add to the detriment of our community.

So very good question.

One Be engaged.

Right.

Like what you're doing right now.

That's fantastic.

And then obviously for you, share what you're doing.

Share what you're hearing.

Right.

For those of us on like the city leaders side of things, the one thing we need to make sure we do in order to talk to youth is meet them where they are.

Right.

This is the first rule of community engagement and community involvement.

Meet them where they are and then listen to them.

Right.

Understand that there are experiences that they are having, that they have a different vocabulary and different way of expressing themselves.

But just listen and hear what they're saying and then take the lesson from that to figure out how do you engage with them.

Right.

When I was in Mayor Riley's office, we did a young professionals kitchen cabinet.

It was the first time that we had folks who were coming out of college or in college.

And very early into their careers, being a part of the development of city policy.

Right.

You could do the same thing with younger folks in in high school and elementary.

There's a way to figure out how to engage with people at all levels.

Right.

If it's their parents.

If it's their grandparents.

If it's even trusted community folks.

Right.

Like the person down the street, Mrs. Johnson, who sells snack packs, or if it's the Brownie leader or the Girl Scout troop leader.

Typically, you're going to need to have somebody bring you into that network.

Right.

And that would that's a way of also developing leadership skills because you don't want to wait.

I think someone mentioned it before.

You want to wait until after college.

You want to begin working with families and networks and communities to disrupt some of these issues and challenges that they're experiencing.

An inventory.

When you see Dan Moulthrop approaching the stage, it means we have very little time.

So I would give a short go, sir.

Okay.

So, no, actually, two things.

One, to the previous question.

I think that higher education should be more affordable in in the United States, and that is the reason why we do not have so much diversity among our students, because it costs too much.

That's it.

Second, I don't remember the second part.

The first one was so good that I don't remember this synthetically.

Okay, that's good.

That was good.

And by the way, I do want to say Cleveland State University and bowling balls are very affordable.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

Go ahead, Terry.

You know, a real power is including real political power.

It's giving young people something to believe in and giving them some hope for the future.

And one version of something to believe in and hope for the future is to assure them that we're working together.

We are to make cities, those places where people like you and all of us can live the highest version of our own lives.

That's what cities are for.

There are places for people to live the best version of their lives.

And we are committed to making that happen.

And that's what we're trying to do.

And that's your job when people like to know and I have to lay down that torch.

Your job is to continue to carry it.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Oh, look at you.

Okay, real quick.

Actually, I'm very serious.

I heard about the two great people at the beginning of this presentation.

I don't remember their name, but I mean, there are kind of those heroes that actually actually can influence the students to become community leaders, to become planners.

So we need probably to highlight more of these people in order to have more students.

So, okay.

Thank you so much.

I'm Dan Waltrip, and you've been listening to a conversation about a new book that's out.

It's called The Case for Cities.

Thank you very much to Danilo Palazzo, Carla Walker, Terry Grundy and the Fisher for this wonderful conversation.

Forms like this one are made possible thanks to individuals like all of you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City Club Board.

Our form today as part of the City Club's Authors and Conversation series, which is presented in partnership with Cuyahoga County Public Library in Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Our forum today is also Daniella.

Just mention that to two heroes.

One of them is Nelson Weiss.

Today is the annual Nelson Weiss Memorial Forum.

He was an attorney, a longtime member of the City club, served as our board president.

Family is with us today.

Thank you so much for being with us.

And also, our forum today is dedicated to the memory of Richie Pippen and a friend of the city club, a champion of our fair city.

Richie was one of the Cleveland's leading researchers on urban poverty and community development.

His final book was called Octopus Hunting, and we discussed that with him at the Happy Dog last May.

We're delighted to have the family with us today.

Richie's family.

Thank you so much for being with us.

We'd also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by Cleveland State University, the Cleveland State University College of Law, downtown Cleveland and northeast Ohio.

Women in Sustainability.

Coming up next week at the city Club, we'll hear from Lorenzo Gonsalves is president and CEO of Cleveland Cliffs, a small manufacturing firm, one of the largest steel makers in the world, actually, and the 24th oldest firm in America.

No kidding.

I know.

Pretty neat.

That's next week.

There's still like maybe three tickets left.

Get yours on the way out the door.

You can learn more at City Club dot org.

That brings us to the end of our forum today.

Again, have a wonderful Valentine's Day, all.

Have a great weekend.

Thank you so much.

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