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I don't think it's a clean slate at all, and that's what I love about it. There's less historical city left here to love, compared with others, but in a way that makes what we've managed to retain all the more precious.

That thing you do, where you call Charles Barkley and read him the riot act, that's more the kind of thing I'm looking for in a CVB. How many Cleveland+ banners does it take to counteract one flippant remark on national TV? More banners than we can afford, that's how many. Unless our CVB plans to do what must be done, I'd prefer this money go toward the MM/CC. At least that's a tangible asset.

I tend to agree. Another way of putting it... what changes would PC be willing to make in order to get/keep this money? Right now we're getting our PR from Betty White. I don't think PC has done a good job of responding to attacks, and I haven't been thrilled with their promotional concepts either. When "Cleveland+" is all you've got, it's time to try harder.

Seems like you've got it figured out... post away!

Of course economic development would help. And yes, lack of it is the main driver of crime around here. I think that's best addressed at the regional, state, and national levels though. What the city needs to do, and can do, is take a different approach to policing. No more traffic safety division. No more sitting around scanning plates. Get out of the cruisers and be present on the street. We've got to reintroduce foot patrols to areas that haven't seen them in years.

Its restricted hours are a huge problem. I lived a couple blocks away and, with effort and timing, was only able to eat there once. I tried countless times, only to find them inexplicably closed. What's the point of having a diner that's only open four hours a day? Penny wise, pound foolish. You can't develop a customer base that way, no matter how much you may save on operating costs. This point applies far beyond Somers.

All things considered, the western site deserves another look. My understanding was that existing businesses in that area made it impossible. Is this not so?

I have no doubt that walking beats the WFL. If the WFL offered door-to-door service to offices on 9th street, perhaps not, but it doesn't come close to that. As it stands now, the only destination that makes sense to reach via WFL is the muni lot. Its construction should have been accompanied by concrete plans, if not immediately actionable ones, to extend it along the lakeshore. A taste of something greater. The failure of the WFL was a failure of vision.

On the opposite side of Euclid, near the Euclid Lofts mainly. They placed the spray mulch/grass down, but nothing really came up. I know there was a lot of construction going on at the time as well, but the sidewalks have been clear of construction for how long now and still no grass? I liked the trees, they gave me something to look at while walking to work. But my thing is, if the city is willing to take care of the potted plants in downtown and up Euclid, why not take care of a little patch of grass? I guess that's what we get when business close then... gray dirt :/ To the extent this was intentional, those responsible should never be allowed to plan a public project again. Why build these planters if nothing could be planted? Was that not worth addressing ahead of time? Why reduce the functional sidewalk to 3' wide so you can display unfinished landscaping indefinitely? This was a core section of the project. There's absolutely no excuse for building muckbins along CSU's campus. I find it hard to believe that landlords in the desolate area between 55th and CCF were so much more amenable to maintaining their treelawns, when they don't even maintain their lots. I don't care what the policy excuse is... these results are unacceptable.

Methinks it has more to do with the overall bunkness of the Ecovillage plan. Had they done apartment blocks instead of little houses it might have taken off. And I don't blame potential merchants for taking a wait and see approach to the STJ center, since it isn't clear to anyone exactly how that's going to work. Given its proximity to CSU, and the lack of convenience stores in that vicinity, I'm sure it will find a tenant at some point.

I do think this needs to happen, whatever it takes to get it done. Ohio is filled with little cities where a lot of people can barely afford a car anymore. But I think its best chance is to get the biggest counties fully behind it. That may not be as easy as it was for casinos. Maybe it should be promo'd with major infrasturcture plans, i.e. new rail lines, rather than just buying a crapload of buses, even though we need the buses too.

I don't think that's true at all. There are plenty of good people who work odd shifts, and plenty more who enjoy a late night on the town. Many successful and recommendable cities offer fun times till almost sunrise. Cleveland alone can't change Ohio's bible-belt liquor laws, but RTA can certainly help Cleveland make the most of the opportunities it has. It's a fact that much of the investment going on downtown and in the neighborhoods revolves around nightlife. RTA needs to get on the same page and be a helpful part of that growth. Cities that are fun make young people want to visit, and stay, and start businesses. Not all of those businesses will be bars... but a healthy bar scene helps to attract those entrepreneurs. Cleveland can't afford to be no fun, and RTA can't keep stranding people in the middle of the night.

with this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing, the calliope crashed to the ground

Sounds like they should sell.

Why does it have to be condos? The market would bear an apartment tower right freaking now. At this point, we haven't seen weak demand for single rentals downtown in years. Who is making our demand measurements for downtown housing and retail? How are they making these measurements? How could they be so bad at it and still have that job?

You can't use RTA rail for a night out downtown, because the service cuts off just after midnight.

All of the above. I just spent the past 4 days processing teenagers for federally funded summer jobs. We had roughly 11,000 applicants for 3000 temporary minimum wage positions. Each kid had to produce a mountain of paperwork to prove their poverty and residency and relation to their parents. Most waited in line for several hours to get processed. In many cases the parents had to skip out on their own jobs to get paperwork in order and wait in line. The alternative for these kids is to rob people or sell crack. How many multinational corporations make their money the hard way, if they don't have to? Zero. It's human nature. Finding legitimate work needs to be easier, and robbing people needs to be more difficult.

Attracting all people to the city is very important, but more emphasis should be placed on attracting young, well educated indivduals to the City of Cleveland. The key is to get them here early so that they can plant roots and not want to leave. It's much easier to convince a 20-something straight out of college to move to Cleveland than it is to convince a 30 or 40 something mother/father of 3. The point is to get them here early by offering good colleges and good entry-level jobs. Once they're hear they'll plant some roots, start a family and then you've got them! Attracting young people is the key to the growth or even sustainability of any city IMO. Exactly.

I'm all for new high rises... but it's not as if we lack other places to build those. There was never any need to wreck an already revitalized historic district. One step forward, two steps back. This is how Cleveland ends up not getting anywhere, despite the fact that development and investment are in fact taking place. Instead of building on our countless empty lots, we always want to tear up what we already have. Instead of tying things together and gaining some synergy and momentum, we're always trying to reinvent the wheel. What's best for individual developers, and individual neighborhoods, is often damaging to the city as a whole. In the end, all that missed opportunity hurts those developers and those neighborhoods as much as anyone else, because the city continues to stagnate. We need a more coherent plan.

Tremont is not exactly known for safety. I was never jacked, but I endured some petty crime while living there. I'm not sure West 3rd has a hill though. Do they mean Literary Road hill, coming up from West 3rd? I've walked up that hill alone plenty of times drunk at night, and you get a real vulnerable feeling there.

I think we need places like this: As well as places like these: Obviously the violent jackassery needs to be held in check, but based on the comparisons noted above, there's an extent to which you can't have a world famous entertainment district without letting people cut loose. I think it was possible, and in hindsight desirable, to make an effort to maintain what we had in the Flats. A bit more police presence, a bit more support for existing businesses there and for the overall concept. Instead, the city got set on "cleaning it up" and doomed it. The geography of the Flats made it an ideal place to have our wild & crazy entertainment district. West 6th, being more centralized and more residential, isn't quite as appropriate. I see this as a huge misstep, one that we can't really correct at this point. One of my core theories of urban development is that you can't just put whatever whereever. Certain locations are often better for certain uses. Other uses, not so much. The Flats is physically isolated and could supplement downtown and Ohio city without intruding on either of them. That made it a great setting for a high-energy party district. There are lots of places equally suited for a FEB-type development, upscale and sedate, but few suited to replace the 80s-90s Flats.

And then you get the quizzical look in building in housing. Our building has upper floor apartments and ground floor retail and I swear you'd have thought my brother had walked in and asked if it was ok to land his spaceship in Ohio City. It's like nobody's ever seen Lakewood or Coventry or East 4th. Diff'rent Strokes, I guess. Maybe they'll come around and maybe they won't. But regardless of them, there are plenty of people waiting for more traditional urban housing to show up around here, and there are billions around the world for whom it works very well.

Bingo. Dolan is cheap, but he's still spending a similar amount on payroll as competitive teams in larger markets. He simply does not have the revenue. The model has changed quite a bit even in the decade since we were competitive every year. It's become increasingly clear though that, even within this context, the Indians stink. We're not the only mid-sized market in MLB... but we're the one that can't draft and gets garbage in our trades. That's not Dolan's fault, that's Shapiro's fault.

You get better sound in the bar room anyway, as long as you can fit on that lil stage.

Lack of a happening university district hurts much more, IMO. That's why I was so hot on building a CSU-Case residential area along Euclid. More generally, brain drain could be fought simply by providing a more functional urban setting for said brains to operate in. For that we need cops, we need transit, we need retail and large-scale residential. Basic building blocks. Instead we keep focusing on parks and recreation, which is a fine thing to pursue after we have the basic building blocks in place.