Sunday, December 7, 2008

Cleveland Industry tour

Cleveland is a pretty diverse city, with items of interest ranging from the arts (music, art, history, etc.) to the steel mill and other manufacturing places. In more prosperous times, I'd say that Cleveland does very well (as any city would in prosperous times, I guess), but today with the craziness of the economy, the setback of money problems was particularly evident in the steel mill. When we visited, nothing was running, and while our tour guide knew what he was talking about, it was hard to imagine what the mill would've looked like in more financially stable years.

Perhaps Cleveland is a bit slower to recover than other cities because it has placed a lot of its dependency on the steel mill and other factories that are suffering due to the economy. It was good to see, however, that the steel mill was trying to save money by not running at full tilt (as it were) every day. I think that if Cleveland just makes less of things but still stays in the business swing of things, it will be okay in the end. I could be totally wrong, though...I'm going to be honest and say that of any subject I've taken in school, economics is one of the few that so much of it went way over my head that I don't think, as one of my friends would say, that I could've looked and seen it with a telescope. I guess I'm just not money-minded, as it were.

But anyway...

I would hope that the Cuyahoga River is used in the next few decades, be it for transportation of goods and the like or even just one of the few natural features Cleveland has left. Rivers are a good way of connecting cities for trade and transportation, but sometimes it's nice to just be able to enjoy something in nature.

This really wasn't my best blog entry and for that I apologize...I'll try to make up for it with leaving excellent comments on others' blog entries!

7 comments:

First Knight said...

You and Cyrus both bring up the river - so poignant to Cleveland and many similarly situated cities. One of the stops on this tour that we could not complete due to the time of the year and weather is a trip along the river. Next time we get a chance Lo, Jo, and I will share with you all what we have learned about the river's comeback. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Sethna said...

I think this calls for a meeting sometime.

I don't think that continuing to scrape along and not worrying about anything because it'll all be all right in the end is a good approach to any problem. I disagree with your logic here.

As for the economics, you must not have been in Mr. Testa's class.

Andreas Johansson said...

But, in regards to economics, it's more than just understanding money, and how to make and save it. Economics is all about choice. It's really the science of choice, and as such, what makes someone choose to stay in Cleveland or not? It all depends on the trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis one has to do in making both business and personal decisions. What's best for my business / family? How do we get people to engage with Cleveland and the surrounding areas? How, Laura, how?

Fosch said...

I do agree with the man at the steel mill note, I could definitely tell that he knew what he was talking about. Yet I think just how massive of a scale it was was what made it hard to picture how it all worked...im not sure.

I still want to take a ride in one of those huge ladles...empty of course

Anna C said...

Laura was in Mr. Testa's Econ class, by the way. And I agree with Cyrus that you can't just let things work out on their own, because otherwise they'll never get done or fixed or whatever...but if you want results, you have to work for them. And I hope Cleveland is trying, but they could probably try harder.

little miss laura said...

Yes, I suppose so (relating back to Anna and Cyrus)...you do have to take action to help get things back where they were. And I wish I could say more about it and sound somewhat intelligent, but as I said before, economics is not my strong point so I'm not going to pretend it is.

Axel said...

if i would have gone i might have a better picture of what you guys are disscusing but sort of get an image of what the mill would have been like.

so was it run down a bit? from what i read there is a seirous problume with clevend industrys
wish i could lern more