Chinese investors lift previously desolate industrial city of Cleveland

Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, was once so desolate that a city councilman said on public radio that a bowling ball could be rolled down the main street without hitting anyone.

A decline in steel manufacturing jobs-formerly the economic bedrock of the once fourth-largest city in the United States-coincided with urban flight in the 1970s and 1980s, when middle-class residents left Cleveland for more spacious homes in nearby suburbs.

Home values in the city dropped as much as 90 percent in some neighborhoods during the years after the 2008 recession, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and many areas still haven't recovered. From a population of 900,000 in 1950, the city now has about 385,000 residents.