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Excellent piece!

Cleveland should be marketing hard toward these communites in overpriced coastal cities. Something like the Collinwood effort on a much broader scale.

Without delving too deep into Rocky River, I find it hard to view labor relations as a local self-government issue that's susceptible to home rule. It has extraterrtorial effects on the labor market, and it has little to do with specifically local conditions (as opposed to, say, speed limits). My personal view on home rule is that the concept has been over-expanded and it creates a perverse incentive to avoid consolidation. It's anti-regionalism.

What use is a forum without divergent views? This isn't a church service.

Still trying to like it, just can't get myself there. Everybody says I should like it. I can't get past the part that goes Ro-co-co Ro-co-co Ro-co-co... and it seems like Rush's "Subdivisions" made all the same points in one song. And Hts121 that list is uncannily similar to mine. My new genre is jazz, specifically Miles Davis. Gotta start somewhere.

My money's on Beachwood too, which will only make 480 East that much worse in the mornings.

Unfortunately jobs aren't as steady or as plentiful as they once were. You're often lucky to have one. And uprooting yourself to get closer to work isn't always feasible, especially if that involves unloading a house. Homeownership is not such a great idea anymore. Our living patterns need to get in line with our new economy, and that probably means a lot more people should be renting. Another issue is that many people are priced out of living near their job, or near job centers. I agree that we need better transit options and less sprawl, but until that happens, many Americans will face long drives to work.

I was there in December and came away really impressed. Nothing anywhere looked run down. We drove up Snelling Ave from the airport to Roseville, and while it was nothing special, it was several miles of nice commercial street. Any Ohio example I can think of has nasty stretches, and Snelling didn't. I was told the north side is rough but didn't get to see it. Didn't see downtown proper, except from a distance. Did go through the UM area which is awesome.

Me too. That would be perfect.

I was ready to believe that 62% figure... but my read of the pie chart is that 62% represents downtown and Beachwood combined, with downtown still having the largest individual share at 35.9%.

I used to think these were just along Chester, but working in Hough a lot this summer, I discovered just how many of them had been built throughout the neighborhood. Most of them look like a blatant attempt to recreate Solon. C-razy.

As jborger suggested above, maybe they could accoomodate the CVB's welcome center here, since it's being displaced by the casino itself.

If they're willing to build around historic structures, and put garage parking over ground-level activity, I don't think this is such a bad deal. But if the Columbia building has to come down, it's a terrible deal.

Yes. It could be as simple as painting a clear picture of how we get beyond "conventional" after we build it as such.

Techncally they went with the color gray, even calling it the "Silver Line" prior to the hospital sponsorship. I fully support painting the whole fleet orange.

I believe that if 3C had offered "high or at least higher speed," Strickland could have rode it to victory. Liberals were markedly underwhelmed with the plan and Kasich's campaign hammered the speed issue.

The idea of Lakewood not being on board with this isn't surprising, especially since they just repaved Clifton a few years ago. I realize a lot of people here support this project, as well as the shoreway boulevard conversion, and I respect that. But I think the letter writer has a point... a lot of people are against it too. The letter goes on for 2 more paragraphs about how important the circulator service was for Lakewood residents. On one hand, a gaping hole in the basic requirements of city living. On the other, replacing a perfectly good road with another one. Maybe the money can't just go from one basket into another as he suggests (capital vs. operating etc.), but its reasonable to raise questions of priority. I don't think this project is a bad idea, I just don't get how it tops anybody's list right now.

I feel like Cleveland has a better shot of attracting outsiders than its own suburbanites. I'd like to see that rail line happen, but more for the benefit of city dwellers seeking employment out that way.

http://media.cleveland.com/metro/photo/10wg1acensusjpg-f6f521b5b0b769a5.jpg Interesting Cleveland map in the PD showing gain/loss by census tract. Surprised by the losses in what appears to be Clark/Fulton, where I had expected to see growth. In general the west side is more of a mixed bag than I had predicted. But there's also some undeniable turnaround beginning wth downtown and UC on the east side. http://media.cleveland.com/metro/photo/10cpcensusjpg-373428b818661613.jpg And here's the metro map.

It's wasteful to have each generation abandoning cities and building new ones elsewhere, and that's the story I see behind all this. These stats aren't just bad for Ohio, they're bad for America and the entire human race. Ohio can't mimic the sunbelt's climate, which I think is the primary "cool" factor it's had going for it. But through regionalism we can at least duplicate the governmental structure their metros (and Columbus) are using. A lot of our extra costs stem from supporting all these little governments. I have no doubt that lower taxes will help us lure investment. But instead of busting public sector unions, we need to be busting the political subdivisions they work for. And we need to consolidate counties as well as municipalities. But we also need to work on our cool factor in order to attract jobs. And like it says on the front page of this website, Ohio's secret weapon is its cities. We need to focus like a laser on making them marketable as cities. That means planning. It means more density, more transit, more attention paid to good architecture and aesthetics. Yes the latter bit is subjective but only kinda. And right now the political winds are blowing in the exact opposite direction. I call on everyone here to get more involved in local and state politics. This is getting out of hand and it's time for us to take over.

Regionally it was pretty close, but Allegheny and Cuyahoga are simlarly balkanized and Cleveland proper's shrinkage rate was twice that of Pittsburgh. Cleveland's east side experienced widespread Detroitification over the last decade. Pittsburgh only has pockets of that, and much of it is in burbs like Braddock rather than in-city. I'd say they're cleaning our clock. And they're better poised for growth in the next decade, because so much of Cleveland's built environment is in shambles. Miles on end. People don't want to live near that, let alone in it, nor do they want to open businesses there. We have a lot of work ahead. Best get to it.

Agreed. But I think it's more than a promotional deficenecy... it's the product. This is why I harp on the apartment stock issue so much, and on what I call functional urbanity. The people we're looking to attract aren't buying what we're selling. I would include immigrants in this as well. Our leadership doesn't get it. For every positive develpment we've seen recently, like East 4th or Uptown, there is so much waste. Steelyard Commons, the Euclid Corridor, acres upon acres of plazas and low density tract housing... we've spent zillions on this stuff and all it's done is make us less urban, less attractive, less marketable. We put up bus shelters that don't provide shelter... we tear up intersections to replace them with different intersections, on a street that lacks proper lighting. No! Fix the lighting. This is a triage situation. Focus on the immediate needs, the gaping holes, the major problems that everyone agrees on.

I would place a much higher priority on lighting than on these curb bumpouts.

Because without robust local transit options, intercity rail is a lot less useful. The streetcar seems like a necessary precursor to something like 3C, and is useful on its own to an extent that 3C wasn't. At least that's what I would tell him.

First they want to be downtown, now they refuse to be in Columbus at all?