Eastlake – Ohithere D

Ambassador: Jordan Smoot.64
Brianna Bajakian
Brent Dilley
Nate Hauer

       The community of Eastlake was one of the communities founded early in the history of Ohithere. Due to its geographic proximity to a large body of water, Eastlake’s local economy relied heavily upon industrial trades such as steel, chemical, and automotive manufacturing. Trade unions played a major role in advocating for the community’s working class and as a result, a large majority of industrial workers and their families made up the middle class. In addition to their strong ties to labor unions, community members of Eastlake are strongly connected to other traditional civic organizations in the area. Industrial operations in the community have caused water pollution problems in the nearby lake and green space in the community is scarce.
       In the past 50 years, the steel and automobile industry of Eastlake has been in decline as wealthy manufacturers and industrialists moved operations overseas to reduce production and labor costs. Consequently, steel and automotive plants have closed and employment in industry has decreased drastically. As industry has left Eastlake, the communities’ overall population has begun to leave with it. However, Eastlake has seen an overall increase in immigration which has brought further cultural and ethnic diversity to the area. Regardless, the inflow of new community members is not sufficient to offset the outflow of traditional community members. With fewer middle-income earners in the tax base, the city has been operating on a budget that with an increasingly large deficit which has made service provision in Eastlake difficult. For instance, physical infrastructure in Eastlake is dilapidated and poorly maintained and there are few quality education options for students.
       The local government of Eastlake is not well-trusted. Due to the significant deficit in the city’s budget and the lack of quality service provisions, community members are skeptical of their elected officials’ dedication to actually improve Eastlake. There have been rumblings of embezzlement of public funds and general corruption of local leadership. Several civic organization leaders have floated the idea of investigating these rumors of corruption, but no action has been publicly called for to this date.

Community D: This once economically bustling city has begun to decline, especially in its core downtown area.
Population size = 700,000 residents (5 years ago the population was just under 1 million residents)

Natural: 2 Decades of industry (primarily manufacturing) and urban sprawl have decimated much of the local natural resource base and created long-term pollution problems. The city does receive plenty of rainfall throughout the year.

Cultural: 5 The city’s population has diverse ethnic heritages and a rich cultural past; has a leading professional sports team; is witnessing a growth in its “creative community,” including the local arts and music scene; and this city has a growing immigrant population from distant, underdeveloped parts of the nation and the world.

Human: 3 Poor public and private education systems; increasing drop out and crime rates among native city students. The city’s growing immigrant population has limited access to financial resources and often lacks a secondary education; the inflow of new migrants is not sizable enough to balance the outflow of traditional residents of the city; a community college and vocational schools exist but are not well funded.

Social: 5 There are a lot of strong, close-knit relationships within different city neighborhoods, but crime, violence, and disillusionment in some areas have left the community with little cohesion. However, there are several strong civic organizations that have served the community for decades and have traditionally built connections between some residents.

Political: 3 There are rumors of corruption among local leaders; many residents feel that they have a limited ability to participate in decision-making. However, the traditional civic organizations, which are trusted generally by citizens, are openly involved in meeting with political leaders. Elected officials in this city have some strong connections to the National Government.

Financial: 3 Once the city’s financial sector was dominated by a very wealthy group of industrialists; currently the city’s debt/expenditures greatly exceeds its revenue gained through taxes and other service fees. There is general declining industry interest in the area, many manufacturing facilities are closing (or are being relocated to other parts of the nation/world).

Built: 4 This city has a vast and overall declining physical infrastructure, which is expensive to maintain and there are currently many vacant properties. The National Government recently listened to the community’s proposal for a significant cost-share payment to help them construct a cutting-edge wastewater treatment plant. The National Government has not yet delivered a reply back to the community.