Seems like the Ghetto: Understanding the Image of East Cleveland

Abstract

This essay aims to understand the decline of a specific community, Cleveland’s historic inner-ring suburb of East Cleveland, as a set of troubled and constructed histories that were never inevitable. In particular, the essay takes up the use of terms like ‘ghetto’and ‘blight’ in descriptions of East Cleveland to explore how the negative perception of the city has compounded the effects of its decline. The text begins with a brief introduction to the city, describing its transition from an ‘elite’ white suburb into a deteriorating, primarily African American, one. This is followed by an analysis of the many factors that contributed to East Cleveland’s rapid decline, including suburbanization policies, racial integration and blockbusting, physical deterioration, and economic mismanagement. The essay’s final section describes how public perception of the city has played one of the most harmful roles in shaping its development, identifying the city’s image as equally important as its financial state or physical deterioration. Using East Cleveland as example, it poses the broader question: can the expectation of ‘ghetto’ or ‘blight’ beget just that?