After World War II, Cleveland was booming, thanks to its leadership role in heavy industry and a business-friendly climate. Today, the city’s high taxes and onerous regulatory demands make it nearly impossible for new businesses to set up shop while choking the life out of existing companies. While relatively laissez-faire cities such as Houston are growing even during the current recession, Cleveland remains stuck in a rut. How can city officials make the city a more welcoming place for entrepreneurs to thrive?
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the fourth of six episodes that will air March 15-19, 2010.
Approximately 10 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.
Should cities be in the business of running businesses ranging from convention centers to farmers markets? Selling off golf courses, contracting out parking concessions, and all manner of public-private partnerships are generating billions of dollars in revenue and dramatically improving city services in places such as Chicago and Indianapolis. Will Cleveland's elected officials learn the right lessons in time?
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the third of six episodes that will air March 15-19, 2010.
Approximately 10 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.
Cleveland’s public schools are failing to prepare students for their futures and as a result, all parents who can afford to have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades. Yet some urban schools, like Think College Now in Oakland, California are finding out that a combination of administrative autonomy and accountability can lead to amazing results. Within Cleveland's own boundaries, charter schools are booming and delivering quality education at a fraction of the cost of traditional public schools. Does Cleveland have what it takes to fundamentally reform its K-12 education system and become a leader in 21st-century education?
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the second of six episodes that will air March 15-19, 2010.
Approximately 10 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.
Sixty years ago, Cleveland was a booming city full of promise, opportunity, and people. Today, the city’s population is less half of what it was in its prime and it ranks as one of the poorest big cities in the United States. Hometown hero Drew Carey reflects on how the city became “the mistake on the lake” and wonders about the city’s future. Is a Cleveland renaissance possible or is the city doomed to long, slow death?
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the first of six episodes that will air between March 15-19, 2010.
The next episode, Fix the Schools, will go live at noon ET today.
Approximately 5 minutes long. Scroll down for iPod, HD, and audio versions of this video.
Click above to watch Drew introduce the series that just might save his hometown. And yours.
Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey is an original Reason.tv documentary series that will air during the week of March 15-19.
Featuring sitcom legend, Price Is Right host, and proud Clevelander Drew Carey, each 10-minute episode investigates and analyzes the problems that turned Cleveland from the nation's sixth-largest city in 1950 into today's "Mistake On The Lake."
Like all too many American cities, Cleveland seems locked into a death spiral, shedding people, jobs, and dreams like nobody's business. When it comes to education, business climate, redevelopment, and more, Clevelanders have come to expect the worse. Is a renaissance possible? Of course it is, but only if the city's leaders and residents are willing to learn from other cities such as Houston, Chicago, Oakland, and Indianapolis. And only if they're willing to try new approaches to old problems.
Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie narrates and talks with educators, elected officials, businesspeople, policy experts, and residents from all walks of life. Stay tuned for a documentary series that maps a route back to prosperity and growth not just for Cleveland but for other once-great American cities.
Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday.
Full release schedule:
Episode 1: The Decline of a Once-Great City (March 15)
Sixty years ago, Cleveland was a booming city full of promise, opportunity, and people. Today, the city’s population is less half of what it was in its prime and it ranks as one of the poorest big cities in the United States. Hometown hero Drew Carey reflects on how the city became “the mistake on the lake” and wonders about the city’s future. Is a Cleveland renaissance possible or is the city doomed to long, slow death?
Episode 2: Fix the Schools (March 15)
Cleveland’s public schools are failing to prepare students for their future and as a result, all parents who can afford to have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades. Yet some urban schools, like Think College Now in Oakland, California are finding out that a combination of administrative autonomy and accountability can lead to amazing results. Within Cleveland's own boundaries, charter schools are booming and delivering quality education at a fraction of the cost of traditional public schools. Does Cleveland have what it takes to fundamentally reform its K-12 education system and become a leader in 21st-century education?
Episode 3: Privatize It (March 16)
Should cities be in the business of running businesses ranging from convention centers to farmers markets? Selling off golf courses, contracting out parking concessions, and all manner of public-private partnerships are generating billions of dollars in revenue and dramatically improving city services in places such as Chicago and Indianapolis. Will Cleveland's elected officials learn the right lessons in time?
Episode 4: Take Care of Business (March 17)
After World War II, Cleveland was booming, thanks to its leadership role in heavy industry and a business-friendly climate. Today, the city’s high taxes and onerous regulatory demands make it nearly impossible for new businesses to set up shop while choking the life out of existing companies. While relatively laissez-faire cities such as Houston are growing even during the current recession, Cleveland remains stuck in a rut. How can city officials make the city a more welcoming place for entrepreneurs to thrive?
Cleveland has spent billions on big-ticket urban redevelopment efforts including heavily subsidized sports stadiums and convention centers that have utterly failed to revitalize the city’s economy. Should the city be pouring even more money into and pinning yet higher hopes on long-odds mega-projects? Or should they realize that bottom-up projects driven by the actual residents and private-sector investors are the best was to build a vibrant city for the long haul?
Episode 6: Bring Back the People (March 19)
No city can exist without people, and Cleveland has lost more than half its population since the 1950s. Yet the city still boasts amazingly affordable neighborhoods, down-to-earth charm, arich history, a stunning and varied landscape, and diverse ethnic and cultural scenes. How can Cleveland can become a destination where people flock to pursue their personal versions of the American Dream?
Click below to watch Drew Carey talk about his hopes and dreams for Cleveland—and why he wishes he could film The Price Is Right there.
"I don't like regulations," says Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist who blogs daily at AdviceGoddess.com. "I like to shame people into behaving better."
Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with Alkon to discuss her new book, I See Rude People: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society. Alkon explains how she and others mix chutzpah with technology to fight back against the insane drivers, coffee-house yackers, and subway perverts who make our lives miserable.
Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick. Edited by Alex Manning. Music: "I Think I Started a Trend," by Brad Sucks (Magnatune Records).
Just under 10 minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.
On Febuary 11, 2010, Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch appeared on Fox Buisness's Stossel to discuss what caused the government's budget crisis and whether public employee unions are making it worse.
The Reason Foundation's Director of Economic Research Anthony Randazzo joins a panel to discuss whether banking reform will avert another crisis on Al Jazeera on December 15, 2009.
On March 11, 2010, Reason Foundation 's Director of Government Reform, Leonard Gilroy appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch to discuss the option of privatizing public works for cash-strapped cities.
Hyper-partisans and rhetorical extremists on the left and the right—characters such as Reps. Alan Grayson and Michele Bachmann, commentators such as Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck—are not simply polarizing the debate, argues Avlon, who is a regular presence on CNN and a columnist for The Daily Beast.
Far more importantly (and destructively), they are obscuring the fact that the U.S. electorate is, in the main, proto-libertarian. Independents are the fastest-growing group of voters, says Avlon and, "They tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal to libertarian." Avlon is also the author of Independent Nation: How Centrism Can Change American Politics.
Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Avlon in Reason's D.C. offices. Filmed by Dan Hayes and Meredith Bragg; edited by Bragg. Approximately 10 minutes.
Former Reason magazine Editor in Chief Virginia Postrel has seen the strengths and the shortcomings of the American health care system both as a kidney donor and a breast cancer survivor.
She argues that individuals should be free to sell their organs, and that encouraging organ markets may be the best way to save the lives of the more than 100,000 Americans currently awaiting transplants. A 2009 article Postrel wrote for the Atlantic Monthly highlights her experience with the ultra-expensive wonder drug, Herceptin, and the perils of centrally controlling health care costs.
Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with Postrel to discuss organ markets, wonder drugs, and how to reform health care without squashing innovation.
Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Hawk Jensen and Paul Detrick. Edited by Paul Detrick. Music: "Something New" by Very Large Array (Magnatune Records).
Approximately nine-and-a-half minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.
To see Reason.tv's health care play-list, go here.
The Editor in Chief of Deepglamour.net and former Editor in Chief of Reason magazine points out that glamour, which originally meant a literal magic spell "that promises to to transcend ordinary life and make the ideal real," is especially powerful when applied to the world of politics.
Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with Virginia Postrel to find out how glamour fuels voters' expectations, which modern political figures are glamourous (Barack is, Sarah isn't), and why glamour is both an advantage and a burden.
Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Hawk Jensen and Paul Detrick. Edited by Paul Detrick.
Music: "You Got Something" by Grayson Wray (Magnatune Records). About eight minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.
Postrel, an organ donor and cancer survivor, talks to Reason.tv about health care reform here.
