Cleveland joins cities like Eugene, Oregon and Fort Walton Beach, Florida in AARP The Magazine's list of "10 of the Best American Cities to Live Comfortably on $40,000 a Year." In tandem with Sperling's Best Places, the magazine ranked cities based on factors like housing affordability, access to work and recreation, transportation, healthcare and safety to create a "livability index" rating. (Cleveland weighed in at 56, with a median housing price of $124,000.) Here's what the magazine had to say about living in The Land:

Situated on the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland has experienced a cultural renaissance of late, led by growing populations of baby boomers and millennials alike. The city's robust art and music scene is complemented by lively nightlife and award-winning restaurants, not to mention a renewed excitement among NBA fans with the return of hometown hero LeBron James.

Read more about the 10 chosen cities here in Travel + Leisure.

After spending the summer pitching their businesses to investors in the Cleveland Chain Reaction project, Fox 8's morning show, Kickin’ It With Kenny announced this morning the six winning companies that will set up shop in the Slavic Village neighborhood.

Find out who the winner are here.

Most children who come into Cuyahoga County's foster care program have been traumatized to some degree. But for kids who are LGBTQ or have intellectual developmental disabilities and are victims of violence, the trauma can be even greater. These programs aim to help those young people with special circumstances thrive in foster care and life. 

Welcome to the latest edition of Fresh Water's “who’s hiring” series, where we feature growing companies with open positions, what they’re looking for, and how to apply. Find out who's hiring here.

A heady combination of fun, excitement, and fitness is the three-pronged concept of Play: CLE, an attraction opening this fall in a former boat storage facility on Chester Road in Avon.

Read about the forthcoming good times here. 

The first incarnation of Vino Veritas was a successful restaurant and wine bar in the heart of Little Italy—even ranking on the 2015 Cleveland Hot List as a top wine bar. But by 2016, owner Anthony Nunes Insana had set his sights on a bigger picture for his wines, which he had been making in the basement of his Little Italy establishment.

Opportunity presented itself when Insana stumbled upon Rising Harvest Farms, a 2.3-acre plot of land in Old Brooklyn. "I found the property by myself, driving around," Insana says. "I started talking to Rising Harvest Farms and they wanted out." Insana swiftly started making plans for Vino Veritas Cellars, securing a one-year lease for the land from Cuyahoga Land Bank last September. In February, Insana made it official by signing a 25-year lease to buy the former Rising Harvest property, and he had the land re-zoned as a vineyard and winery.
 
With its grand opening last Thursday, Aug. 3, Vino Veritas Cellars officially became Cleveland’s first fully functional, federally bonded winery and vineyard. Learn more about it here.

Record-breaking amounts of visitors have made their way to Cleveland in recent years, and Travelocity has taken notice—ticking off 13 reasons why it's "obsessed" with Cleveland. (Just 13? We've got at least seven more to add.) Usual suspects like Public Square, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lead the list, along with tasty trips to the West Side Market and that oozing-with-charm popcorn shop in Chagrin Falls. See which other attractions made the list here.
 

The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the world's premier orchestras, a purveyor of symphonic delights that's first on the lips of many a Clevelander when asked what they love most about the city. Fresh Water is here to provide five quick hits about everyone's favorite classical ensemble.

Get your facts straight here. 

Wondering where to sip in style? The new class of Wine Spectator's 2017 Restaurant Awards recipients might be a great place to start. The magazine's annual awards celebrate the world's best wine lists, and seven Cleveland restaurants made the discerning cut. Among the local honorees are Lola, Bold Food & Drink, Dante, Pier W, L'Albatros, Edwin's Restaurant, and Morton's, the Steakhouse. The full list of winners can be viewed here.
 

As Midtown’s papermaking studio turns 10 years old, the Morgan Conservatory perseveres in its ancient art practice.

Thanks to the $40 million Ohio Motion Picture Tax Incentive, productions like White Boy Rick (a feature film starring Matthew McConaughey) and "American Ninja Warrior" are just a few that have turned their lens on The Land this year—and in light of the State of Ohio’s recent renewal for the 2017-18 fiscal year, they’re likely to keep on coming. Funding will be used to attract large-scale media productions into the region, but local entities are also lobbying for an increased tax credit that would make Northeast Ohio an even more powerful magnet for Hollywood's creatives.

Read about it here. 

Macklemore made a number-one song about it. Joanna Gaines is spinning ratings gold for HGTV with “Fixer-Upper.” No doubt the obsession with thrifting, upcycling and antiquing has reached a fever pitch—and City Salvage & Design’s Janice Beckler is living the DIY dream. Beckler has spent more than 50 years training her keen eye for offbeat, eye-catching furniture and items to add unmistakable flair to any decor scheme.
 
To that end, she and her husband, Doug, have traveled "all over Ohio, buying farm picks, industry picks. Wherever we can find it, we will go. We have a good eye for finding good stuff.”
 
Five years ago, Beckler decided to share her finds. Calling on 30 years of teaching experience and a background in customer service and design, she opened City Salvage & Design in Amherst. The shop was so successful that Beckler opened a second location in Ohio City last month. 

Find out more about this dedicated DIY-er here. 

In Scott Hubay's opinion, there are two kinds of attorneys—those that solve ongoing conflicts, and those that take a shovel to molehill-sized problems before they become a mountain. With a new practice offering legal counsel to political campaigns, Hubay is busy tamping down potentially harmful issues for his clients in real-time.
 
Hubay's Ohio City-based shop, Hubay LLC, provides Ohio's elected officials, candidates, issue campaigns and nonprofits with legal counsel, compliance services and campaign infrastructure development. 

Read about this unique law practice here.

As Ozy put it, "bioscience entrepreneurship has reshaped Cleveland's sagging economy." Yet though the Health-Tech Corridor has certainly become a hotbed for biosience, the struggle to attract health information technology (HIT) employees to the region continues to be real. Luckily, LinkedIn, BioEnterprise, Cleveland State, and other Northeast Ohio agencies are committed to closing that gap—joining forces to provide in-depth analysis and form strategies for fostering local HIT talent.
 
Government Technology had this to say about the initiative:

"One of the critical limiting factors to growth in Northeast Ohio's bioscience industry today is the availability of health IT talent," Aram Nerpouni, BioEnterprise president and CEO, said in a statement. "Thriving health IT companies are hindered by the dearth of software developers and data scientists. The LinkedIn project should provide meaningful data and analysis to inform how we address this challenge."

With the support of the Cleveland Foundation, BioEnterprise launched HIT in the CLE in 2015 to address the lack of available talent in computer and data science. The project is an important tactic within the larger HIT in the CLE talent strategy, the partners said.

LinkedIn will provide Cleveland with information of the skills local employers need, the skills its workers have and the disconnect between the two.

"The city can use those insights to create a stronger IT talent pipeline, and grow its IT industry," said LinkedIn U.S. Head of Policy Nicole Isaac in a statement.

Read the full piece here.

A 262,000-square-foot, 11-story luxury apartment building is not only the newest addition to the skyline, but the first of its kind in downtown Cleveland—meeting demand for both high-end off-campus student housing and affordable urban apartments for the young professional crowd.
 
Enter the Edge on Euclid (1750 Euclid Ave.), which sits just adjacent to Cleveland State University and Playhouse Square. Along with close proximity to campus and culture, the building also offers a quick commute to schools like Case Western Reserve in University Circle and a central location for recent graduates just launching their careers in Cleveland.

Planning your next vacation? You may not have to travel beyond the city limits. Reward Expert has ranked Cleveland 7th on its list of “2017’s Best Cities for Staycations.” The reward travel website compared 100 of the largest cities in the U.S. based on 29 key metrics broken down into three categories: Recreation, Food & Entertainment, and Rest & Relaxation. Cleveland’s sports success and must-sees like PlayhouseSquare and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame are cited, as well as Cleveland's “many public pools and its beaches alongside Lake Erie.” (And here's a fun fact: Cleveland has the most public pools per capita. Stay cool, Cleveland!)

Read the full write-up and see which other cities made the list here.
 

West Coasters who mistakenly think of Ohio as a flyover state clearly haven't been to Cleveland—but the Los Angeles Times has finally gotten the memo. This in-depth piece by Fran Golden provides an overview of all of Cleveland's greatest hits, from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to 78th Street Studios to the West Side Market. Local movers and shakers like Mayor Frank Jackson, Julian Bruell and Greater Cleveland Film Commission head Ivan Schwarz all lend their voices to the story, with notable quotables like the following:
 
Local pride is also a philosophy embraced by young returnee Bruell, who said, "Cleveland shouldn't try to be like New York or Chicago or other cities. It should be unique and different."

Schwarz, of the film commission, compared what's happening in Cleveland to the renaissance of Portland, Ore.

"Old-time Clevelanders may question the cool factor. I see an untapped gold mine," he said. "I think we really should shout from the rooftop the virtues of this city."

Read the full write-up here.

The educational opportunities at NewBridge Cleveland have afforded one promising graphic design student a fast track to a full scholarship at Cleveland Institute of Art.

There's a whole campaign underway to bring the Forest City back to life. Here's the story of the foot soldiers in that effort—trees raised to green up our urban neighborhoods.