In 2006, Ned Hill, Dean of the CSU Levin College of Urban Affairs and Dan Cuffaro, Cleveland Institute of Art Professor of Industrial Design, proposed the creation and development of a "District of Design" in Cleveland, Ohio. The intention of this project was to aggregate and concentrate the design organizations, businesses, institutions, and practitioners in the region into a cohesive area that would result in a critical mass of resources available to both local and outside the region businesses, and institutions. Following the introduction of this proposal, I suggested an accompanying strategy to attract new talent, businesses, and manufacturers to the region to populate this newly formed "District" to benefit from its influence. Unfortunately, the Great Recession hit by 2009 and the plan for this proposal was unable to become the reality and opportunity it could have been.

Nearly fifteen years later, the time is right to resurrect this vision for our region. The delivery of this opportunity would come through the development of the "Design Business Accelerator" transforming Cleveland to the "Milan of the Midwest.".  Its purpose would be to promote a creative product development environment where local organizations will increase capacity to produce and manufacture their designs, attract, and retain talent, and become better global competitors.

Imagine, Cleveland tapping its cultural, academic, not-for-profit institutions, design culture, and creative manufacturers to engage internationally with the great design centers such as: Milan, Stockholm, Paris, Seoul, Shenzhen, Tokyo, Chicago, San Francisco, or Detroit. To be included with these notable cities, we need to attract international creative organizations in product, automotive, graphic, industrial, biotech, interior, architectural, furnishings, advertising, materials, theatre, and fashion design to Cleveland’s “District of Design”. This proposal initiates the process to showcase how Cleveland can become one of those places.