About five years ago I watched a bucket truck pull up under this light pole and the guy went up and attached this radio device onto the arm of the light pole.  The unit is powered right off the constant feed to the light’s photo voltaic switch.  It took the guy less than 5 minutes to install.  Note how the power plug is piggybacked by the old photo cell. When he came back down to ground level I asked the fellow what the purpose of the radio unit was, and he showed me a plan of the Town on which numerous hexagonal cells were show.   In the center of each of those cells (1/4 mile radius) was to be one of these radio transceivers.  The cells communicated downstream to the numerous homes in each cell, and they communicated upstream to two or three cell tower locations from which they connected to land telephone lines.  The unit was able to handle dozens of simultaneous discrete individual connections with data rates up and down in the 300kbs range.

Their intended purpose?  Wireless multi-channel digital connection for internet and TV!

ONE: Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully. TWO: Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other. THREE: Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

Do you know this famous Cleveland-area company? When was the last time you saw someone using some of their lip gloss?

Here's a posting from a friend at Tribe.net interested in green roof development, and I wonder how hard can this really be, and how much of this goes on in NEO?   From Georgie's Tribe blog...http://people.tribe.net/terraverde:    ...I'm helping James Kalin prototype the Green Roof on the LBOW (LEEDS Building On Wheels) project. In my system, run-off water will fall into the Slow Sand Filter. I'll have to check with a structural engineer to make sure I can support the additional weight. James showed me the GreenGrid (www.greengridroofs.com) trays going on the LBOW roof. It's basically a recycled-content HDPE tray that holds your plantings.

The manufacturer highlights the following benefits:
• Reduced Energy Costs
• Reduced Urban "Heat Island" Effect
• Sound Insulation
• Extended Roof Life
• Stormwater Management

This is a good primer on GreenRoofs:
www.damonfarber.com/Green_Ro...0Roof.pdf

We are enjoying the early signs of spring, and looking forward to this year's Easter Egg hunt in Cleveland Heights... coming up on April 15, I believe. Above is a photo from the hunt last year.

I've thought for some time about the issues facing East Cleveland, and thought deeply about the potential we have to uplift an underprivileged community by applying a concerted eco-development strategy.  Here I outline some of my core thoughts as framed by our six-sphere model:

Date: Wednesday, March 29

Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.

Place: Myers University, Chester Campus

3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH

Map Link

This is a photo from the inside of Convivium33 Gallery at Josaphat Hall

    so here are the steps I went through to post a picture....if there's a short cut please let me know
1.log on
2.create content
3.personal blog, or image
4. title etc.
5. when you get to the "body" block you have to type in enough to allow the thing to post and you must position your cursor where you want the photo to show up
6. At the bottom of the blog entry page go down to "file attachment" and "browse"

   

Norm, this is exasperating. Once I figure out step by step directions for posting pictures, I will put those on line and you can put them on that "how to" page we were talking about.

Join us for New Approaches to Economic Development

Dates: Monday, March 27 & Tuesday, March 28

Time: 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Place: Baldwin Wallace College

Is there any organization in Cleveland that would be the equivalent of the Cultural Trust in Pittsburgh?  I note that one project of Pittsburgh’s Cultural Trust is to “create a residential riverfront neighborhood that is integrated with the Allegheny riverbank. The main goal is to create a place so animated by restaurants, a park, public art and shopping areas that locals and out-of-town visitors will consider it a must-see destination.” To this end the Trust has selected four architectural planning/development teams from around the US and beyond to submit plans. I happened to recognize the name of the Dutch architectural firm, MVRDV, that is the proposal designer for Team B.

The Cleveland Memory Project: Virtual Networks to Cool Places

Date: Today! Wednesday, March 15 Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M. Place: Myers University, Chester Campus 3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH Map Link

The West Side Market in Cleveland is an example of venerable architecture (see Norm Roulet's gallery of photos on Real Neo a few weeks back here http://realneo.us/page/realneo-knows-and-loves-west-side-market-best-in-world) which continues to vigorously continue its intended use because of its original designer’s  keen attention to form following function.   Even though the delivery of the produce is now done with  pallets handled by fork lift trucks (fork lift trucks didn’t exist when the Market was constructed), the excellent pedestrian access, floor wash-down gutters, durable glazed brick and tile surfaces, and airy “kiosks within a building” interior space, and the exterior long vegetable aisles with their garage door access behind the vendors – really work well.

A good discussion appears this morning in the Akron Beacon Journal on the emergence in Akron/Canton of a new effort to promote networks of entrepreneurs. The mere fact that the meeting took place -- and the published transcripts appear in the paper-- provide some sense that this effort will succeed. Read more. Read the transcript. The newspaper even includes audio clips of the proceedings.

Hannah Fritzman writes  http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/theview/index.ssf?/mtlogs/cleve_theview/archives/2006_03.html that Mayor Eric Brewer of East Cleveland is in conversation with the Civic Innovation Lab. I have also heard that leadership at the Intergenerational School is in conversation about the possibility of expanding into the city of East Cleveland. If the city can reverse perceptions about its safety and the quality of its schools, perhaps it can become home to young professionals who will launch independent small businesses and generate a second heydey for the home of John D. Rockefeller...

We hear of CAFTA, NAFTA, PAFTA, and how our government wants to help those people in areas with low wages by spreading democracy, “stabilizing” their governments, and letting our companies go and set up shop there. Reducing tariffs - we are told - will bring economic prosperity to economically “underdeveloped” regions.

Fantastic new article on the World Business Council for Sustainable Developments website  regarding biofuels  that I wanted to make you aware of.   It is freely available to those with internet access. If you dont have internet access, you dont know, unless you bring trees into the mix.

    Down in Columbus our Ohio Senate is considering, today, a bill (SB265) that would prevent our state from enacting stronger air pollution health standards than are required by the federal government. Passage of this bill would not be good for our health.  Consider the fact that a recent study reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that the levels of ground level ozone presently considered safe by the EPA are in fact too high.  The authors of the study found that breathing ozone at these currently permissable levels can increase the risk of premature death. 

    At the last Cleveland Next meeting, Guhan Venkatu, an economic analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, made a presentation .  He has kindly let us post his power point with the usual sort of proviso...the views espressed are his and "not necessarily those of the FRBC, the board of governors of the FR or its staff".

Since we have spent a lot of time, on this site and at roundtable discussions sponsored by Realneo, discussing the region's strengths and weaknesses, I thought readers might be interested in Mr. Venkatu's experiments comparing Cleveland's economy with that of the nation and also with the rest of Ohio. Perhaps we can suggest some other parameters to be considered.

A new report outlines the future for small and mid-sized manufacturers.

The Future Success of Small and Medium Manufacturers: Challenges and Policy Issues outlines two important trends that are shaping the future of these smaller manufacturers.

How does one shop for a car online? I am going to find out!

 I need a new car. I think I know approximately what I am looking for -- excellent safety rating, high fuel efficiency, attractive design, comfortable enough for long road trips, roomy enough to carry skiis, bikes or some large piece of art. I'm convinced I should buy foreign (unless someone can convince me otherwise) because what I hate most is taking my car in for repairs often. What ever I buy I plan to keep it 10 years or more.