327

Can you elaborate on that? It's hilarious as is, but I'd like to know more.

I'm starting to think Terminal Tower should go the way of the Green Bay Packers. It's ours. Forest City might as well be spraying "HEK" all over downtown. Get them outta here, and make them leave the name behind just like Art Modell.

"General Growth" is seeking bankruptcy? That's like Freedom Fries. I'm going to name my failed company "Your Childrens' Future." What is wrong with these people?

Gosh I hate to say it but I've heard of more errant and destructive urban experts than good ones. Maybe it's like the financial experts? We need to reverse which ones are in charge and which ones get the coffee? In what way does the current RTA leadership differ from Krumholz on rail? I know we haven't converted to all buses yet, but I can just see the dollar signs gleaming and beckoning. I know we have plans to build train stations, but uh-oh here comes shovel readiness as an issue. Freaking drudge report was making fun of Ohio last week for submitting a $50-some billion request just for studies. That implication is that we came into this way short on studies. To even suggest BRT on Clifton at a time like this tells me a great deal. Bush is out of office and Obama is pushing rail. Get with the program. I would like to see a seismic shift in the direction of rail expansion. This city/region is on a mission to impress people, or at least it should be. If the rest of the country was stumbling over themselves to get stimulus money to put in their own BRT I might see it differently. In other news, I haven't seen it mentioned here but the PD quoted JMasek confirming that RTA has turned down the bus beeping. Good results. The square now sounds pretty much normal, but the buses themselves are still an endurance test. Nobody is going to like you if you sit next to them and go BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEP in their ear during their entire ride to work. RTA is doing that to thousands of people every day. Thank heavens RTA doesn't need public support... wait... oh no!

Would Cleveland Heights merge with University Heights? Seems most logical since the schools are already together. But in many ways Shaker is a better match. An even better match would be Cleveland itself.

I understand how you feel. As long as their will remains stronger than the sum total of everyone else's, we're screwed here.

That sounds good. It blows my mind that such a department wouldn't already exist. I remember a Board of Building Standards being mentioned in another thread, and I know there are Cleveland historical markers on some buildings. That's about all I know. I intend to find out more as soon as time allows. I've had it with this madness.

McCleveland, I was hoping you might jump in because you might have an answer to my question regarding Random Cleveland Demolitions: Who at city hall is charged with preventing them? MTS may be right, maybe they all go through council.

The first thing I'm trying to do is maybe see if someone here knows what department of the city is responsible for this. I don't think we understand the problem yet. Who's letting this happen? Somebody has to be, and I doubt they're on city council. My guess is that it's an executive/administrative function or a board of some sort.

I wonder what they mean by new exterior. A friend of mine works there too. There can't be more than a couple firms left in it.

Can we all agree that at least something shitty, maybe a tool shed, has been built in London in the past 50 years? It doesn't seem like an abortion-level debate. The point is that a problem exists in the standards Cleveland has or the way they're enforced. What can we do about it?

I don't think we can stop Cleveland's Random Demolitions without examining why Cleveland has so many more than its share. I think that requires a look at the polices used in cities we'd prefer ours looked like, and a highly critical examination of the policies in Cleveland that have led to this.

Maybe it does when the comparison is apt. No one disagrees that London has better building stock than modern Cleveland. The wealth disparity was certainly a factor. But they could just as easily have torn down everything and built garbage too, and they didn't. It may behoove us to find out how that was accomplished or prevented.

I'm all about improving safety but the focus should be on increasing connections, like non-car Tremont access and minimizing the trench's impact. If that isn't the focus I doubt they'll even bother with any of it.

^ Cool. As Austin Carr would say, get that weak stuff outta here! No more BRT please.

Also these are rates for furnished units, right?

I don't claim to understand what that's all about, but Cleveland Clinic pays no property taxes and is awash in the region's money. I don't want to hear anything from them about fee increases.

I read that book while in in grad school at UC for Finance. The gist of it really was that most analysts are mediocre at best, an insight that our professors reiterated on an almost daily basis -- interesting considering that was what most of us were looking to do for a living. Don't feel bad. That's true of many professions. Doctors and lawyers, lots of others. That's why both sides in a trial get to bring in an economist. Economists disagree. Therefore, they can't all be right. The material in any kind of grad school is complicated and cutting edge. It's acknowledged that we're making it up as we go along through history. That's why mass buy-in to one seemingly perfect idea can be a bad sign. That doesn't mean nothing is ever true or knowable. It just means slow down and consider that despite how great things are going, the detractors may have a point. That failed to occur, with the world economy just now. It's not like nobody was against these practices that got us here. The problem is that nobody listened at all.

On what?

I'm surprised no one has commented on this. Am I the only one's who's excited about Big Fun coming to the west side? Holy crap! I didn't see this until just now. Big Fun is probably my favorite store in the whole world. I buy Transformers. They inspire me.

Not knowing much about this case, but knowing something about the prosecutor's office, I agree with Hts44121. If we want crime punished we need to prosecute it effectively. My understanding is that our current prosecutor is a fantastic golfer. One of the best around... at golf.

I can appreciate your zen approach to it, but I'm only going to be young for so long and I would prefer to get good things rolling sooner rather than later. It's high time for a sense of urgency around here. I posted an article earlier today about how so many in Cleveland's municipal staff haven't met basic civil service requirements. I believe a lot of missed opportunities and lost years can be blamed on this. We need to start using every tool in a modern American city's arsenal. I don't think we are. Historic preservation and building standards would both be great places to start.

Wow.

(you can drink at the other restaurant's patios right?) I think so. I hope so, because I've done so. Wonderbar never had a problem with it and I've seen people drinking at the tables outside Corner Alley.

This is also true of casinos, though you probably have some counter-majority views on that issue. You may even want to bring about change on that issue. So why is it so weird that others might have similar takes on different issues? Also, the Ohio constitution grants more power to rural counties than urban ones. Apportionment rules require that to the extent possible, every county should get at least one representative of its own, even if it does not deserve one based on population. It's not a landslide margin but it is enough to tip close issues. It's kind of like how the US senate works, but a midler version. Similar principle at play though. Point is, what happens in Columbus does not necessarily represent what the majority of Ohioans want. There was a national anti-urban bias (via Thomas Jefferson) at the time Ohio was being put together politically. So if you feel like the deck is stacked against cities here, that's because it is.