IF YOU READ THAT, PLEASE READ THIS: A couple of days ago I wrote at length about City Council's focus on real estate, rather than human capital, in its list of strategic neighborhood investments. I leaned pretty heavily on an example from my own immediate neighborhood. While I didn't name the Council Member involved, anyone familiar with Cleveland politics could see that I was talking about Councilwoman Merle Gordon of Ward 15, who also happens to chair the Community and Economic Development Committee.

Up to a hundred people read this weblog weekly, and I don't know who most of you are. So it occurs to me that I shouldn't leave you with the impression that Councilwoman Gordon is especially obsessed with real estate projects, or oblivious to human needs in her ward.

I don't really have any idea of Gordon's overall philosophy of economic and community development. I do know, though, that she used ward allocation money to help get Art House on Denison Avenue started, for which she took a lot of grief from her opponent in the last election. And that she's a supporter of Brookside Center, the hunger center I mentioned in the piece, which is in the process of starting up a small computer center. And that she's one of three Council Members who help manage the Adelphia/City Council Neighborhood Technology Fund, which is the main source of local grant support for community technology centers throughout the city.

So if anything, Merle Gordon might be more attuned than the average Councilman to the human investment paradigm I'd like the City to adopt. I don't know. I haven't asked her. I should. I will.

But please understand, I'm not saying that that City Council (or any specific Council Member) is uniquely backward in their thinking about community economic development. On the contrary -- I think Council's list of priorities shows that it's right in the mainstream, in close synch with the CDC community and its supporters in the policy and funding worlds. I'll go further, and say I think Councilmen pretty well reflect the priorities of the most active civic leaders in their wards.

We're all operating on 1980s community development assumptions that have little to do with the economy of the 21st century, or our neighbors' place in that economy. And we all need to start examining those assumptions.