We are all Clevelanders tonight

Everbody's got their name for tonight's return of Lebron James to Cleveland: "The Reaction", "The Return", but the reality is that tonight is about more than just a player returning to a hometown he chose to betray. Tonight is truly about the neglect our country has had for its roots, the draw-dropping willingness we've had to ignore our nation's industrial core and move on, ignore the work put in by the residents of these rusted, steel-hardened, blue-collar towns and focus our obsessive attentions on the white sandy beaches, the bright night lights, the celebrity lifestyles of the coasts. This country has in essence responded to the post-industrial age by saying, "Yeah, thanks for sacrificing all those years with unclean air, hard labor, poor wages. But we're taking our talents to South Beach".

See Lebron isnt the only traitor to the rust belt and Cleveland is by no means the only city losing hope of avoiding economic collapse. Drive through cities like Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, Buffalo, New York, and you will get an image of an America that is very different from the stereotypical image of the bright lights and big money of New York, LA, and even Miami. The glamour of the coasts may be the image that the world sees of this country, but it is far from reality. And while we're on the subject, Sarah Palin's state of Alaska, where owning an airplane is commonplace, IS NOT "REAL" AMERICA EITHER.

The wealth and glamour of those high-lifers we chose to allow our nation's image to be built upon would never have reached their position in life without the work of the now-neglected rust belt. Just as Lebron has ignored the city that built his fame and fortune, these "leaders" of American society have ignored the roots of our economic prowess as a nation.

But perhaps Lebron does mean something in this struggle to revive the industrial core of America. Perhaps his situation, the individual case of a man betraying his hometown in the search for fame, fortune, and a "legacy" will serve as a metaphor for the way our nation has dealt with Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, Gary, Detroit, and every other rust belt city that has been allowed to spend the past half century in a painfully slow decline from bustling center of commerce and industry to desolate land of joblessness, poverty, and despair.

So tonight while you release all that negative energy against Lebron and the self-proclaimed (ESPN included within the confines of "self") "big three", taking a look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you arent guilty of betraying this area of our nation just as Lebron has done. Perhaps all of this outrage against Lebron can serve as a wakeup call. After all, if we are willing to accept the fact that the loss of a professional athlete marks the end of hope for an entire city's future, arent we ignoring the fact that it should never come down to that? If a city is beholden to a single basketball star to survive, it needs help.

Cleveland is a city that will always hold a spot in my heart. I wasnt born there, didnt grow up there, but as the hometown of both my parents, I have adopted it as my own. Cleveland isnt the polluted hell-hole it is made out to be. In fact, some of the more outrageous stories I've seen in the aftermath of the "Decision" were in "support" of Cleveland's plight yet in the process made the city look more like Hiroshima after the bomb than anything you'd expect in the wealthiest nation on earth. Sure there are parts of the city that arent pretty, but a city isnt a city without them. To use those areas to create an image of Cleveland is about as much an injustice as the use of Beverly Hills to create an image of Los Angeles, a city that is, in reality, nothing like its "tinstletown" image.

Cleveland has potential as a city even without the industrial opportunities that had once made it a thriving metropolis. Listening to all the talk about the desolation of northeast Ohio, it would be easy to forget that the city houses not one, but two of the world's premier medical facilities, bastions of innovation in cardiological technologies unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Northeast Ohio is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame (no Lebron, Canton/Akron is not a separate entity), home to the Flats, Little Italy, and the vibrant neighborhoods of Lakewood.

So while all eyes are on Quicken Loans Arena tonight as Lebron James gets to experience the repercussions of arrogant betrayal, I can only hope that at least a few of those eyes will stray across the street to Terminal Tower, across the river to the Flats, and over to the medical facilities of the east side, areas that only need attention, investment, and a bit of development to bring Cleveland back from its rusted death to its former prominence. We are all Clevelanders tonight, but for those of us that will continue to be tomorrow, the stakes are much higher.