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sir2gees I think you're actually thinking what I'm thinking. Maybe not. The east side of Cleveland wasn't always a bunch of bad neighborhoods clustered together. The nicer parts of Pittsburgh didn't go the way of Glenville, and there has to be a reason. I would contend that Cleveland and Detroit's "white flight" problems were directly caused by planning decisions. One key planning decision in Cleveland was not allowing blacks to cross the river. I know this isn't seen today as being within the sphere of "urban planning," but what else can you call it when they aggressively segregate a city on purpose? Don't forget that Shaker Heights could easily have been within city limits, but it was designed by avowed racists. This move of theirs denied significant tax money to Cleveland over the years, while Squirrel Hill doesn't seem to mind being in Pittsburgh. City borders and financial structures were all initially planning decisions at one time. They still are, even if we've allowed a racist legacy to make our decisions for us up to this point. By the way, I love that the east side's upscale shopping mecca is called Legacy Village. What "legacy" are we talking about, when we're building a retail center that far from downtown? Another planning snafu which hit Cleveland and Detroit, but largely not Pittsburgh, was the inclination to displace black populations with freeway construction. This contributed to massive riots in Cleveland and Detroit but not nearly so in Pittsburgh, which is known for having better than average race relations. Since that time, planning decisions in Cleveland and Detroit have revolved around destroying the urban fabric and replacing it with halfass suburb. Pittsburgh has not done this, and retains much more of its historic building stock. These are all planning decisions handled differently in different places. Pittsburgh's decisions have caused less sprawl, while Clevleand and Detroit have made sprawl a number one goal. They've reduced themselves to a product that doesn't appeal to suburbanites or hipsters, or anyone else.

My roommate and I are both planning on leaving, he moreso than I, because there's so little work here in our fields. I don't want to leave but I may have no choice. That's all there is to it.

My understanding of the Youngstown 2010 plan, which may be a flawed understanding, is that development on any cleared-out area would be forbidden, at least in the near term. Otherwise why don't they call it a redevelopment plan instead of a shrinkage plan? That would certainly answer the complaints of defeatist thinking. Instead they're talking about removing utility service. That doesn't sound pro-development to me. The idea of letting things go back to nature has been tossed around a lot, and this is not a quick or temporary process. Nor is it a logical thing to consider, if there is any intent to re-urbanize the land within a generation. This all strikes me as being different from the process of assembling a land bank which leads to Battery Park style projects. That I can get behind. The distinction I would draw is the intent and purpose of the demolition. If it is to prepare for redevelopment, I see it as a land bank. If it's to reconcentrate people in the better neighborhoods and leave the others empty indefinitely-- including taking steps to prevent development-- I view it negatively and as a shrinkage plan. I also predict unintended consequences like new traffic bottlenecks and isolation of the surviving sections. Re: Pittsburgh, it has similar fiscal problems and maybe even worse ones than we do. But it looks remarkably better than Cleveland and it has way more street life and urban retail. It still has upper class neighborhoods within city limits. That has nothing to do with being depression-proof, it's a result of better planning decisions.

Wow, I totally agree about the involvement conflicts. It's like this guy has never even heard of the concept. I disagree that the city hall and development issues aren't intertwined. They both have to be solved, but I agree with Egger that all these ridiculous demands are endemic to the way the city is run. They aren't unique to this project by any means. When a project that's a couple miles long has to deal with three independent "jurisdictions" on top of city hall, it doesn't exactly encourage forward motion.

I agree with clearing out dilapidated homes, but the typical shrinkage plan involves not replacing them. I see that differently than a land bank, whose purpose is to spur redevelopment. Shrinkage plans are about removing large (formerly contiguous) areas of city from any possibility of urban growth or urban anything. Is this pedestrian friendly or transit friendly, to break everything up with big empty spaces? I don't see how. Detroit could use a few parks, really. But what are the chances these shrinkage zones end up "going back to nature" vs looking like permanent vacant lots? I see too many "City Park" signs placed next to seas of grass distinguished only by a picnic shelter maybe, where giant mowers kill every sapling that appears. That to me is not a park.

That poll question is almost guaranteed to produce a negative result. "Should America divert some funding from highways and bridges to invest in public transit?" The way it's worded, a vote for public transit is a vote for bridges collapsing. Why does transit funding need to come out of bridge repair, which would seem to be as necessary for transit as it is for cars? The accompanying article lets both sides speak, but the poll question appears to have been supplied by one of the parties-- the American Highway Users Alliance. The question assumes their argument to be true. Objective poll questions are difficult to write, but this is not even an honest attempt at it.

In that case, we should either stop building entirely until we've identified what's sustainable, or we should decide once and for all that if we've already built a city somewhere, it's sustainable because we insist on sustaining it. It is crazy to abandon prefectly good cities due to fickle political/industrial shifts. These are not mysterious forces of nature forcing our hand-- Detroit is still habitable-- these are human decisions that can be evaluated, criticized, challenged and changed. Halving the density of a place like Flint, let alone Detroit, is thoroughly pro-sprawl. Notice that nobody is talking about "shrinking" any exurbs. Yet the exurbs are clearly what needs bulldozed, along with places like Phoenix... to let them stand while destroying large swathes of urbanity is to clearly state an exurban direction for our society.

That fountain in the NE quadrant is at least running now, but it's pretty feeble and I doubt that's how it's supposed to look-- a fetid pool with a minor gurgle in the middle. It doesn't matter how we redesign this space if it's not going to be kept up, including security from harassment. There are usually police nearby during the day, showing girls their horses, but they rarely respond to harassment complaints and they don't seem to be looking for it.

The reason there's a taboo on discussing American decline is because it begs the question of why the decline is happening, and why it's disproportionately hitting certain regions and industries. I think bulldozing cities before figuring this out is unwise. You don't prune a plant that's dying, you investigate what the problem is. Maybe it's an issue of water or light or fungus that you can't solve with a knife. "Shrinking" without addressing the reasons for shrinkage is defeatist in the extreme.

"Some wonder why justices proceeded without considering the merits of home rule. Judicial review, after all, is part of the job description." Judicial review does not apply to articles of the state constitution, nor should it. But home rule is outdated and needs reform at the political level. It was conceived at a time when Ohio metro areas were stand-alone cities, almost like city-states. Now each one is 50 cities each, and each city gets to do things differently. This is an extremely anti-business situation that has nothing to do with taxes, and could be fixed in a revenue-neutral manner. Cleveland's predatory lending restrictions were shot down on the grounds that it made sense for financial institutions to encounter only one set of laws when dealing in our state. While I disagreed with the result of that case, the rationale behind it is sensible. Italy and Germany did not become world powers until all their little fiefdoms merged into something coherent. Home rule prevents that from happening in Ohio.

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This is the most justified demo we've seen for some time. I realize it was a recent structure, but so was CSU's student center. Both were obsolete and no longer fit the area around them. That HoJo was a little out of place when it was built, let alone 2009.

People move. It is what it is. I spent 2 adult years in Michigan, which I don't think would make me "from" there, so there must be some kind of a clear yes/no line. I would suggest that being born here or spending some developmental years here would qualify. A place you move to once you're grown up and on your own isn't really where you're from, unless of course you stay there, but even then you're still originally from where you're originally from. Thus, I wouldn't count Tom Hanks for Cleveland or Lakewood. He lived there for a while, but only temporarily and for work.

Ellison wrote "City on the Edge of Forever," often called the best ever Star Trek episode. Wayne Newton is from Newark. He was the grand marshall of their bicentennial parade.

I wonder what "uses" that condo was put to? Thanks for that image.

Singer/songwriter David Allen Coe ("Long Haired Red Neck" - "Take This Job and Shove It" - "I'm an Ohio Boy") lived in Little Italy as a kid, originally from central Ohio. We're vaguely related. Also born in Little Italy but growing up in Pittsburgh, composer Henry Mancini (Peter Gunn, Pink Panther).

Nor can I personally reassure you of the excellent job you're doing, despite the lack of run support you've been getting from the operations side.

The area around the HoJo is slated to become a concentration of shipping and industry-- also known as a terrible place for luxury condos.

Has RTA considered that all these measures might DECREASE community confidence in bus safety? Their persistence in the face of noise pollution complaints makes them seem frighteningly necessary. It implies that RTA drivers have two choices: run people over, or drive an alarm clock down the street at all hours. No middle ground. And has anyone considered that this does nothing to protect deaf people from getting run over? Henceforth, I demand that each RTA vehicle be equipped with multi-directional strobe lights and disco balls instead of standard turn signals. If it doesn't attack the peripheral vision of everyone nearby, we might as well just use cow-catchers and be done with it. The honking during turns seems downright reckless. Honking can make other drivers freeze up, assuming their current trajectory has become dangerous, hence the honking. It's a boy who cried wolf problem. Horns are supposed to indicate immediate danger, not the fact that someone is making a routine turn. Seriously, I'm not sure RTA's safety department thought this through. It's primary effect is to punish those who use or live near a bus route. That is not a good long-term strategy for RTA.

5/3... may switch to PNC since they hired my brother, also because I'm moving east and there aren't a lot of 5/3 branches on Cleveland's east side. Actually downtown is the only one.

Yes indeed. And as the supply of stores increases, the demand for Cleveland will grow.

^ I really like that avatar.

When I was younger I always wanted to drink at the Jolly Bar when I turned 21. Never did. I did make it to the Wonder Bar in Girard, which I think is still there. It's not at all like the Wonder Bar on E 4th. My brother's idea for downtown Youngstown is to knock through some interior walls and put nightclubs on the top floors of all the buildings. Something unique to draw in the young money crowd. Incidentally, the Warner Brothers were from New Castle and started with a theater in Youngstown. I'm surprised no one's done anything with that concept. Would have been a nice reason to preserve this theater. Really, it makes more historical sense to put movie making operations in Youngstown than in Cleveland. There already are some right now. It could be the low-cost Hollywood of the Midwest-- the new Vancouver. It's not like Youngstown doesn't have claims to fame besides steel. And crime. A mafia museum, more gritty than the one in Las Vegas, wouldn't be a bad idea. I wouldn't mind seeing Ohio concentrate its casinos in Youngstown (I know, I know) just because Youngstown has the background in gambling. How about a boxing academy, and a heavily promoted annual tournament? Amateur boxing was a big deal there when I was in high school and Kelly Pavlik is a good ambassador. Maybe the boxing stuff is already in the works. My point is that Youngstown could be doing a lot more than bulldozing half the city. I don't like this embracing shrinkage nonsense. Youngstown already has the best city park in Ohio, which is gigantic. It also has the second best skyline in northeast Ohio. It doesn't need to become more rural. It needs more transit. It's laid out in nice corridors for rail. A surprising number of people who have jobs involving travel, allowing them to live wherever, choose to live in the Youngstown suburbs because the cost of everything is so cheap. They might consider moving into the city, or at least spending money there more often, if it would pick a direction besides backwards and go with it.

The Hi-Fi had better open again. This is getting out of hand. It's like John Lithgow from Footloose is in charge. For grocery stores to coexist really close they'd all have to be kind of small. There's going to be some product overlap and we wouldn't want Gallucci's or the Asian places to get cannibalized. The near east side is great for ethnic food, definitely something to build on. This new one will be a nice addition. A Puerto Rican grocery on the east side would be good too, maybe up or down 55th.

Quite. This is a Hello McFly sort of connection to make. Ten thousand monkeys with typewriters would have a new train station there before lunch. After all that firestorm about connec... tivity, the RTA and Amtrak lines running right in front of the mall have been completely ignored. We'll be lucky if we get a front door on the place so we can flag down trains by hand. If you don't believe me, go down to the mall, look south, and observe Mr. Burnham's contempt for doors. These things do happen. Don't you wish someone had been there to poke him on the shoulder and remind him to put doors facing the mall? Time to start poking some shoulders.