USAFDawg

Hello all, I often come to the site to do some reading, but this is my first post. I’m originally from NEO, bounced around Cleveland and Akron and everywhere in between, but I left when I was like seven, and unless you count those summers spent at grandma’s house I haven’t lived there since. I have lived in 13 different cities, another country, and done a little traveling. I have a wife who grew up in Italy and two small children. So where am I going with this? We absolutely love Cleveland! Seriously, we can’t get enough of it, and believe it or not I have met a lot of other people that are from all over that feel the same way. I went to college in NC and actually had two profs that raved about Cleveland. One, who was from VA, was a HUGE Tribe fan and spent his summers in CLE. The other was from NC and any time I would talk with him outside of class, it seemed that all he wanted to talk about was Playhouse Square. Even out of the country, I have met people that seemed to really enjoy themselves in CLE. I met a young couple in Brussels, both wearing Rock Hall shirts, that had nothing but good things to say about the city. As a matter of fact, the only negative that I heard while overseas came while I was at a World Cup match in Germany this past summer. I somehow met a girl that had recently visited her sister and brother-in-law in Cleveland; she said she had a great time but complained about the rail system. When I tell my family who still reside in NEO this type of stuff, they are stunned. They, like so many from the area, have some sort of self worth complex. All they point out are the negatives, like NEO is the only place with problems or something, and fail to see all the benefits that the area has to offer. It has been my experience, like other posters here have stated, that people from other parts of the country, or even the world for that matter that have visited Cleveland have nothing but high marks for the city. It’s the local media and local government officials that usually either paint Cleveland in a bad manor, or inhibit the region from garnering more respect. Just some thoughts, take ’em or leave ‘em.