As a resident of the Tremont neighborhood, I have been following conversations about the mixed income housing development, Tremont Pointe. I lived on Fairfield Avenue from 2001-2002 when the Valleyview Estates was still inhabited. The neighborhood’s look/feel was more diverse (age-wise, race-wise, income-wise, artist-wise).

I moved away and then returned to the neighborhood in 2004 around the time Valleyview residents were relocated. Valleyview was demolished in 2005. I have noticed some changes in the community since the loss of the public housing project, mostly in attitudes from new residents as to what kind of community Tremont should be and who should live there. It seems to me that many neighbors don't know that many of the Tremont Pointe residents' families have lived in the area for generations prior to their relocation; Ninety-five former Valleyview residents currently live in the new development.

There has been some fear and discussion related to the reintroduction of low-income housing to the community and some positive changes too.

In a context that moves beyond the neighborhood, other HOPE VI developments are popping up in Cleveland and around the nation. The controversy is that city officials seem to encourage these developments in gentrifying neighborhoods, perhaps to make poverty more palpable to higher income individuals who have stayed/returned to center city neighborhoods. How can neighborhoods reconcile the goal of de-concentrating poverty with initiatives to replace public housing in neighborhoods in which property values have significantly increased? Hotel Bruce has elucidated this conundrum better than I have.

Keeping my eye on it.

Feel. Drop the caffeine buzz, the buzz of the cathode ray, the hangover, the career ambitions, the list, the perfect stilettos, the cyber-kin, drop the blizzardnoise off our shoulders like warm rain and feel in silence for bellied clang, yell, whimper.

An excerpt from Systems are Cowards, part of Cleveland poet/author/humanitarian, Kate Sopko's recently released book, Stewards of the Lost Lands.

I recently had a conversation with my boyfriend's mother during which I confessed that I am not dating him for his car. . . just doing my part. He does his part too. He rarely drives his beater of a car choosing transport that is bike heavy and RTA lite.