There are certainly places in Cleveland where people very much enjoy our greatest natural resource, Lake Erie. To the East or West, rich or poor, it offers pleasures and potential, as filthy as it may be and shall remain.

Do the Port Authority and their planners from New York City have a clue what is the potential of our Great Lake and lakefront? Have you seen any good plans?

Are we doing anything close to what we should to protect the environment of Lake Erie? Is this the Bluest Lake possible, for this brightest greenest place?

Since our founding, in 2004, REALNEO has become a groundbreaking free, open source social network of global interest – recently recognized as one of the top networks of our type in the country, by the Knight Foundation.

In 2008, the members of REALNEO.US formed REAL COOP, an Ohio legal cooperative, which now owns and operates REALNEO.US and REAL.COOP. We are unique in the world of social computing, and a global innovator in the evolution of information systems.

From the REALNEO.US homepage:

I was analyzing the lay of the land around the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Sunday and thought I'd visit the region's most valuable real estate, along the blue shores of Lake Erie. Driving down MLK, I went through one of the few ugly mouseholes under the Freeway and traintracks thal block almost all reasonable public access to the lakefront, and chose to not go right, to where millionaires live, in Bratenahl, but left, where lunatic leaders have failed to extract a red cent of real value from our greatest natural resource...

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

Register today for the 2009 Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC) 4th Annual Symposium, “Countdown to 2010: Revisiting the Past and Planning for the Future”, Friday, June 12, 2009 from 7:30 a.m. - noon at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1 Wade Oval Drive)

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Early notice of the most important event of 2009 - this is exciting!

The "Effect" is Ed's house band... rocked the Beachland Ballroom at Ed's going away party... mark your calendars...

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Are you concerned that your children's health is affected by pollution?
Do you want some answers about your industrial neighbors?
Do you want to build your environmental campaign skills?

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This just in, via Cleveland City Council, via Facebook... "Another step taken toward Breaking the Cycle of Abandonment". This is about how City Council has decided to spend our community's $25 million in Federal taxpayer funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) - the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - intended to help our impoverished inner city. You must ask yourself, who decided how your $25,000,000 should be spent here, how did they really decide this, and is this a step forward or backwards?

Despite corruption and cronyism galore, Ohio does have it's bright and shiny moments of good and brilliant. Here's a way to make history come alive for your kids (from ODOT!) http://www.dot.state.oh.us/districts/D06/Maps/Pages/OhioUndergroundRailroadMapsPage.aspx

We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

Shout out to Slavic Village Sandy, who is the voice of NEO. Thanks for the heads up!

Our activism was spotted and cited by another preservationist - in Atlanta.

Welcome to realneo Max Eternity!

External Links:

Chronicling the efforts to save Breuer's Ameritrust Tower.

Comparing classy and other aesthetic issues in Cleveland around Breuer -

• Breuer a handsome figure on the runway

Bill MacDermott posts Livemap of the site - 

Writings about preserving the built environment in NEO and beyond.

Ward 13 Councilman Cimperman was attacked in his Tremont home by vicious forces, which caused him personal harm and made him homeless. His trauma was relatively brief, as Councilman Cimperman is a powerful man with powerful friends and considerable resources at his disposal - it is safe to say he had insurance against his losses and could borrow money at a reasonable interest rate to rebuild.

Site of Frank Giglio's demolished house, with art installations, in the headlights and spotlights

"Cleveland of My Dreams' Postcard by Joe Stanley

About the time some wacked-out over-empowered government wonks were demolishing Frank Giglio's Historic Landmark house, on his city-desecrated urban farm, all the "restorationists" in our Society were abuzz about the chance to rub elbows with Timothy "Art Is Back" Rub at the sell-out "36th installment of our Community Luncheon" Cleveland Restoration Society self-love-fest, held last week at Wyndham Cleveland, at Playhouse Square...

EDWARD J. "CITIZEN" HAUSER, beloved son of Walter and Theresia; dearest brother of Harold, Sylvia, Thomas, and Caroline Widemann (husband Reiner); dear uncle of Nicole and Erik; dear friend of Cathy Stahurski; dear nephew, cousin and friend to many.

Ed Hauser died suddenly November 14, 2008. Northeast Ohio has lost its most ardent, studied and tenacious citizen activist.

The October 30, 2008 Sun Press lead cover story article (strangely... not on-line) was: "New Uses For Coventry? Music School Settlement, day care, and charter school send letters of interest". This reported, "The Intergenerational School's proposal also listed several partners: Richard Fleischman Architects, of Cleveland, Star Neighborhood Development, of East Cleveland, Strategic Resource Consultants, of Cleveland Heights, and City Fresh Cafeteria, Fresh Stop and Market, of Cleveland". "Fleischman would serve as design architect, while Star Neighborhood Development and Strategic Resource Consultants would likely be development partners...". "That proposal would also include a 1.5 acre "Urban Farm"...". I submitted the proposal, a public document, highlighted below and attached as a PDF, and can say the Sun Press report is largely correct, but the story is far from complete, and far more exciting than the Sun brings to light.

Cleveland – Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones will host a
fourth public forum to discuss the proposed Medical Mart/Convention Center
project.

The purpose of the forum is to share as much information as possible about
the Medical Mart and Convention Center projects with the public.

The forum will be:

If an apple a day keps the doctor away, what is the economic value to Northeast Ohio of bringing fresh, local fruits and vegetables to poor, unhealthy, underserved inner city places like The Star Neig

I've used the Cleveland Heights library on Lee Road since the 1970s, and can say with confidence the recent Studio Techne reinvention of this facility transformed the space, site, and surrounding neighborhood for the better. Featuring a dramatic, high-art bridge over Lee Road, and two reused buildings - one signficantly modernized - with crisp, fitting site improvements, this is one of the best library facilities and urban redevelopments in Northeast Ohio.

The Coit Road Farmers Market is one of the most endearing places in real NEO. Hidden away in a near-dead industrial graveyard of East Cleveland, with the curb-appeal of a brownfield, it is not a place one goes without intent. So it amazes me that just about every time I go there I see someone I know. I guess I know some pretty smart people.