The streets around the Cleveland Clinic are dotted with abandoned houses and vacant lots.
Photographer: Da’Shaunae Marisa for Bloomberg BusinessweekCleveland Clinic Thrives While Its Black Neighbors Fall Behind
The world-renowned medical center, which hosts the first U.S. presidential debate, embodies the American inequality paradox.
The Cleveland Clinic, where the heart-bypass operation was perfected, boasts not one but two Intercontinental hotels that cater to wealthy patients from around the world. Visitors can stay in $800-a-night suites and dine on short ribs with blue cheese grits, washing them down with an expensive Bordeaux before seeing a cardiologist.
But across Cedar Avenue, which borders the clinic’s 165-acre campus, is a tableau of American deprivation. Block after block of aging houses that once belonged to middle-class Black families—residential streets that Jesse Owens and Langston Hughes once called home—are dotted with vacant lots that speak to grinding poverty and the consequences of urban decay.