Change is everywhere. In NEO regional development, a defining moment is at hand

USA Today, the Plain Dealer and half of the rest of the publishing world have written about auto workers retirees having to pay more for their extensive benefits. The New York transit workers are screaming they won't pay more into the pension fund.

And now the city of New York faces another outrageous financial burden. Under new accounting rules, their annual cost of supplying health care to retirees and familiies will quintuple, from around $900,000 to nearly $5 billion--for exactly the same benefits. (Insane? Yes. Read more.) Who's gonna pay?

We in Cleveland/NEO are not the only citizens struggling to face new realities. And while it's natural for us human beings to resist change, to do so in the face of its going on all around you is ludicrous. Things just will never be what they used to be.

Which is why I'm so excited to see that last Friday, the PD carried a report by Mark Rosentraub (of CSU's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs) on the results from the recent Voices and Choices community forum--and the ideas that have emerged are truly exciting.

Rather than start with thinking about building up from nothing, they're talking about "greasing the skids," so to speak, to make things easier for the big success stories already here. Focusing on the business sectors that have generated the most real jobs in recent years (health care, education, financial services), they decided, gee, we ought to make it easier for workers and prospective customers/patients to get to the places that have the work/the services. (I'm sure you know that University Circle--home to, among others, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals--is considered an inaccessible no-man's land by half the people in this region).

Following in the visionary footsteps of the RTA people (it took a long time to get the Euclid Corridor project accepted--I didn't quite get it myself until recently), the forum came up with the idea of making access for automobiles to the University Circle giants faster, easier and less intimidating for the faint of heart--a new high-profile road connecting 490/E. 55th and the Circle.

And they talked about using the brilliant minds and designs of this region's top commercial developers to make Cleveland/NEO--like Chicago--a touchstone for inspired architecture and people-friendly environments. Having worked with Bob Stark of Stark Enterprises (developers of Eton Chagrin Blvd. and Crocker Park), I can tell you his is one of the great souls out there passionately committed to Northeast Ohio and actively working to metamorphose this region.

You know, this is a moment in history when Northeast Ohio is poised to become a regional phoenix, rising from the ashes of its own self-pity and self-doubt. Thanks to the unstoppable efforts of those whose power and grace transcend their own little fiefdoms, I feel it coming at last.

When all this is underway, the roads for entrepreneurs of every stripe will grow wider and smoother and will more quickly carry these adventurers to their destination--a profitable, sustainable business.