In the past five years, Cleveland has made significant progress towards becoming a “green city on a blue lake.” This year’s Sustainable Cleveland 2019 summit will focus on leveraging those successes. But how sustainable are we? A new report examines key indicators and highlights some of the newest, greenest projects across the city. 

Cuyahoga Community College's stated mission is to provide an affordable, high-quality learning experience for its diverse enrollment. Considering the amount of freshmen arriving on its doorstep each year, Tri-C has created an initiative to guide incoming students past the higher education threshold as painlessly as possible.
 
First Year Experience (FYE) is a multi-faceted, comprehensive introduction to Tri-C, says Dr. Michael Schoop, president of the school's Metropolitan Campus. The "campus support system" for new students folds the college's ordinary orientation procedures into a systematic, larger-scale effort meant to focus freshmen on long-term career and academic goals.
 
"Tri-C has long been interested in anything that can help more of our students become successful," says Schoop. "With so many of them new to the college experience, we needed a more structured approach."

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Community college is a viable option for students seeking to save money while preparing to continue their studies at a four-year college. However, many undergraduates make costly and time-consuming mistakes before even getting to the transfer process. This potential nightmare can be avoided with careful planning done at the earliest stage of a student's academic career. Tri-C is not just streamlining this process to make transfer easier, it's promoting the importance of setting a direction the moment a student enters the institution.

In June, Cuyahoga Community College received a $650,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation to help finance its One Door -- Many Options for Success initiative. The college-wide effort going into effect this year will expand Tri-C's service model, providing structured support services through student-centric college success teams and other programming.

In Detroit, art isn’t just something to look at. The city’s rich artistic tradition has been an essential ingredient for cultivating community resilience, engagement and vitality.

Based on the dinner-party model, Cleveland SOUP provides financial support for innovative, locally based initiatives that touch on sustainability, public art and diversity. As garnering funds can often be one of the tallest hurdles for independent upstarts, SOUP has helped offset those costs in more than 60 cities.

Tampa Bay successfully hosted the Republicans in 2012, and Denver hosted the Democrats four years before that. Fresh Water decided to reach out to representatives from each city to see if our fair city could glean some best practices on how to pull off a successful -- and inclusive -- convention.

Once among the tallest buildings in the world, the Terminal Tower remains the signature landmark of the Cleveland skyline. Following a massive top-to-bottom, inside-out renovation in 2005, the iconic structure is welcoming a host of new commercial tenants, including start-ups looking for co-working space. 

Despite our obsession with locally brewed craft beer, many of the ingredients that go into those suds are anything but local. But that is quickly changing as area brewmasters increasingly seek out ways to tap into the local ‘farm-to-pint’ movement by adding more and more fresh ingredients.

Fueled by collaboration, the Mile High City is investing in transit-oriented development while also preserving its historic neighborhoods. Denver has gained 50,000 new residents in the past four years, outpacing its suburbs and most other metro areas.

As the 2014 Gay Games play out with eclectic events all over town, it becomes clear how they will leave a lasting positive effect on the host city of Cleveland. Uniting beneath a banner of inclusion, collaboration and unity, participants and sponsors establish a spirit that will endure long after the lights have dimmed and the last athlete has left the track.

Last weekend, downtown Cleveland literally was glowing. Thanks to the coinciding of a handful of marquee events like the Gay Games Opening Ceremonies and AHA! festival of lights and art, downtown was percolating with energy. Fresh Water photographer Bob Perkoski was there to record all the colorful action.

Cities are reinventing themselves in creative new ways. Can small-scale projects have big impact? Join the Urban Innovation Exchange September 24-26 in Detroit to explore creative projects driving neighborhood transformation and trade ideas for the future.

As the number of travelers with their sights set on Cleveland rises, so too does the number of entrepreneurs willing to rent those visitors a place to crash via Airbnb. From a spare room in one’s home to the entire home itself, the number of available short-term rentals in the area is spiking. 

Northeast Ohio has a number of resources available for an expanding Latino populace searching for work and business opportunities. These services, say their providers, can keep immigrant brainpower in the area while acting as a talent magnet for the Latino and Spanish-speaking diaspora. 

As urban neighborhoods become more vibrant, planners are turning their attention to creating world-class public spaces to complement the latest flurry of development. Three new or improved parks have just been unveiled this year: Scranton Flats, the marina at North Coast Harbor and Rivergate.

In collaboration with the Burning River Foundation, Fresh Water sponsored a photo contest in honor of the 45th Anniversary of the last burning of the Cuyahoga River. In anticipation of this weekend's Burning River Fest, we asked to see your best water-themed photos. Here are the top entries.

Welcome to the latest round of Lab Chat, in which our resident Post-Doctoral Research Associate attempts to demystify the complex world of biomedical research. Today, our writer takes on the roadblocks to diagnosing and treating cancer -- and how improvements in medical technology are offering avenues to better results.

Getting out of Dodge? Need a good page-turner for the flight or beach? Don’t grab the latest bestseller from the rack of overpriced paperbacks at the airport. Instead, check out Fresh Water’s local-author reading list. Here are 5 sizzling summer reads that we invite you to check out.    

From Charles F. Brush to John D. Rockefeller, Cleveland has been home to entrepreneurs with innovations that helped shape the world. We take a look at some of Cleveland’s ground breaking companies -- some old, some new -- to see what makes the company unique, how it achieved its success, and where they stand today.