Omaha Skyline

A recent trip to Omaha, Nebraska revealed to me a way in which the United States has changed in the last forty years that hasn’t been much commented upon. Perhaps we might call it “The Kale Effect.” I went to college in Ohio in the 1970’s, and as an active alumnus of my college I made frequent return visits. I used to say that in decades of trips to Northeastern Ohio I had never had a good meal. But I certainly am unable to say that any more. Cleveland has become a Midwestern gastronomic destination (and I have had many a good meal at The Albatross in University Circle in recent years). High quality food culture has reached many, if not most, cities of any size between the coasts – and food journalism frequently focuses on great new finds in both of the Portlands (Oregon and Maine) – and many places in between.

On a weekend trip to Omaha we ate in TWO French bistro style restaurants – both of which served both good food and interesting wines and beers. And yes, kale, the sacred vegetable of Brooklyn was on the menu in both places (a food, the romance of which is lost on me). Even on a recent trip to Gloversville, New York, in the rural foothills of the Adirondacks, both kale soup and kale salad were on offer. The latest food trends have become ubiquitous across a country where in the middle of the 20^th century spaghetti and meatballs was considered exotic.

Proving Up at Opera Omaha

We were visiting Omaha for Opera Omaha’s “One Festival” (http://onefestivalomaha.org/). (As some readers of this blog may know, most of my domestic travel is with my wife, Heidi Waleson, the opera critic of The Wall Street Journal. It has to be one of best office spouse gigs around. The One Festival presented a number of cutting edge music theater works, including a world premiere (“The Wreck,” staged by imaginative theater artist Annie Saunders) and a production of an unusual traditional work by an acclaimed actor and director (Cherubini’s Medea, directed by Fiona Shaw). Also on the bill was the second production of a new work by perhaps the most successful creators on the American opera scene, Missy Mazzoli (composer) and Royce Vavrek (librettist). While I’ll leave the critical judgments to Heidi (her review can be read here – behind the WSJ paywall unfortunately: http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-opera-festivals-local-focus-1523912495), the festival, with dozens of events, was well attended by attentive and enthusiastic audiences. Reread that sentence – cutting edge opera was produced in Nebraska, a risky and expensive proposition in any city – and reached a willing and interested audience. This reflects a massive shift in American culture – with culture defined in the broadest possible sense.

In the state of Nebraska, Donald Trump won 60% of the vote in 2016. In Omaha’s Douglas County, Hillary Clinton won with 47% (to Trump’s 45%). Omaha is a city of 400,000 people, the country’s 44^th largest. The big employers are First Data Corp (credit card processing), Union Pacific (railroad), Berkshire Hathaway (Omaha resident Warren Buffet’s investment company), Peter Keiwit & Co. (construction), TD Ameritrade (financial services) and Mutual of Omaha (insurance). It is the home of international engineering and architectural firm HDR and national law firm Kutak Rock. The city boasts Creighton University, a Jesuit school with 8000 students, which is known for it Medical School and basketball team. Those organizations, along with its extensive network of health care institutions, obviously employ a large number of well-educated, culturally sophisticated people who would be a likely market for both opera and kale.

Omaha Market District

I spoke with a woman during the intermission at one of the performances who introduced herself as the opera company’s donor for the longest period of time. She told me that she grew corn and soybeans and lectured me on about her enthusiasm for President Trump, despite the coming Chinese tariffs on agricultural products (at the time of our visit, the prospective impact of those tariffs on the local economy was the lead story in the Omaha newspaper every day we were there). This was at an opera with an improvised score and an anarchic story about the domestic constraints on American women in the 50’s and suicide, drawing on the poetry of Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. The opera “Proving Up” was a very dark story about the difficulties involved in staking a homesteading claim, and the human degradation that resulted from them.

Opera is complicated and expensive to produce. In recent years, at most companies, box office income supports only 20-30% of the cost of producing it. The balance has to be donated by enthusiastic opera supporters, who have to reach into their pockets in order to be able to enjoy the art form. There have to be enough people in the community with sufficient means and cultural sophistication for an opera company – even a very small one – to exist. The production of opera requires a highly skilled set builders, chorus members and instrumentalists, who generally come from the local community. And while many opera companies stick to the ABC repertoire (Aida, La Boehme and Carmen), Opera Omaha is distinguishing itself by doing something else. Omaha has to have all of these elements.

Le Bouillon

My good friend, Seth Bornstein whose wife is from Omaha, and spent a couple of years living there claims that when he is in town and sitting in La Buvette (http://www.labuvetteomaha.com/) in the Omaha Market district drinking wine and reading the New York Times, he imagines himself to be on the left bank in Paris. Well, maybe. But there has obviously been a huge increase in the amount of cosmopolitan culture in cities large and small across the country. Omaha may not have the cultural resources of New York or San Francisco, but how many times a month does the average college-educated New Yorker actually go out to eat, or to a classical concert or the theater? It’s clear that there is a critical mass of a market for sophisticated food and the arts in Omaha (which is neither the state capitol, or the home of the flagship state university). Given that all of the world’s consumables are deliverable by UPS and Federal Express to anyplace in the country, and the amount of information and cultural resources available online anywhere there is internet service there is not much to be sacrificed in moving from Brooklyn to between the coasts – with the costs of housing being orders of magnitude less. Also notable was that Eppley Field, the city’s airport is about twenty minutes from downtown, and it’s about fifteen minutes from the curb to the gate. That’s as opposed to a forty-minute trip to EWR, endless security lines and a half hour walk to the gate once you clear security. The situation is worse at JFK, and with the construction going on at New York City’s famous “third world” airport, it’s not even worth discussion

At some point, the Creative Class is going to figure out that Midwestern cities like Omaha, Cleveland and St. Paul are both lively and relatively inexpensive – as some folks already have. We did see a good many piercings and varied hair color among the younger residents of Omaha. I also met quite a few people local people who told me that they were artists.

La Buvette

So, while the country may be geographically sorting by education and income, as Richard Florida has been observing on City Lab, the sorting is more like a matrix than like simple columns or rows. There is a lot of interesting cultural stuff going on smaller cities across the country. What’s happening at Opera Omaha and Le Bouillon (http://www.lebouillonomaha.com/) are good evidence of that. Actually, there is nothing the matter with Nebraska.

****

In recent months I have been completing my manuscript for “What Works: Placemaking in Bryant Park. Revitalizing cities, towns and public space which is now in the editing process and on track for publication by Rutgers University Press next year.

****

Also, having completed the manuscript, I have been appointed Assistant Commissioner for Franchise Administration at New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications where I will be working to advance Mayor De Blasio and Commissioner Saini’s agenda of equitable access to technology. I may find the need to revise the sections of the book about dealing with local government based on my new experiences.