The crimes also exposed how a city that is proud of its downtown business revival and world-class cultural and medical institutions continues to harbor pockets of despair and social breakdown.

The governor, a Republican, happened to be in town to announce financing for a new road to move traffic through the east side of Cleveland to the thriving University Circle neighborhood, which is home to the Cleveland Clinic, other hospitals and arts institutions.

Supporters of the $324 million project, known as Opportunity Corridor, including Mayor Frank G. Jackson, a Democrat, believe it will help the poor neighborhoods it transects. But Jeffrey Johnson, a City Council member whose ward is in the path of the project, said it was really a way to speed suburbanites to jobs and shopping while bypassing poverty. “Instead of restoring the streets, they go around them,” he said. “It’s a slap in the face.”

“It’s symbolic of the problem,” he added.

Cleveland was hit especially hard by the foreclosure crisis, and its legacy of abandoned homes has frayed neighborhoods, leaving behind those who cannot afford to get out, while providing shelter to people on the social margins. Areas with many vacant and abandoned homes are breeding grounds for crime, local officials said.

Cleveland and surrounding Cuyahoga County receive nearly 20 percent of the population leaving state prisons, with many returning to the neighborhoods on the East side, said Ronnie A. Dunn, an associate professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University and a member of the criminal justice task force within Cleveland’s N.A.A.C.P., which has proposed a City Hall forum on women’s safety.