by Bruce Checefsky

   (Plain Press August 2024) The city of Cleveland, designated as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, tops yet another list. This time, despite the Mayor Bibb administration’s continuous promotional campaign to paint a picture of a glowing metropolis on the lake, filled with new statistical data and the promise of a multi-billion-dollar sports stadium with growth for everyone, Cleveland is ranked as the most stressful city in the nation, according to a WalletHub study.

   “Cleveland is the most stressed city in the U.S., due in part to the fact that it has one of the lowest median household incomes in the country after adjusting for the cost of living, at under $41,000,” reported WalletHub. “Low wages contribute to Cleveland also having the fourth-highest share of households that fell behind on bills in the last 12 months, the second-highest foreclosure rate, and the second-highest poverty rate.”

   Cleveland outscored Detroit, Baltimore, and Memphis in work and financial stress and ranked second in health and safety stress. Fremont, California, was the least stressful out of 182 cities.

   WalletHub, launched in August 2013, is a personal finance company that provides tools to compare credit card offers, personal loans, car insurance companies, checking accounts, and more. It is based in Miami and owned by Evolution Finance, Inc., founded by self-made millionaire Odysseas Papadimitriou. The owner, Papadimitriou, is also the CEO of Evolution Finance. The report was released on July 8.

   Cleveland has the second-highest separation and divorce rate in the country, at nearly 41%, along with the 19th-highest percentage of single-parent households, the report added. On top of that, Cleveland has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Detroit has the highest unemployment rate in America, at 8.2%, with the lowest median household income after adjusting for the cost of living, at less than $37,000, but ranks behind Cleveland in work and financial stress.

   Recent violent crimes in Cleveland include sixteen people with guns during a shootout at Edgewater Park on June 22 that left an 18-year-old man wounded. Jamieson R. Ritter, age 27, was killed in the line of duty on the Fourth of July while serving and protecting the community as a police officer. Hours later, a ten-year-old was killed by a drive-by shooter. Seven homicides took place over the holiday weekend.

   Mayor Justin Bibb and senior members of his administration hosted a community town hall at the Gunning Neighborhood Resource and Recreation Center on Puritas Avenue in West Park less than two weeks later.

   “I recognize it has been a challenging couple of weeks for our city,” said Mayor Bibb. “We have been making some positive strides, I believe, around our public safety.”

   The mayor said his administration had made historic investments in technology by expanding shot-spotter, an acoustic gunshot detection system, across all five police districts and installing more license plate readers. He announced the launch of the first-ever crime-gun intelligence center with the United States (U.S.) Attorney General and the head of the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives).

   “Public safety is a group community project,” said Mayor Bibb, speaking to the crowd. “Government cannot do it alone,” adding, “We have programs like midnight basketball and year-round programs in city recreation centers to keep our children safe and secure.”

   Cleveland officials say they need 1,350 police officers to staff the basic patrol plan, but by the end of 2023, after years of attrition and hiring difficulties, staffing stood at 1,169. The Bibb administration proposed starting a study to determine an exact number of police officers the city needs. Instead, the mayor cut vacant police jobs despite opposition from the City Council, though they eventually conceded to his plan.

   According to the latest data from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey in January 2021, 11% of U.S. adults said that their household sometimes or rarely had enough to eat in the last seven days, while 1 in 5 adults living in rental housing could not pay their rent. Financial worries and psychological distress among U.S. adults play significant roles in mental health. Personal health and financial insecurity are related to higher levels of psychological distress, which can result in emotional exhaustion, a reduced immune response, heart disease, and increased mortality. Young adults who come from poor families demonstrated greater financial and mental vulnerability, a study from the Community Development Investment Review revealed.

   With the Cleveland population falling and people in poverty staying about the same, the result is that poverty has become more concentrated, according to the Center for Community Solutions. The legacy of redlining and historic disinvestment casts a long shadow. Negative health and economic conditions show the same geographic patterns. Where unemployment is high, people are living with diabetes and poor physical and mental health; this is where poverty is concentrated.

   Poverty leads to stress and causes people to turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, like drugs and alcohol. The cycle can be never-ending. Financial issues are chronic stressors and can accelerate aging and cause inflammation in our bodies by creating more cortisol, the Cleveland Clinic warns. Too much cortisol can cause type 2 diabetes, or persistently high blood sugar levels. The ADA reports that more Americans die from diabetes every year than from AIDS and breast cancer combined.

   The Cleveland City Planning Commission webpage states that Cleveland now has a large pool of workers unable to use their manufacturing-based skills, a 31% poverty rate citywide, and an under-educated population unable to take advantage of the consumer- and service-based employment opportunities of today. Cleveland’s population decline has reduced the city’s tax base, resulting in concentrated poverty, blighted buildings, and vacant lots peppering the previously natural landscape.

   Thomas B. Edsall, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, published a guest essay in 2023 titled A Hidden Reason Cities Fall Apart. In his essay, Edsall starts by saying, “Once-vibrant cities like St. Louis, Baltimore, and Cleveland have suffered from poverty, crime, depopulation, social dysfunction, and homelessness for decades—setbacks compounded by the decline of manufacturing, the nationalization of local banks, and waves of corporate acquisitions.”

   In his second paragraph, Edsall adds, “But there is something else hurting cities besides those well-known phenomena that we don’t talk about enough: the erosion of the local establishment and the loss of civic and corporate elites.”

   Edsall cites Douglas Massey, a sociologist at Princeton. “White flight to expanding suburbs and decline and disinvestment within Black neighborhoods in central cities in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were built into the political economy of metropolitan America by public policies enacted and private practices institutionalized during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.”

   The globalization of the economy drove the abandonment of manufacturing in many cities [including Cleveland], Edsall continued. “The process was accelerated by the adoption of certain government policies in the last three decades of the 20th century. Those policies undercut civic and corporate local leaders, economically undermining local establishments.”

   He concludes with a quote by Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist and sociologist who died over 100 years ago and who described the decline and fall of elites: “History is a graveyard of aristocracies.”

   For Cleveland City officials, including Mayor Bibb, some critics argue that too much emphasis is placed on political decisions and too little on overwhelming economic developments.

   “We are making Cleveland a place in this country where the American dream is still within reach,” said Mayor Bibb during his 2024 State of the City address at the Mimi Ohio Theatre last March.