not that bad
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9/7/2009
I am from Erie, PA and my wife from Buffalo, NY and believe it or not the economy and jobs are much worse there than in Cleveland metro area. So for those of you complaining about the bad economy; cheer up - things could be even worse! It is true that jobs are very hard to find here. It took me a year and my wife three years to find a good job even with bs degrees. So if you move here be prepared to search for work for a long time. In the meantime, there are low wage/no benefit service & factory jobs to be had to get you by. At the moment there is only one single area of employment where you can be guaranteed to find professional work quickly and that is health care. Nurses, etc can find work here easily. If you are lucky enough to finally find a good job, you are set because Cleve metro area is so cheap to live. If you make 25K and up you can consider yourself rich here, have a decent lifestyle, and you can even afford a home! There may be more jobs in NYC, Boston, ATL, San Fran, or DC - but an average working person can never own a home - you will always be renting.
Don't waste your time trying to work in anything related to manufacturing. Manufacturing here and all over the US is in a death spiral and, unless some major worldwide shift occurs, the future shows nothing but more declines. The big auto plants here are sure to eventually close and then they never hire from the outside anyway. There are some major companies here but, as I said, they are hard to get hired at. Progressive Insurance, Cleveland Clinic, Sherwin Williams, American Greetings, Eaton, some banks and lawfirms. There are allegedly biotech and green technology jobs here but I've never seen them.
For job hunters, don't locate way out in the far suburbs like mentor, elyria, or avon. This is very limiting. They are too far away to be able to reasonably drive to say, the other side of town. Even better - locate between Cleve and Akron so that you can double your options of finding work. Avoid the I-77 corridor areas like Medina. This road turns to gridlock every single day from people trying to drive north to downtown in the morning and south in the evening. I live in west cleve suburbs and drive to akron for my work.
Cleve metro area is divided in half; the east side and west side. There are issues with the way the highways are designed that make it time consuming to travel from one side to the other so people normally stay on their "side." For some reason the locals don't like the other side - whatever one that it is. Cleve itself (the corporate limit) is not livable because of rampant crime and nonfunctional public schools. Murder is commonplace within the corporate limit and police (they do the best they can) are totally outmanned and underfunded because of disappearing tax base. It is majority segregated ghettos. There are some rich white settlements in places like tremont and certain parts of downtown but they are exceptions. This condition is only going to get worse as recently a court case has allowed police and fire workers to live outside the corp limit. Expect an exodus out of the last remaining semi nice parts of Cleve corp limit - north collinwood and west park. This is nothing unique about Cleve - this has happened in every big city - do further research about white flight, suburban sprawl, etc..
There is public transit here but it is only useful to go to downtown. That is really the only place that it goes. It is nice to park at a muni lot and take the train or park&ride bus downtown to avoid rush hour traffic.
There are some good schools in the area especially the cuyahoga county community college system. There really isn't much in the way of a four year residential public college in Cleve and no Ohio state system school here. Cleveland State is a good commuter school. The closest thing would probably be Kent State or University of Akron. Forget about Cleveland Institute of Art 31K/yr or Case Western University 36K/yr. They are for wealthy people only. It's not really affordable for anyone middle class.
John | North Olmsted, OH