Mayor Justin Bibb has been trying out a new catchphrase: “Cleveland era.”
He debuted the slogan at last month’s state of the city talk, where it served as shorthand for economic optimism.
“If we’re blessed to get a second term, and as we approach our final year in this first term, it’s time to embrace a new economic agenda,” he told his interviewer, WKYC’s Russ Mitchell. “This is the Cleveland era, where we can build things in Cleveland.”
Bibb took the phrase for another spin at a housing conference this week. The mayor said he was promoting a “Cleveland era for growth and innovation” aimed at aerospace, manufacturing, food and technology businesses.
The next day: “This is the Cleveland era,” he said while unveiling illustrations of Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport’s $1.1 billion makeover.
Bibb used to say that ours is “the era of the mid-sized city” — that is, the era in which middle-tier cities (and perhaps their mayors, too) have something to show the rest of the country. Now he’s gotten more specific about which mid-sized city’s time has come.
In its open-for-business self-assuredness, “Cleveland era” has something in common with the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company’s “Best Location in the Nation” or the Plain Dealer’s 1981 “Cleveland’s a Plum.” Whether it ages better than those is a question for the future.
As an election-year slogan, “Cleveland era” doesn’t quite have the same edge as one that former Mayor Frank Jackson used 20 years ago. When Jackson challenged Mayor Jane Campbell in 2005, his campaign said he had a plan to — yes — “Make Cleveland Great Again.”
