I certainly love a comeback.

Despite all the hate for Cleveland recently, the city is finally taking an aggressive approach to curb its decline. According to The Atlantic CITIES, the 2010 U.S. Census showed the slightest population growth in the city’s core. Moreover, Downtown Cleveland now boasts a 95% occupancy rate.

This recent population shift truly represents the impact of North Americans’ evolving lifestyle preferences. My parents never even considered raising a family in the inner city, and my generation is now flocking to the neighbourhoods that were neglected for most of the postwar years.

In D.C., my friends and I spent long nights on the U Street Corridor, a neighbourhood that was once home to drug traffickers and the 1968 race riots. Older generations were once told to never step outside after dark on U Street, and now even the New York Times is calling it “new and hip.”

The same phenomenon is happening in Toronto’s once-derelict Parkdale, New York’s Harlem, and even Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Hopefully the trend catches on in Edmonton, as our downtown could certainly use a facelift.