Rats R Us
(Photo by Joan E. Hargate)
“Rats R Us” — City of Cleveland ranks as the 10th rattiest city in the United States
plainpress
November 1, 2024
by Arthur Hargate
(Plain Press November 2024) https://plainpress.blog/#posts
So why is the recent story on Cleveland’s serious rat problem flying so quietly under the radar?
Is it because the local media is so careful about negative stories about Cleveland? Is it because it would annoy the region’s powerful, privileged, and pampered elites, who only like positive punchy platitudes promoting Cleveland to proliferate in the media here?
Interestingly, Cleveland isn’t even mentioned in the headline to the one article in Cleveland.com that slipped through on the rat plague “Ohio town among Top 10 rat infested cities in US, report says”, an obvious attempt at subterfuge. But when you get into the article, the ugly truth comes out: “Cleveland, Ohio, ranks as the 10th rattiest city in the U.S., according to the Top 50 Rattiest Cities List from Orkin, a national pest control company. Cleveland ranked 10th on Orkin’s list in 2023 and ninth in 2022.” (Link below.)
NEWS ANALYSIS
This data point on Cleveland’s rat infestation lands as just another of a growing crescendo of telling metrics demonstrating the unwillingness and ineffectiveness of the city’s political and civic “leadership” to focus on quality-of-life effects on city residents.
Poverty remains endemic, urban public schools underperform, rapid transit is anemic, streets are patently unsafe, the protective tree canopy is decimated, building code compliance and enforcement are abysmal, affordable housing to purchase is nonexistent, rents are rapidly rising, taxpayer subsidized luxury development is driving up property values and taxes on cash-strapped homeowners, the infection of predatory corporate residential property ownership continues to grow and fester, kids are still being poisoned by lead, living wage jobs with benefits accessible to city residents are scant and disinvestment in forgotten neighborhoods continues unabated (pun intended.)
But we’ll certainly have a stupidly expensive and colossally unnecessary land bridge, now, won’t we?
And the wild-eyed breathless bloviating boosters will still effervescently extol the region’s undeniable virtues and assets, while doggedly explaining away, obfuscating, and otherwise turning a blind eye to the city’s decades old intractable social problems and attendant human suffering that won’t be alleviated until the quality of life of its residents becomes a priority for the City on a par with corporate profits, City tax revenues and the nonprofits’ endowments.
I wonder if Cleveland’s taxpayers really understand how much of their tax money ends up in the pockets of multi-millionaires and billionaires who don’t and would never live in the city proper? The lawyers, developers, construction companies, insurance brokerages, banks, private equity investors, landlords, consultants, and sports franchise owners that extract gargantuan fees, salaries, subsidies, expenses, bonuses, profits and overall economic value from the City and its assets and deposit their rapacious winnings in bank accounts far flung from Cleveland.
I’ve been told by inside people that understand these things that it’s a very, very big number. “Cleveland is open for business!” crowed our effusive mayor soon after his election. No kidding.
Maybe the City of Cleveland doesn’t have the inclination or the money to fix its intractable problems simply because the City is just too darn focused on making wealthy people that don’t live in the city wealthier.
