Why do you live in Cleveland?

In a rather surreptitious turn of events WCPN (the local National Public Radio Station - or as most in Ohio call it, Hippie Liberal Media - kidding! Or am I?) aired a piece on their daily local morning show called "The Sound of Ideas"entitled "The Soul of Northeast Ohio Communities" which simply asked, what are the local assets that the region currently contains? The basis of the conversation is the results of a three year Knight Foundation study.

Also as part of my inbox I received an email entitled "Why do you love the place you live?" (Grist) which utilized the results of a recent Gallup Survey entitled "Soul of the Community". If I could pull a quote from the Grist Article of the poll:

Year after year, what comes to the top of the list is not economic opportunity or other "practical" factors -- but instead the things that are much more intangible and yet still deeply felt. Things like friendliness and beauty:

Social offerings are the top driver of attachment in 2010, not only across all 26 communities, but also in every community individually. This includes the availability of arts and cultural opportunities, availability of social community events, the community's nightlife, whether the community is a good place to meet people, and whether people in the community care about each other.

A community's openness is the second most important factor to residents. This is regarding whether residents view their communities as good places for different groups, including older people, families with children, young adults without children, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and young, talented college graduates looking for work.

A community's aesthetics -- in terms of its overall physical beauty and the availability of parks, playgrounds, and trails -- is the third most powerful driver of community attachment. A community's education offerings are the fourth most important driver, which include ratings of local colleges and universities and public K-12 education.

Which is a rather interesting thought. So I come back to the original question, "Why Cleveland?" Sure, its cheap to live here and there are some great restaurants, and the lake is fun, the parks are fantastic and there are some really amazing neighborhoods and tons of potential. But is that enough? Is it?

-ps, Sound of Ideas still has Multhrop's photo, which makes me sad, I don't mind the new guy, but I had grown to really like good ol' Dan.