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Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland
In the 1960s, Cleveland suffered through racial violence, spiking crime rates, and a shrinking tax base, as the city lost jobs and population. Rats infested an expanding and decaying ghetto, Lake Erie appeared to be dying, and dangerous air pollution hung over the city. Such was the urban crisis in the "Mistake on the Lake." When the Cuyahoga River caught fire in the summer of 1969, the city was at its nadir, polluted and impoverished, struggling to set a new course. The burning river became the emblem of all that was wrong with the urban environment in Cleveland and in all of industrial America.
Carl Stokes, the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city, had come into office in Cleveland a year earlier with energy and ideas. He surrounded himself with a talented staff, and his administration set new policies to combat pollution, improve housing, provide recreational opportunities, and spark downtown development. In Where the River Burned, David Stradling and Richard Stradling describe Cleveland's nascent transition from polluted industrial city to viable service city during the Stokes administration.
The story culminates with the first Earth Day in 1970, when broad citizen engagement marked a new commitment to the creation of a cleaner, more healthful and appealing city. Although concerned primarily with addressing poverty and inequality, Stokes understood that the transition from industrial city to service city required massive investments in the urban landscape. Stokes adopted ecological thinking that emphasized the connectedness of social and environmental problems and the need for regional solutions. He served two terms as mayor, but during his four years in office Cleveland's progress fell well short of his administration s goals. Although he was acutely aware of the persistent racial and political boundaries that held back his city, Stokes was in many ways ahead of his time in his vision for Cleveland and a more livable urban America."
Carl Stokes, the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city, had come into office in Cleveland a year earlier with energy and ideas. He surrounded himself with a talented staff, and his administration set new policies to combat pollution, improve housing, provide recreational opportunities, and spark downtown development. In Where the River Burned, David Stradling and Richard Stradling describe Cleveland's nascent transition from polluted industrial city to viable service city during the Stokes administration.
The story culminates with the first Earth Day in 1970, when broad citizen engagement marked a new commitment to the creation of a cleaner, more healthful and appealing city. Although concerned primarily with addressing poverty and inequality, Stokes understood that the transition from industrial city to service city required massive investments in the urban landscape. Stokes adopted ecological thinking that emphasized the connectedness of social and environmental problems and the need for regional solutions. He served two terms as mayor, but during his four years in office Cleveland's progress fell well short of his administration s goals. Although he was acutely aware of the persistent racial and political boundaries that held back his city, Stokes was in many ways ahead of his time in his vision for Cleveland and a more livable urban America."
264 pages, Hardcover
First published March 5, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 5, 2019
I ended up liking the book a lot, but in first few chapters I couldn’t get a clear idea where it was going. If it had started with the burning river and then backtracked to the Stokes administration, it might have made sense to me earlier. I suppose though I’m not the audience they were aiming at since I knew so little about Cleveland. I live in a suburb (one of the “little kingdoms”) I but have only lived here two years. I had to look up just about everything on a map or on the net. I don’t even remember the burning river controversy (though I've heard since I moved here). I do remember Carl Stokes. Cleveland had some of the issues I’d run across in Robert Caro's book on Robert Moses in NY (freeways destroying neighborhoods etc.). It has seemed to me since I moved here that the entire county should be one unit, not 69 or whatever the number is, but clearly my neighbors would hate that POV. This book also illustrates an issue I’ve seen elsewhere in the country, the struggle between state government and the cities. I happened to live in a very large city that for the most part considered the state a minor inconvenience. Cleveland is too small for that.... It’s ironic that the industries that caused the river to burn left town and necessitated the switch to a service economy.
I thought there was more need of illustrations that show locations, of neighborhoods, of factories etc. but that may just be me.
The Chlorine Beaches were the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of!
I thought there was more need of illustrations that show locations, of neighborhoods, of factories etc. but that may just be me.
The Chlorine Beaches were the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of!
January 29, 2026
I remember when, as a kid, my parents first told me about the Cuyahoga river catching fire - I couldn’t believe it. Is it embarrassing for Cleveland? Certainly. But honestly, as far as city lore goes? Iconic.
It’s the late 60s, a year before the National Guard killed 4 students at Kent state. The country, and especially Cleveland, are in the midst of an urban crisis. And Cleveland has just elected the first black mayor of any major American city. Then, boom, river fire.
This book does an incredible job showing how, what was at the time a pretty minor event (our river has been catching fire since the late 1800s folks - nothing new to see here), evolved into a rallying cry for the environmental movement and became the folklore us NE Ohioans embrace with pride.
It’s also an incredible story about how Carl Stokes navigated so many major crises all happening at the same time.
And yes, the book ends with a shoutout to The Burning River Pale Ale.
It’s the late 60s, a year before the National Guard killed 4 students at Kent state. The country, and especially Cleveland, are in the midst of an urban crisis. And Cleveland has just elected the first black mayor of any major American city. Then, boom, river fire.
This book does an incredible job showing how, what was at the time a pretty minor event (our river has been catching fire since the late 1800s folks - nothing new to see here), evolved into a rallying cry for the environmental movement and became the folklore us NE Ohioans embrace with pride.
It’s also an incredible story about how Carl Stokes navigated so many major crises all happening at the same time.
And yes, the book ends with a shoutout to The Burning River Pale Ale.
October 8, 2020
Among the worst of them all is the 80 mile-long Cuyahoga. Some River! Chocolatey-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gasses, it oozes rather than flows. ~ Time Magazine
Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland by David Stradling and Richard Stradling is a history of Cleveland in the late 1960s. David Stradling is a professor of urban and environmental history at Cincinnati University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Richard Stradling is an editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
I grew up in Cleveland in a Polish neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s. My neighborhood was very ethnic with many of the older residents still speaking the language of the home country. I enjoyed growing up there and although I have not been back in over twenty-five years, Cleveland is still my city. What was so great growing up there? I would be hard pressed to say anything more than sentimental reasons. We had the worst school system in the state. We had a marginal football team and baseball team that never seemed to break 500. We used to fish for jumbo perch near off the 72nd Street pier, but pollution killed the fish. The steel mills and Municipal Light and Power seemed to darken the skies with pollution. But as kids, we played football and baseball on the red brick streets and there seemed to be something magical about growing up on Vineyard Avenue on the southeast side of town.
Yes, the Cuyahoga River did catch on fire in 1969. It was a major news outside of the city. Those in Cleveland knew the river had caught fire several times in the past. Cleveland grew fast and with fast growing cities there is rapid development and little planning until there are problems. Problems caught up to Cleveland in the 1960s.
Cleveland is now, and was then too, very segregated. Even in white neighborhoods it was segregated ethnically. The main problem, however, was black and white. Blacks were located in several poor areas of the city including Hough which was the site of rioting. Hough was at a time a very nice neighborhood, but people moved out, the tax base was reduced, businesses followed and eventually it became a ghetto. Race issues and poverty became a major problem for the city. One program with some success was the rat eradication program. The poorer areas of the city were heavily infested with rats.
Pollution was another major problem. I have memories as very young child of swimming in Lake Erie's Edgewater Park, before the pollution closed the beaches. Imagine a city on a lake, but without any water recreation because of the pollution and algae blooms. Coliform bacteria make the water unsafe for swimming and recreation. 1000/ml was the coliform limit that closed beaches. Some areas along the shore reached 110,000/ml. Mayor Carl Stokes wanted to open beaches again he fought to clean up the Cuyahoga and Lake Erie. He had some success, but nowhere near enough. The city came up with a plan to open beaches. Essentially an area (White City Beach) was sectioned off by pontoons and weighted plastic curtains. The area was treated with chlorine nightly, 350lbs/night, to keep the bacteria count low enough to open the beaches. Stokes and his staff were there to swim along with the public. This approach was called "a pool in the lake" and was something the city was quite proud of. In hindsight, this sounds rather ridiculous. Essentially it is dumping poison into a lake to kill other poisons. On the positive side, it did open portions of the lake to the public and was much cheaper than the billion plus dollars of cleaning up the lake -- Money that no one had.
Earthday plays a large role in this book also. The air pollution and water pollution were major problems. On the first Earth Day in 1970, Cleveland school children wrote the mayor about pollution. I was in kindergarten at the time and we drew posters that were going to be sent to the mayor. I drew a rocket, billowing smoke as it was taking off. After drawing and coloring it, I was told rockets used hydrogen and oxygen as fuel so it wasn't really pollution, but rockets were cool.
Where the River Burned concentrates its history on Mayor Carl Stokes terms as mayor. It was a critical time in the city's history and Carl Stokes was energetic and determined to fix the city. He seemed to be that rare honest person who cared more for his city than he did for politics. He was from that poverty stricken east side and he rose to become the first black mayor of a major US city. He reminds me of President Ford who walked into so many problems when he assumed office and diligently worked to fix them. It was a superhuman task in both cases, but the men put their duty ahead of personal gain. These were not only men of integrity, but politicians with integrity. Not perfect but they did their best. Stokes turned down a request from LBJ to come to Washington for an MLK memorial, Stokes, chose to stay in Cleveland in potential hot spots personally working to stop any violence or rioting. Compare that to the next mayor of Cleveland, Perk, whose wife turned down a request First Lady Pat Nixon, because the event was on her bowling night.
Yes, the joke about the river catching fire did get old, and yes I still get asked if the river really did catch on fire. It does not bother me anymore. In Cleveland, they fully recovered from it and take it in stride with a Burning River Pale Ale from a local brewery. The book for me is full of memories, places, and names of Cleveland's movers and shakers. It is a virtual time machine to my much younger days. This is an absolute read for any Cleveland native or those interested in urban pollution and the history of race issues and poverty. Simply outstanding.
Where the River Burned: Carl Stokes and the Struggle to Save Cleveland by David Stradling and Richard Stradling is a history of Cleveland in the late 1960s. David Stradling is a professor of urban and environmental history at Cincinnati University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Richard Stradling is an editor at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
I grew up in Cleveland in a Polish neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s. My neighborhood was very ethnic with many of the older residents still speaking the language of the home country. I enjoyed growing up there and although I have not been back in over twenty-five years, Cleveland is still my city. What was so great growing up there? I would be hard pressed to say anything more than sentimental reasons. We had the worst school system in the state. We had a marginal football team and baseball team that never seemed to break 500. We used to fish for jumbo perch near off the 72nd Street pier, but pollution killed the fish. The steel mills and Municipal Light and Power seemed to darken the skies with pollution. But as kids, we played football and baseball on the red brick streets and there seemed to be something magical about growing up on Vineyard Avenue on the southeast side of town.
Yes, the Cuyahoga River did catch on fire in 1969. It was a major news outside of the city. Those in Cleveland knew the river had caught fire several times in the past. Cleveland grew fast and with fast growing cities there is rapid development and little planning until there are problems. Problems caught up to Cleveland in the 1960s.
Cleveland is now, and was then too, very segregated. Even in white neighborhoods it was segregated ethnically. The main problem, however, was black and white. Blacks were located in several poor areas of the city including Hough which was the site of rioting. Hough was at a time a very nice neighborhood, but people moved out, the tax base was reduced, businesses followed and eventually it became a ghetto. Race issues and poverty became a major problem for the city. One program with some success was the rat eradication program. The poorer areas of the city were heavily infested with rats.
Pollution was another major problem. I have memories as very young child of swimming in Lake Erie's Edgewater Park, before the pollution closed the beaches. Imagine a city on a lake, but without any water recreation because of the pollution and algae blooms. Coliform bacteria make the water unsafe for swimming and recreation. 1000/ml was the coliform limit that closed beaches. Some areas along the shore reached 110,000/ml. Mayor Carl Stokes wanted to open beaches again he fought to clean up the Cuyahoga and Lake Erie. He had some success, but nowhere near enough. The city came up with a plan to open beaches. Essentially an area (White City Beach) was sectioned off by pontoons and weighted plastic curtains. The area was treated with chlorine nightly, 350lbs/night, to keep the bacteria count low enough to open the beaches. Stokes and his staff were there to swim along with the public. This approach was called "a pool in the lake" and was something the city was quite proud of. In hindsight, this sounds rather ridiculous. Essentially it is dumping poison into a lake to kill other poisons. On the positive side, it did open portions of the lake to the public and was much cheaper than the billion plus dollars of cleaning up the lake -- Money that no one had.
Earthday plays a large role in this book also. The air pollution and water pollution were major problems. On the first Earth Day in 1970, Cleveland school children wrote the mayor about pollution. I was in kindergarten at the time and we drew posters that were going to be sent to the mayor. I drew a rocket, billowing smoke as it was taking off. After drawing and coloring it, I was told rockets used hydrogen and oxygen as fuel so it wasn't really pollution, but rockets were cool.
Where the River Burned concentrates its history on Mayor Carl Stokes terms as mayor. It was a critical time in the city's history and Carl Stokes was energetic and determined to fix the city. He seemed to be that rare honest person who cared more for his city than he did for politics. He was from that poverty stricken east side and he rose to become the first black mayor of a major US city. He reminds me of President Ford who walked into so many problems when he assumed office and diligently worked to fix them. It was a superhuman task in both cases, but the men put their duty ahead of personal gain. These were not only men of integrity, but politicians with integrity. Not perfect but they did their best. Stokes turned down a request from LBJ to come to Washington for an MLK memorial, Stokes, chose to stay in Cleveland in potential hot spots personally working to stop any violence or rioting. Compare that to the next mayor of Cleveland, Perk, whose wife turned down a request First Lady Pat Nixon, because the event was on her bowling night.
Yes, the joke about the river catching fire did get old, and yes I still get asked if the river really did catch on fire. It does not bother me anymore. In Cleveland, they fully recovered from it and take it in stride with a Burning River Pale Ale from a local brewery. The book for me is full of memories, places, and names of Cleveland's movers and shakers. It is a virtual time machine to my much younger days. This is an absolute read for any Cleveland native or those interested in urban pollution and the history of race issues and poverty. Simply outstanding.
January 10, 2023
As much as a book on urban studies as it is an environmental history, Where the River Burned focuses on how Cleveland got where it is today — from its transformation as an industrial city to that of a service city and to eventually a sustainable city. Central to that story is the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city: Carl Stokes.
For many in this city, that transformation was painful, a part of a larger nationwide trend of de-urbanization and decentralization of the American city in the 1960s–80s. Such a transformation saw a massive migration of white people out of cities and to the suburbs, leading to population drop, lower tax base, higher crime rate, and overall dejection of the city: and the start of the decline of Cleveland.
As Cleveland tried to tread water during this transformation, it struggled with its own identity crisis: that of a city in transition whose service economy would not absorb the excess labor of manufacturing’s decline. Combined with an environmental crisis, left in industry’s wake, as well as a whole slew of problems related to housing, food, clothing, and racism, Cleveland came to define what the book calls the “urban crisis.”
Using such areas as Hough as a case study, David and Richard Stradling begin exploring the deterioration of neighborhoods at the heart of this crisis, and we get a book that becomes more about political failures and struggles, with cities, counties and other regional entities working together to get federal funding that could solve some of these most pressing challenges.
Mayor Stokes sums up these problems perfectly: “The city which is a monument to man’s ingenuity and enterprise, the rich repository of great commercial, cultural and educational achievements, is also a monument to man’s neglect and failures in the areas of deteriorated housing, air and water pollution, race relations, inadequate health care, high unemployment rates, inadequate mass transportation, high crime rates and insufficient attention to the problems of our senior citizens.”
Perhaps most interesting, at least to a student of environmentalism, was the legacy of water pollution in the greater Cleveland area, an issue that has come to define the city, with its heavy manufacturing, chemical, and processing industries butted up against the Cuyahoga River that spills into Lake Erie.
For years, the government made excuses for this pollution, trading unhealthy waters and smog for reliable jobs: “City leaders fretted over pollution not for the river’s sake but because it put others at financial risk.” Though there were various attempts to clean up such deadly discharge, the government rarely attacked the source, preferring to treat the symptoms instead of the source.
It’s a tale as old as time with industry giants like Republic, U.S. Steel, Sherwin Williams, a nd Harshaw Chemical paying their way out of regulation, while the city, choked by lack of resources and a complex political system that made it easy to shirk blame, struggled to do anything about it: “Cleveland was dealing with the environmental and urban crises at the same time, and both were wreaking chaos and sparking calls for greater regulatory control.”
It wasn’t until the 1969 Cuyahoga fire, which coincided with the first Earth Day and a greater concern for the environment, that the alarm bell finally went off — though not initially and often with other factors in mind.
“The 1969 fire represented a real transition,” they write. “Not concerning the river’s ability to burn but having to do with Americans’ understanding of ecology, their tolerance of pollution and their attribution of deeper meaning to a burning river.”
Where the River Burned is about a city in transition, one that decades later is still struggling to find its identity in a post-industrial era, but one, through the struggles of not only environmental crises but also urban crises, is pushing forward nonetheless.
It is the intersection of these crises that make this story worth telling, and an intersection that the authors hark back to again and again: “Lost in… most other retellings of the Cuyahoga fire is the deeper history of the polluted river and previous fires. Lost too is the broader context of the fire — the crisis in the urban environment, with its smoke, rats, decay, and concentrated poverty.”
It is at the heart of Mayor Carl Stokes’ platform and approach to solving the city’s problems, no matter how great, echoed in a quote by the mayor that resonates with the city, even generations later: “We were trying.”
For many in this city, that transformation was painful, a part of a larger nationwide trend of de-urbanization and decentralization of the American city in the 1960s–80s. Such a transformation saw a massive migration of white people out of cities and to the suburbs, leading to population drop, lower tax base, higher crime rate, and overall dejection of the city: and the start of the decline of Cleveland.
As Cleveland tried to tread water during this transformation, it struggled with its own identity crisis: that of a city in transition whose service economy would not absorb the excess labor of manufacturing’s decline. Combined with an environmental crisis, left in industry’s wake, as well as a whole slew of problems related to housing, food, clothing, and racism, Cleveland came to define what the book calls the “urban crisis.”
Using such areas as Hough as a case study, David and Richard Stradling begin exploring the deterioration of neighborhoods at the heart of this crisis, and we get a book that becomes more about political failures and struggles, with cities, counties and other regional entities working together to get federal funding that could solve some of these most pressing challenges.
Mayor Stokes sums up these problems perfectly: “The city which is a monument to man’s ingenuity and enterprise, the rich repository of great commercial, cultural and educational achievements, is also a monument to man’s neglect and failures in the areas of deteriorated housing, air and water pollution, race relations, inadequate health care, high unemployment rates, inadequate mass transportation, high crime rates and insufficient attention to the problems of our senior citizens.”
Perhaps most interesting, at least to a student of environmentalism, was the legacy of water pollution in the greater Cleveland area, an issue that has come to define the city, with its heavy manufacturing, chemical, and processing industries butted up against the Cuyahoga River that spills into Lake Erie.
For years, the government made excuses for this pollution, trading unhealthy waters and smog for reliable jobs: “City leaders fretted over pollution not for the river’s sake but because it put others at financial risk.” Though there were various attempts to clean up such deadly discharge, the government rarely attacked the source, preferring to treat the symptoms instead of the source.
It’s a tale as old as time with industry giants like Republic, U.S. Steel, Sherwin Williams, a nd Harshaw Chemical paying their way out of regulation, while the city, choked by lack of resources and a complex political system that made it easy to shirk blame, struggled to do anything about it: “Cleveland was dealing with the environmental and urban crises at the same time, and both were wreaking chaos and sparking calls for greater regulatory control.”
It wasn’t until the 1969 Cuyahoga fire, which coincided with the first Earth Day and a greater concern for the environment, that the alarm bell finally went off — though not initially and often with other factors in mind.
“The 1969 fire represented a real transition,” they write. “Not concerning the river’s ability to burn but having to do with Americans’ understanding of ecology, their tolerance of pollution and their attribution of deeper meaning to a burning river.”
Where the River Burned is about a city in transition, one that decades later is still struggling to find its identity in a post-industrial era, but one, through the struggles of not only environmental crises but also urban crises, is pushing forward nonetheless.
It is the intersection of these crises that make this story worth telling, and an intersection that the authors hark back to again and again: “Lost in… most other retellings of the Cuyahoga fire is the deeper history of the polluted river and previous fires. Lost too is the broader context of the fire — the crisis in the urban environment, with its smoke, rats, decay, and concentrated poverty.”
It is at the heart of Mayor Carl Stokes’ platform and approach to solving the city’s problems, no matter how great, echoed in a quote by the mayor that resonates with the city, even generations later: “We were trying.”
July 14, 2019
A must read for anyone wanting to learn about Cleveland, and cities like it, as they were basically forced to transition from primarily industrial economies to service economies. The Stradlings do a fantastic job linking the urban crisis that emerged in the 60s to the environmental one. And it's fascinating to learn how Carl Stokes and his administration attempted to navigate so much turmoil.
The Stradlings jump around a lot in time, which I can see why, but in the end I think the book would have been clearer if they stuck with a linear timeline. The epilogue, bringing us to Cleveland in 2014-15, was a little surfacy as well. But these are minor quibbles -this book is well worth it.
"Cleveland was built in a hurry but was dismantled even more quickly." (page 5)
"The urban environment had been devastated - both its natural features and its neighborhoods. And over the next two summers both would burn." (page 8)
"Never before had a nation thrived -grown in population and in wealth - while its major cities decayed." (page 8)
page 16- good overview of contributions to 60's environmental movement - growing awareness of ecology, rise of liberal politics, heightened women's political activism, developing counterculture, and suburbanization (helped drive open space protection), and also the growing urban crisis which the environmental crisis was a major contributor.
"The transition from livable service cities to lasting sustainable cities promises to be just as disruptive as the one described in the Where the River Burned, and it will undoubtedly create a new urban crisis... Cleveland, finally finding its legs in the service economy, is hard at work remaking itself again as a sustainable city." (page 17)
"Some fifty years earlier, Progressive Era reformers had expressed an environmentalist understanding of poverty and impoverished places, arguing that degraded places created degraded people... By the 1960s, the causal arrows had shifted for many observers, who, like the City Council, were now more likely to blame the bad behavior of residents for the quality of their environment." (page 55)
"Clearly the early 1970s push for regional environmental management had a limited impact on local government, but the spread of ecological knowledge continued along with calls for a regional approach. The effort reached a new apogee in 1993, when freelance writer and editor David Beach published the first issue of EcoCity Cleveland, a 16-page newsletter with articles about brownfields, PCBs, wind farms, sustainable development, and the Cuyahoga River Suffocation Zone..." (page 196)
"... as a result of the Cuyahoga fire and other incidents, 'Clevelanders seem to suffer from a type of urban insecurity.' In 1989, city officials opted not to participate in an event marking the 20th anniversary of the fire, a river cruise... even as some Clevelanders began to take ownership of the fire through remembrance, Dale R. Finley, president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland, lamented the continued attention: 'I just wonder how long do we have to go before we don't have to continually bring up that there was a brief fire on a river 20 years ago?'" (page 207)
"... the (50th) anniversary of the fire may bring reflection on how far Cleveland has come from the depths of its crisis in the urban environment. And rightly so. But clearly Cleveland, like all of urban America, is only beginning its transformation to a sustainable city where the production and consumption of energy, food, and other resources puts less of a strain on the natural and social environment. As we work to accelerate the transition to sustainability, surely we can learn much from critical reflection on the events and structures that slowed progress during America's last, long transition." (page 208)
The Stradlings jump around a lot in time, which I can see why, but in the end I think the book would have been clearer if they stuck with a linear timeline. The epilogue, bringing us to Cleveland in 2014-15, was a little surfacy as well. But these are minor quibbles -this book is well worth it.
"Cleveland was built in a hurry but was dismantled even more quickly." (page 5)
"The urban environment had been devastated - both its natural features and its neighborhoods. And over the next two summers both would burn." (page 8)
"Never before had a nation thrived -grown in population and in wealth - while its major cities decayed." (page 8)
page 16- good overview of contributions to 60's environmental movement - growing awareness of ecology, rise of liberal politics, heightened women's political activism, developing counterculture, and suburbanization (helped drive open space protection), and also the growing urban crisis which the environmental crisis was a major contributor.
"The transition from livable service cities to lasting sustainable cities promises to be just as disruptive as the one described in the Where the River Burned, and it will undoubtedly create a new urban crisis... Cleveland, finally finding its legs in the service economy, is hard at work remaking itself again as a sustainable city." (page 17)
"Some fifty years earlier, Progressive Era reformers had expressed an environmentalist understanding of poverty and impoverished places, arguing that degraded places created degraded people... By the 1960s, the causal arrows had shifted for many observers, who, like the City Council, were now more likely to blame the bad behavior of residents for the quality of their environment." (page 55)
"Clearly the early 1970s push for regional environmental management had a limited impact on local government, but the spread of ecological knowledge continued along with calls for a regional approach. The effort reached a new apogee in 1993, when freelance writer and editor David Beach published the first issue of EcoCity Cleveland, a 16-page newsletter with articles about brownfields, PCBs, wind farms, sustainable development, and the Cuyahoga River Suffocation Zone..." (page 196)
"... as a result of the Cuyahoga fire and other incidents, 'Clevelanders seem to suffer from a type of urban insecurity.' In 1989, city officials opted not to participate in an event marking the 20th anniversary of the fire, a river cruise... even as some Clevelanders began to take ownership of the fire through remembrance, Dale R. Finley, president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland, lamented the continued attention: 'I just wonder how long do we have to go before we don't have to continually bring up that there was a brief fire on a river 20 years ago?'" (page 207)
"... the (50th) anniversary of the fire may bring reflection on how far Cleveland has come from the depths of its crisis in the urban environment. And rightly so. But clearly Cleveland, like all of urban America, is only beginning its transformation to a sustainable city where the production and consumption of energy, food, and other resources puts less of a strain on the natural and social environment. As we work to accelerate the transition to sustainability, surely we can learn much from critical reflection on the events and structures that slowed progress during America's last, long transition." (page 208)
December 26, 2025
when I started reading this I didn't expect it to be so academic, so that colored my experience reading the first few chapters. once I realized this was more a work of scholarship than narrative nonfiction, it mostly clicked for me. the good parts: deeply researched and when it clicks it clicks. the chapter about the 1969 river fire is honestly fantastic and it mostly made the preceding four chapters feel worth it, but the book still struggled to condense a clearly dense history into book form.
the hard parts: felt a bit unfocused (it's trying to cover local politics, historiography, environmental policy, urban policy, and industry's role in all of those things, among other topics), tone is academic and fairly dry.
the hard parts: felt a bit unfocused (it's trying to cover local politics, historiography, environmental policy, urban policy, and industry's role in all of those things, among other topics), tone is academic and fairly dry.
September 5, 2019
Incredible. I bought the book to learn more about the Cuyahoga . it is a wonderful timepiece of what the big city was like in 1969. I lived in Cleveland at the time, so some brought back memories yet there was so much more.
June 6, 2024
An interesting account of the struggle over pollution in Cleveland in the 1960s and 1970s. Interesting interactions between the political battle over the environment and other social problems like poverty.
May 19, 2021
A well researched and interesting read to understand this important period in Cleveland’s history.
October 11, 2018
Covers some important ground of Cleveland's environmental work since the days of the river burn. The saga of the Chlorine Beaches is almost unbelievable in its idiocy (and unknown among most of the Clevelanders I talked to while reading it) but it seems the idea was hopeful from the viewpoint of the administration. The book could have been arranged better in order to be clearer as to timeline of activities (for example, I had to re-read the Chlorine Beach chapter 3-4 times to figure out if there were two beaches (there were) and which came first (55th first, Edgewater second). I skipped around and learned a lot but also lost interest in trying to decipher the conclusion the author was trying to make.
April 19, 2016
This is superb urban history. Richard and David Stradling deftly consider the political, racial, business and environmental factors that made Cleveland a notorious example of pollution, and one of the inspirations for the landmark Clean Water Act. The authors liven the narrative with unconventional sources, such as the letters schoolchildren wrote on Earth Day about the industrial filth pouring into the air and water of the city. As in so many American cities, the irony of Cleveland is that the shrinking of the industrial base helped clean up the environment, but at a cost of job loss and depopulation. The book also profiles Carl Stokes, the first African-American mayor of a major U.S. city and someone who vowed to solve so many intractable problems, only to find the fate of his city buffeted by forces mostly beyond his control.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews