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I quoted the attack-y part, the only part I was responding to. Opening with that kind of personal hostility reduces my interest in subsequent paragraphs. I really don't care to sort through all your vitriol to reach the "point," which inevitably rests on a degree of pessimism that I don't have room for in my life. Twenty years before we see residential development along Euclid within a mile of Case? Really? Maybe my pie is in the sky, but yours is in the crapper. Fish it out.

I don't usually jump on this sort of thing, but yeah. MGK does not represent the perception we want to create for young people or anyone else. I don't think Eminem has done any favors for Detroit either. This is not the way.

You 'fight to preserve vacant lots' around here all the time. Kind of your MO, my man. You may try to spin around it, but that would undeniably be the result of your long advocated zoning restrictions to nothing but 100 story mixed use residential buildings with Fortune 500 companies occupying the top floors. That's just made up nonsense. I've said we should open up the zoning where it's restricted to single-family, to clear the way for new apartments where houses are less marketable. Should power plants be zoned out of dense residential? Yes. Same with hog farms and some other things. But that position is a far cry from the dummy you're beating up on. Back to the power plant... there are plenty of industrial areas nearby, some requiring less demo than this one. And it's a false choice to assume the current building has to stay there otherwise. I don't expect a high rise to get built right against those RR tracks, but something of more value to pedestrians should go there. It may not be on the table right now, but putting in a brand new boiler-silo complex extends the wait by decades. Part of the idea with the Euclid Corridor was to have UC development cross over into East Cleveland. The RR tracks are barrier enough, and a power plant just extends the pedestrian dead zone. That is not likely to help encourage spillover.

We have plentiful examples of how buying land does not guarantee construction. But I don't doubt it will happen, because I expect the Higbee operation will go well. My guess is they wait till they're allowed to include a hotel, then build.

I'm guessing the new construction option is there for when it's time to expand, but if perchance the Higbee operation doesn't do as well as hoped, there's no way they build on that hillside. That there's a substantial endeavor. And don't forget, they apparently thought the city was going to move the river for them. And I still dig the skywalk.

I think the purpose of the historical district is to prevent high density as much as it is to preserve those houses. This guy has fought to "preserve" vacant lots when the alternative is apartments. And if a power plant is needed, it's needed, I just wish they could find a site for it that's not on main street, in the middle of a stretch we're trying to redevelop as a desirable address. How about an abandoned industrial area like Quincy and Woodhill? That seems perfect for a power plant, and it's only a few blocks away from UH.

Keith M. makes a good point though, that precious resources are wasted when we rebuild based on a bad model. In this case the bad model involves ignoring the mix of residential and commercial that's necessary for walkability. We did it after WWII and there's no sense doing it again, especially when the stated purpose is to improve the inner city. The segregated-use suburban sprawl model is a poor means to that end. Ohio cities need to do a much better job supporting urban retail. As so many recent projects demonstrate, it's not like there isn't any money. Our leaders just refuse to realign it toward a proper urban plan. A great example is the late 90s/2000s in Cleveland. The economy wasn't shot then, and the city enjoyed positive buzz after investing a fortune in downtown attractions. But instead of producing one decent mixed use neighborhood or any downtown retail from this momentum, the city threw its weight behind large swaths of semi-dense tract housing and a huge suburban shopping plaza just outside downtown. That set us back further than we were before. In that same timeframe, Collinwood deteriorated while Buckeye emptied out. Clifton lost its anchor grocery store. If those walkable areas had gotten the public money that was instead thrown at car-oriented development, we could have a far more walkable city in 2011. Far more attractive too. We've seen some awful multi-million dollar decisions and they need to stop. For that to happen, Ohio will need a much more vocal and influential urbanist movement. Right now there's zero political check on the thinking that got us to this point. If only urbanism had an ideological lobby like guns and spotted owls do.

There is an MSM and it does miss stories from time to time.

Semi-back-on-topic is the controversial skywalk between Higbee and the new parking deck. After looking down Ontario from Lakeside today, I am officially in favor of it. Number one, I think skywalks are neato and I always have. But what really entices about this one is that it will create the illusion, looking south, that downtown is more than 4 blocks wide. Right now you look down Ontario and you see Public Square, then Tower City, then a smokestack at the end of the world. Creating some enclosure at awkward openings will help to foster a sense of place. By the same token, development at Superior and W6th will do this for inbound Euclid Avenue, where you see a monument at the end of the world. While that's cool in itself, since the monument is a lady with a sword, the view up Euclid should convey that you're approaching the core of a major city. That's impossible to do when the first buildings in your line of sight, on W6th, are practically beyond the horizon. Hopefully the casino's primary spillover is all those empty parking lots. If that happens, on any scale, I think it's at least as valuable as the Columbia Building.

So it's roughly defined as 105th and Superior and what? Forgotten Triangle refers mostly to the Kinsman neighborhood, well south of UC. Superior/105th is Glenville. I don't see UC having much spillover because the surrounding housing is mostly houses. The few remaining non-project apartments are old and haven't been kept up. There can't be any spillover until it has somewhere to go. Asking people to take out mortgages on decrepit houses with no retail nearby is a tall order. The number of hospitals and museums there is irrelevant. But building a power plant on Euclid Avenue? That's about the worst possible move I can imagine. I'm starting to think I could light a pile of tires on fire somewhere along Euclid and it would be viewed as a positive outgrowth of the Health Line. Sorry for the SimCity comparison, but if you try to put a power plant in a developing residential neighborhood, the game flat out won't let you. It's the only thing you just plain can't do, because it's so far outside the bounds of credulity. I get that the Hessler lobby doesn't want a coal burner nearby, which is understandable, but this particular alternative is ridiculous. Come to University Circle, see the... silos of ash and lime! Is there not anywhere else in the city we can put this, other than the cultural center?

I'm just glad they moved so it's not an issue anymore.

It's been said that in Cincinnati it's tough walking between neighborhoods, because each they're often cut off from each other by terrain features. So there might be great walkability within any of the developed areas, but none amongst them. And yeah, a house right in the edge of hills might have everything they need in the other direction. But minus the hills it could be a lot more interconnected, at walking level, with other neighborhoods nearby. And I think there's something to that, because your options multiply. And a 3 mile walk isn't crazy for carless people. If you're one of those people, you'd rather not have hills. I don't know how you'd measure this, but I bet people in flatter areas have a longer range considered walkable.

That's one of the better city marketing slogans I've heard. I agree about the value of branding vs action, but it can certainly help.

I like this idea a lot.

Glad to hear that Columbus has made some positive reforms. Leadership from the capital! If projects like the Gay St condos are a direct result, all the better. So instead of having "the same" problem, Cleveland has a bigger one in that it has yet to enact such reforms. But I strongly doubt Cleveland would enforce those aspects of the code downtown. The corner has been turned on that. The last time I remember this coming up was when the people renovating the Scofield needed a variance because their century-old building at 9th and Euclid didn't have lawn buffers all around. But most of Cleveland proper is (was) the sort of density that Columbus only has near its core. There are a few postwar neighborhoods (Lee/Miles, Euclid/Green, parts of West Park?) but they aren't the norm. Cleveland needs to eliminate suburban zoning period. Wipe it from the books, grandfather those few outer areas. We just had a guy hold up new apartments in University Circle because the zoning code favored his low-density preference. University Circle is practically another downtown, and we're trying so hard to improve its "walkability," so I'm really disappointed that incident hasn't led to any action on zoning reform. And that wasn't the first time special interests have tried to force lower density on University Circle. We still have people saying nothing can be built taller than a certain church. We have people opposing tall buildings along Euclid because they're afraid of shadows. Come on now. Re: methodology, if they don't account for hills they should. You still have to walk those hills even if nobody lives there. And if you're expected to limit yourself to your own little village, that's not what I call walkability.

Cleveland has the same problem. Keeping these zoning codes on the books is inconceivable to me. Fixing them should be an agenda-topper.

I agree that a lot of the outer neighborhoods like Puritas don't have much specific appeal. But those are representative of average neighborhoods throughout America in cities great and small. Hardly a unique problem. Our unique problem is the extent to which our walkable urban neighborhoods have been willfully destroyed. Until this community and its leadership makes an open commitment to re-urbanizing Cleveland it will have a hard time competing. Cleveland cannot compete as a city of plazas and detached housing, but in 2011 that's what we're left with. Many recent gains really are just drops in the bucket because the scale of the destruction is so staggering. At this point it will take dozens, maybe hundreds of new mixed-use and multifamily buildings just to get back to par. It is therefore very important that we recognize and commit to the task at hand. It is also important to take a firm stand against those who oppose dense development or who support the further suburbanization of Cleveland.

I think the northern wind makes a lot of Miami-style waterfront attractions unworkable here, but that has no bearing on larger apartment buildings, which our shore should be lined with. Gold Coast is the perfect model. Collinwood is the anti-model, with bungalows and private parks along dead-end streets. It's like they didn't even realize the lake was there. Collinwood even has a freaking trailer park on the coast. If it's perfectly appropriate for a random hamlet in West Virginia, then it's not at all appropriate for a major city's waterfront.

I'd say the biggest mistake wasn't extending the coast but putting things on it that don't really utilize the location, and then arranging them haphazardly. The Rock Hall faces away from the water, with no rear windows. It's separated from the Science Center by useless lawn, which is separated from the stadium by more useless lawn. We could have fit a lot more in that space if it had been built more densely.

That means they already had money starting out... it has to come from somewhere, and good luck selling stock in a company that has zero assets. Starting out with money works pretty well in college too.

There were knocks on Ray Edwards, mainly that he rode coattails in Minnesota. He's good as a #3 rusher on a kickass line but that's all anyone really knows. He's also been around a while. Let the win-now Falcons have him. Mgmt clearly believes Jayme Mitchell is the better fit. They think highly of him. They also think Usama Young is a starter. They've done a good job picking defenders thus far so I'm willing to wait and see. But I'd like to see more signings too. We still need OL, WR, LB, maybe 3 DL's.

University Square isn't doing that badly, is it? Although this certainly won't help.

jborger makes a great point, these buses are casino ads on wheels, so it behooves them to take people all around the city. That's a good thing for people and for the city. I just can't fathom being against transportation options, whatever their source. And the best way to get people walking around downtown is to attract the sort of places they might like to visit. Give them more reasons to check out Euclid Avenue and they will.

There aren't that many retail spaces in the area, really. Uptown is changing that. Are all its ground floor spaces spoken for? The only tenant I can think of is the B&N, which should leave plenty of opportunity for other stuff.

There already is free bus service between public square and playhouse square. Most people consider that a good thing. I usually walk it, but when the temperature is 10 or 100 those buses are a godsend. And it's not the buses that prevent me from stopping to buy things along Euclid, it's the lack of retail. I don't believe we'll make things any better by denying access or services to force people into certain behavior patterns. More carrot, less stick.