The Observation Deck

Should Lakewood get a "Cool consultant" to help lure young professionals and point the way to economic redevelopment? Akron has--see today's Plain Dealer story:

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/1124962470227260.xml?bxbiz&coll=2

Going from Rubber City to hip, cool city
Consultant gives Akron leaders a report on changing the city's image

Thursday, August 25, 2005
Joe Guillen, Plain Dealer Reporter

There was a watershed event Wednesday in Akron's quest for cool.

Rebecca Ryan, whose company essentially gets hired to make cities hipper, unloaded her recommendations for turning Akron into a place young professionals want to be.

Her hourlong presentation at the Akron-Summit County Public Library Auditorium was the culmination of a year's worth of work in Akron, conducting research, throwing parties for young professionals and generally motivating the community to be proud of itself.

It's a good story and worth reading in entirety. Some excerpts which stimulate questions for Lakewood:

Is Lakewood ahead of Cleveland--or other cities--in hip attractiveness for creative class professionals?

"Akron is ahead of Cleveland in how they're engaging young professionals at this level of leadership," she said in a news conference after the presentation. "Cleveland needs some of the leadership Akron has shown on these initiatives."

Chicken-and-egg dilemma: which comes first--job creation or attractive community?

The thrust of Ryan's message in most cities - she has consulted in about 20 since 2001 - is that young professionals pick a place to live before choosing a job. Mix that theory with soon-to-retire baby boomers, and Ryan predicts many medium-to-large cities will soon need young talent to fill job openings.

Are there limits to how "cool" Lakewood can be?--

In her presentation, she made a point of saying cities shouldn't try to be something they're not. After all, she said, there's a term for people who suffer from that syndrome: posers. Very uncool.

Can Lakewood pursue "brain re-gain", luring its own talent back through hipness and amenities?

Ryan also is big on luring native Akronites back. She was equipped with an entire marketing campaign, called "Come Home to Akron," that involves numerous events in Akron and cities where Akron's young talent has migrated.

"You're going to start to hear about more Midwestern cities who are taking the lead and becoming the undiscovered cities, or the best small cities to live in because of the boomeranging back of young professionals who went out to the coast and did their thing," she said.

How is "hipness" to be implemented? Is this all just empty hype?

Before she left, Ryan made sure to remind the crowd that action must be taken to carry out the recommendations.

"You have three choices," she said. "You can lead in one of these areas. You can support it . . . or you can just get out of the way because it's not your highest and best use. Think about that."

Can the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce team up with the City of Lakewood to take the lead in a "cool city agenda"--as they have done on the Main Street Program, and as the Akron Chamber and City have done?

The Greater Akron Chamber, with help from the city, hired Ryan's company, Wisconsin-based Next Generation Consulting Inc., last year after chamber president and chief executive Dan Colantone saw her speak in Denver.

Tom:

You don't need another dimer to tell you what's up.

Ideas about cool are a dime a dozen, and therefore, not so cool.

Cool camoflauge is priceless.

While you may not know it yet, you've been hanging in the slack holler with some of the coolest daddies and mamas around.

Hire a con from the processed world like Akron did, and Lakewood's blown the cool of the slack holler.

Con the con to do a cool job on Lakewood's slack holler, paid in unbacked Lakewood Grinders. Well, that's cool....


Kenneth Warren