THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF CLEVELAND

Cleveland, Ohio, long the quintessential blue-collar, working-class Am erican city, has been fashioned through a series of periodic transform ations tightly linked to the changing rhythms of the national and glob al economies. After a brief review of the city's historical developmen t, this article explores Cleveland's descent in the face of massive an d traumatic deindustrialization. In the 1990s, as the midwestern econo my has become thoroughly restructured around the prerequisites of post -Fordism, Cleveland has enjoyed an unexpected renaissance, including a n incipient high-technology sector, producer services, and as a center of cultural consumption. A consistent theme throughout is that the de tails of Cleveland's experience can be understood only in reference to the city's changing competitive position; in this light, it offers a lens through which national and global tendencies conjoin in unique lo cal contexts.