Wages of welfare: Cleveland's future can only be faced by confronting its problems in an intelligent and equitable way, not by going' 60s-retro.(AT LARGE)

Earlier this summer, an elite black businessmen's organization, the Presidents' Council, and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson released, with much fanfare, the results of a study on regional racial equality they had commissioned. The study called upon the suburbs to demonstrate racial equity by opening their neighborhoods and schools to more minorities, by way of, for example, low-income housing.

The study was paid for by The Cleveland Foundation and focused on regional equity without dealing with its concomitant issue: regional government reform. Mayor Jackson said regional or county government was too contentious to be considered as part of the study.

To commission such a study while avoiding the question of government reform was a waste of time and money. It should have called for world …