DECLINE AND FALL

...The pitfalls in this corporate strategy have become apparent to scattered politicians in Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Newark, but it is only in Cleveland that the strategy has been challenged directly by city hall...

...But the debate must also address questions that concern all the cities that have become laboratories for the corporate strategy...

...Forbes declared that the city could not function "without the cooperation of the banks and corporations...

...Some of Kucinich's supporters recognized that the administration could not promise growth or political stability...

...Kucinich argued that it would eventually have to be financed through funds that should be used to improve the city's regular transportation system...

...After constant battles with the police and a hostile city council, Stokes decided in 1971 that he would not seek a third term...

...Walker, the publisher of the Cleveland Call and Post...

...During the mayoral campaign, Kucinich also relied on what his campaign manager...

...And he threatened a suit against a savings-and-Ioan association guilty of redlining...

...It is likely Kucinich and his followers were right: Cities will continue to deteriorate under the corporate tax abatement strategy—but they will also continue to deteriorate if firms choose to expand elsewhere...

...We were going from crash program to crash program...

...As their inhabitants have become poorer and more in need of public aid...

...The two got to work together...

...In the aftermath of 1966 riots, downtown Clevelanders helped make Carl Stokes the first black mayor of a major American city...

...They have lost manufacturing jobs to the South and West, and population to the growing suburbs...

...The MUNY Light victory reflected support for a particular Kucinich policy, but not for his administration...

...Its property tax receipts declined by 30 per cent from 1961 to 1977...

...He's fighting too many of them...

...And with blacks and whites torn apart by busing, crime, and the division of the shrinking public budget, does urban populism have a political strategy that can bring blacks and whites together in a united effort...

...Race politics," Weissman explained, "simply proceeds with a recognition of the widespread nature of racist feeling and attempts at the least to avoid losing political support on the basis of racist feeling...

...He praised Kucinich for appointing four blacks to his twelve-member cabinet and for his economic policies...

...It made Cleveland a national political laboratory, putting to the test a significant political question, 'Can a city government, based on the support of the poor and working people, increase services, improve the standard of living and quality of life, and survive politically without the support of big business and even with active opposition?' " —Dennis J. Kucinich, speech to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C, September27,1978 Cleveland voters answered Dennis Kucinich's question on election day in November...

...When busing began last September, he refused to issue a statement urging peaceful desegregation...

...Should we be so pious that we allow ourselves to be done in...

...These organizations would provide the administration with an active base and would give people some hope in the future...

...In the MUNY Light referendum, Kucinich was able to direct people's anger toward the banks...

...The ghetto riots of the 1960s and the recession of the mid-1970s finally forced downtown business executives John Judis is the political editor of In These Times and a frequent contributor to The Progressive...

...Its population has declined from 914,000 to 600,000...

...The electorate can tolerate hardship," OPIC Associate Director Paul Ryder said, "but only if they see better delivery of services or the development of organization...

...But it is clear that Kucinich's urban populism could not surmount Cleveland's racial barriers...

...Most important was the failure of Kucinich's urban populist strategy to overcome black-white divisions in Cleveland...

...True to his ethnic base and to his conviction that busing would drive both whites and blacks to the suburbs, Kucinich consistently opposed Cleveland's comprehensive school busing program...

...I'm a straight Democrat, but you can't tell people with money to go to hell...

...Under the business-dominated but corrupt Perk administration, Cleveland's short-term debt rose from $29 million to $144 million...

...They said No, Industrial cities of the Midwest and Northeast, which were centers of immigration and expansion in the late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth, have been foundering since the 1950s...

...As Urban League Director William K. Wolfe pointed out in an interview, Cleveland resembles a small Southern town: Its whites and blacks are divided both geographically and psychologically by the Cuyahoga River that runs through the middle of the city...

...His main backing came from Cleveland's ethnic associations...

...Control of the city passed to Ralph Perk, who marshaled white ethnic sentiment on his behalf...

...Voinovich's well-financed campaign, combined with steady press criticism of Kucinich in editorials and notoriously biased news stories, did have an effect on many voters...

...Instead, he received 45 per cent...

...Continuing economic stagnation has imperiled this strategy, but it also has inherent structural flaws: The tax income derived from the relatively small influx of new city-dwellers does not necessarily balance the loss in property tax revenues and the increased costs of downtown city services...

...He also blamed Kucinich for the city's financial crisis and faltering services...

...along with a proposal to increase the income tax...

...In the November runoff, Kucinich tried to win the black votes that had gone to Russo...

...The other side plays race politics," Weissman said...

...the hospitals continue to close...

...In December 1978, the five main Cleveland banks, led by Brock Weir's Cleveland Trust, refused to refinance $14 million in city notes...

...It is, but it's our only way to keep some check on that...

...Weissman blamed the administration's failure to develop organizations on the constant challenges faced...

...He survived one threat to his power in an August 1978 recall vote and another in a vote last February on the city's public power plant, but in November he was soundly defeated by Republican Lieutenant Governor George Voinovich, the darling of Cleveland's elite, who received 56 per cent of the vote...

...But as an urban populist, Kucinich could not continue to rely on middle-class and upper-middle-class white voters...

...Little bittie people are beautiful, but they don't have the money...

...He fought Stokes's attempt to sell MUNY Light and quarreled with Perk over a proposed (and, as it turned out, unnecessary) jetport, a $14 million tax abatement to a downtown developer, and the sale of the city's assets...

...In 1969, the twenty-three-year-old Kucinich was elected to Cleveland's city council, where he blended ethnic concerns (he was an early foe of busing and of Stokes's attempt to raise taxes and reform the police) and economic populism...

...Stokes came in from New York to campaign for Kucinich...

...In the September primary, Kucinich won the endorsement of CORK, the anti-busing group...

...After Kucinich had fired Cleveland's popular police chief, Richard Hongisto, his downtown opponents, aided by City Council President George Forbes, organized the recall against him, which he survived by a scant 236 votes...

...It is not clear Kucinich could have overcome his East Side liabilities without creating new disaffection on the West Side...

...But neighborhood organization probably would not have made much immediate difference in the black wards, and even on the West Side it would initially have appealed primarily to the already converted...

...The most significant reason for Kucinich's defeat was the power of the banks...

...On February 27, the voters gave 60 per cent approval to the mayor's stand on MUNY Light...

...Decline and fall Cleveland says No to Kucinich's experiment in 'urban populism' John Judis "The November 1977 Cleveland mayoral election brought about a shift in the center of power, from the major corporate interests, the banks, the utilities, the real estate trusts, to the poor and working Clevelanders...

...Much of the debate over Kucinich's loss focuses on specifics of his administration and campaign: Should he have dismissed several unpopular aides...

...Since 1947, it has lost about 150,000 jobs, mostly in manufacturing...

...When you think what the Kucinich administration has cost the city, the cost is astronomical," AFL-CIO head Mel Witt, a Republican, said...

...But we weren't given two years...

...Weir reportedly let it be known that his bank would only roll over the loans if Kucinich agreed to sell MUNY Light to CEI, a private utility...

...in some cities, they even boosted black politicians into the mayor's office...

...To pay off city bills, Perk sold the city's transportation system, zoo, hospital, and sewage system, and was preparing to unload MUNY Light, its publicly owned electrical utility, when he was defeated for re-election in 1977...

...Last summer, he vetoed a $30,000 city council appropriation to distribute a Federal pro-busing film...

...One Kucinich leaflet was headed, "Black Democrats Endorse Republican for Mayor," and displayed prominent photos of Forbes and former School Board President Arnold Pinkney...

...Kucinich was also hampered by a certain vagueness in his urban populism...

...Some who had supported Kucinich and his policies were plunged into doubt and confusion...

...But he also received some anti-corruption business support, and was even endorsed by the influential Cleveland Plain Dealer...

...While insisting that this administration was not "antibusiness," he failed to convince Clevelanders that he had a strategy for job growth and improved social services...

...He vetoed a series of tax abatements passed by the city council on grounds that they were simply giveaways to developers...

...Kucinich's opposition to tax abatements and to the sale of MUNY Light was a critical factor...

...Since the early 1970s, such black leaders as Forbes and Walker have allied themselves with downtown business...

...in 1977, he won with more than 60 per cent of the white vote but only 37 per cent of the black vote...

...But other factors greased the way for the banks' and corporations' success...

...Even among the progressive black leaders who supported Kucinich, there was a feeling that Kucinich was the better of two not wholly desirable candidates...

...For the present, at least, the experiment is over, and Clevelanders will have to endure more years of corporate rule...

...Several politicians allied to Kucinich did win city council seats in the November election, but it is unlikely that they alone will be able to create the necessary base for urban populism...

...He did work behind the scenes to ensure that violence did not occur...

...With manufacturing industries in headlong flight, does urban populism have an alternative strategy for growth...

...The most significant reason for Kucinich's defeat was the power of the banks to cripple the city's finances...

...But Stokes was unable to unite his black constituency with the white ethnics who live on Cleveland's West Side...

...He refused $42 million in Federal funds to build a downtown "people mover" to shuttle the inner-city gentry and suburbanites between luxury shopping malls...

...Dennis is for the common people, but what can the common people do...

...The Congressional study documented extensive links between the banks and CEI...

...These would attract upper-middle-class families back into the cities and provide jobs for the other classes...

...Kucinich's urban populism was and remained a citywide electoral movement largely dominated by one man...

...Kucinich used leaflets on the West Side that appealed to white antagonism toward Forbes...

...Is that pandering to racism...

...Should he have enlisted former mayor Carl Stokes's aid sooner to win the black vote...

...In one lower-income white ethnic ward where Kucinich had won handily in 1977, interviews conducted the weekend before the election turned up these sentiments: H'i'm for Kucinich, but he's too honest...

...When you get hit with politics like that, you play for the backlash...

...Cleveland is the typical Midwest city-in-decline...

...Kucinich sought to unite working-class and poor whites and blacks against tax abatements, civic corruption, and private control of public resources...

...People say a two-year term of office isn't long enough," he said...

...In 1977, Kucinich won the mayor's office on a pledge to end tax abatements, save MUNY Light, and clean up city hall...

...At Kucinich's election-night party, the isolation of the administration from any active base was readily apparent...

...The absence of neighborhood organization is more important in assessing the future of Kucinich's urban populism in Cleveland...

...The Kucinich administration did finally begin to offer business such "incentives" as inexpensive land deals, but it was then caught in a crossfire between its militant rhetoric and the reality of its situation...

...In spite of official agreement with the plan, it was never put into effect...

...As mayor, Kucinich quickly alienated the business community...

...He doesn't have the connections with big business, which is what he needs...

...This made any substantial improvement in city services impossible...

...Without uniform national tax laws and some public control over corporate investment decisions, firms will simply avoid high-tax, mili-tantly populist cities if they have any alternative at all...

...He refused to provide city funds to build a Republic Steel ore dock that would have destroyed the city's port facilities...

...Should he have taken only a one-week break from the campaign after Voinovich's nine-year-old daughter was killed in an accident...

...As expected, Kucinich was soundly defeated in the higher-income wards—he lost by two-to-one a ward that he had won easily in 1977— but he also lost a few lower-income wards and only barely won others...

...Voinovich had support not only from business but from Cleveland's conservative AFL-CIO, its Democratic Party, its newspapers and television stations, and its major black leaders, led by Forbes and W.O...

...To compete with the suburbs and the Sunbelt, the bankers and business leaders proposed tax abatements to induce downtown developers to build new office buildings, luxury high-rise apartments, and shopping malls...

...And if it doesn't, how do urban populists hope to stay in office...

...Except for members of OPIC and some UAW officials, most of the 200 people present were members of the administration who had worked in the campaign...

...f'There's the business people and the common people...

...After the August 1978 recall, several members of OPIC and the UAW reportedly proposed that Kucinich begin developing ward organizations that would be both service-oriented and political...

...Kucinich finally agreed to submit the sale of MUNY Light to the citizens...

...In the September primary, Kucinich faced two principal opponents— Voinovich and City Council Majority Leader Basil Russo, who had the support of Council President Forbes and other prominent blacks...

...The election results confirmed this pattern...

...As a result, the white and ethnic and black neighborhoods continue to deteriorate...

...As Dan Marshall, editor of the forthcoming Battle of Cleveland, noted, there was a certain analogy between Kucinich's fate and that of Chilean President Salvador Allende, whose middle-class support finally eroded under a crippled economy...

...the schools continue to decline...

...Kucinich came in second to Voinovich, barely beating Russo...

...Voinovich attacked Kucinich's youth and inexperience, the arrogance and incompetence of his advisers, and the mayor's hostility toward downtown business interests...

...Kucinich refused, and on December 15, Cleveland became the first big city since the Great Depression to go into default...

...And business has used its black allies to block formation of a populist alliance between working-class blacks and whites...

...Dennis Kucinich, his successor, came from a lower-middle-class, part-Irish, part-Croatian family on Cleveland's West Side...

...In 1977, newly elected Mayor Dennis J. Kucinich challenged it in the name of "urban populism...

...H"You can't run a city without big business...

...and bankers to develop a political and economic strategy for "saving the cities...

...To win re-election in 1979, Kucinich would have needed about 60 per cent of the black vote...

...they are more likely to be taken by highly trained white professionals and by unskilled, poorly paid laborers, clerks, and salespeople...

...The inescapable fact is that a purely local urban populism still remains at the mercy of the banks and corporations...

...Forbes and Walker, however, used Kucinich's stands on busing and his West Side leaflets to create their own backlash on the East Side...

...Subsequently, a staff investigation by the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions concluded that there was evidence to support Kucinich's charge that the banks had acted on political rather than purely financial grounds...

...And the new jobs are not necessarily filled by the blacks or Polish-Americans who have been laid off by auto companies or steel mills...

...their tax base has become less capable of providing such assistance...

...For his efforts, Kucinich earned the ire of Cleveland's banking and corporate elite, who used their power over the city's finances to cripple his administration...

...Their charge that Kucinich was a racist contributed to blacks' lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy...

...Bob Weissman, referred to as "race politics...

...As a traditional white ethnic politi'Some who had supported Kucinich and his policies were plunged into doubt and confusion' cian, Kucinich relied on the undifferentiated white vote and largely ignored the black vote...

...But by the fall, many Clevelanders had concluded that progress would be impossible without the banks' cooperation...

...the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the Ohio Public Interest Campaign (OPIC), a labor-supported coalition to fight plant shutdowns and tax abatements...

...I found similar sentiments in a poor black ward on the East Side: f "Kucinich is too young and inexperienced...

...They also saw that to win reelection, Kucinich would have to polarize both black and white lower-ineome voters against upper-income voters...

...To appease the angry minorities, they advocated reform of the police and racial integration of the labor force...