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Thanks for the update. I would love to have been in the meeting where they came up with this.

Agreed. I'm surprised they would even try this. Jaywalking is a big problem here, and without knowing many details of this accident I have a hard time blaming RTA or the driver. I see people almost get run over on a daily basis, yet I can't think of an instance when the bus would have truly been at fault.

I agree, there isn't much overlap between people who use the red line and people who would use this. Given all the development going on now, I would expect both train and car traffic in this corridor to increase, regardless of whether OCB is built.

Also to note, that over 40 new restaurants and bars have opened up just within the CBD since 2006. A lot are national companies that have real estate departments that obviously see a little more than you did. ;) I was trying not to make any of that negative toward Cincinnati... I was using it as a positive example, but was also trying to come up with specific axes that were favorable toward Cleveland. And my recent examination of downtown Cincinnati was cursory at best...

Pittsburgh is generally known for being hard to get around in. But it ain't as nasty as what one sees approaching UC from just about any direction, and in terms of urban amenities it doesn't have the same gaping holes we do. What they're trying to do here is different from Carnegie, as Carnegie is more of a commuter route to downtown and will never be zoned for the scale of industry they're looking for along the OCB. Two different things. And my estimate of travel time from Tremont to UC is more like 5-10 min with OCB, 30 min without. You're talking about working your way to then thru downtown, or covering half the length of E55th street for zero reason. Also, trips aren't just measured in minutes. Both non-OCB routes I just looked at require near-constant driver activity, due to course corrections and cross traffic. With OCB, it's more like rolling down a hill.

No, some of these people are from the far east side but only approach downtown via 90 or 480/77. You can't solve this just by dissing my people. It's an actual problem, and not just for them.

All the more reason to give ours every advantage possible. Case is a smaller school, so to achieve comparable foot traffic should we make it harder or easier for other area hipsters and college students to frequent UC? Easier. And UC has plenty of residential around it, much of which used to be resplendent and is now empty. In trying to repopulate those residential areas, do we want them more or less connected with the rest of the region? More. I think we can get comparable density and foot traffic around UC, but not without addressing the number one complaint I get from people of all (non-UO) walks of life when trying to get them to attend an event or party in or near UC-- you can't very well get there! Nobody wants to be cut off from everything else, and I've picked up a decent read on the perception of UC. Right or wrong, people feel like it's too cut off. Add in the perception (right or wrong) that it's intimidating to navigate once you get there, and many otherwise interested people stay away.

I think we've treaded water, maybe crept forward, in the past 10 years. I assign greater weight to Dillards closing than others seem to, and I don't think any number of gourmet restaraunts can make up for it. Failing to prioritize a replacement for Dillards highlights a weakness in our approach. In terms of building stock downtown is in much better shape than 10 years ago, but I can't say Plan 2000 had much to do with that. Maybe nobody planned for local developers to be so aggressive in renovating and adding residential. Compared to other regional downtowns, I would say Cleveland is way ahead in terms of residential and entertainment. I just think they forgot something, and what they forgot is so important they have to turn around and go back for it.

That article doesn't make clear what Plan 2000 really was (is?), other than large renovations or construction of entertainment venues. A tourist focus instead of providing quality of life? I hope that's not what they were going for, although it explains some things if true. Regardless, they'd be better off to focus on what purposes downtowns serve and how best to serve those purposes. Entertaining guests is one, but not a big one IMO. Day to day living is #1; what do big city residents expect from a downtown?

[moved from Tower City thread] I didn't see much foot traffic in Cincinnati's Tower Place, even on a weekend festival day, and no not every spot was occupied. Tower City seems to be much more active on the whole. Which is even wackier, unless you buy my theory about the overriding value of anchor stores. But downtown Cleveland contains substantial blight, despite the increased activity, and downtown Cincy has next to none, even though both downtowns have blight on several sides externally. I take this as non-probative evidence that one policy and strategy approach is working better than the other. I'll try to keep the comparisons to a minimum here, but I think it's prudent at this juncture. The overall condition of downtown Cincy, in terms of rottenness general occupancy, is several steps above Cleveland. And yet, they have noticeably less "to do" downtown and clearly less housing. Maybe we've approached downtown redevelopment/preservation the wrong way, since we have decaying hulks around every corner. Maybe it needs to be a real downtown before it can be a neighborhood. That's my theory. Whether it started at city hall or within FCE or whereever, Cleveland has decided that our downtown can abdicate the retail component of its role as downtown. I think that's not working and it never will. I think downtown Cleveland must fulfill it's retail role before it or anything around it can thrive. I think Cincinnati is only one of several counter-examples.

I haven't been to Pittsburgh for a while either. But I remember that while people tend to complain about getting around that city in general, they never complain about getting to Oakland. Not from downtown, nor from any freeway. I'm suggesting that's why more is built there, because Oakland is better connected with its city. I'm not suggesting it's the only reason, at all, but it's a big one. I often refer to your tagline about the bunch of grapes... if that's what we're going to be, stems are a key part of it. We focus on how OCB provides needless benefit to people in Strongsville, but what about the benefit it provides to Tremont and UC itself? Tremont becomes an extension of UC, and UC suddenly has Strongsville to draw from in a way it never did before.

I'm mystified that others are mystified that UC has access problems. Go look at Oakland in Pittsburgh. That's what happens when people can get to your university area. It's like night and day compared to what we have, yet we should be the ones having more. I wouldn't call 35 with multiple cameras "arterial." Not even close. That's the problem. We want more traffic going into and through UC, right? At the same time, we don't want a lot more traffic along Chester if we want to amplify it as a residential corridor. So all this (new additional) traffic has to come from somewhere, and I couldn't make a worse gateway than Carnegie if I had a poop cannon.

I still support this project and don't get the damage some are predicting. Until the next transportation system is in place, we know what the current one is and we can either play it well or we can fail. There's no sense in cutting off a section of our city just to spite freeways. That's what we've got right now. And most of that cut-off section doesn't look good. The better part of the cut-off section doesn't have the level of development or prestige we all think it should. Let's connect it to the primary transportation network and see what happens. I would feel differently if intact neighborhoods were being leveled to build this, but that doesn't seem likely. And neighborhood revitalization isn't achieved by brute-forcing people to spend time there. Give them the opportunity to stop by, make it nice, and hopefully they will. But any restriction on people who have somewhere to go, in the hopes that it will help businesses in the vicinity of the restriction, is misguided.

Re opening up the arcade, that would make that little area there 10x better. I hope it happens. Renovating the arcade along with 668, plus E 4th and May Company, would completely redo Euclid and Prospect, from 9th in, over the last 10 years. We are making major progress. There should be more national media looking at us as an example.

Let's have one in both places. There's a culinary school operating out in Chesterland, I can't remember the name. Have them come in or open a branch. This CCC thing is perfect for that space downtown though. It ties in with E 4th and it puts our new calling card right on the square. I don't think we could possibly overdo the upscale culinary theme right now. We could get to the point that it alone justifies a new hotel.

I'm an old fogey internet-wise... I'm sure there are great networking and promotional oportunites on the internet that others could better explain. As for local networking, people have already mentioned some ideas in this thread. Having services like grocery, bars/cafes, and a gym nearby allow things to happen organically. Specific interests would have to be targeted the same way they are elsewhere, with the Mansfield this or that Club, and the Regional Board of Stuff. I mean interests like visual/performing arts, bikes, cooking/brewing/wine, various forms of activism... things young professionals like to do. A lot of these groups may already be in place. From there it's all marketing. Once you get any kind of critical mass, they will hopefully bring friends from elsewhere and you're golden. Also, promoting directly to the gay community wouldn't hurt. Urban redevelopment tends to follow them around. Case in point, Cleveland's west side. Demographically they're right up your alley, yp's w/o kids and empty nesters. They have money and like to shop. They landscape and they paint things. I realize I earlier suggested building a NASCAR track... this idea fits poorly with that one, but it would be a lot more effective in the near term, so do this instead. Some friends of mine have had great success with this kind of marketing.

The reason I mention working from home is my brother's fiance works from home, which made it a lot easier for her to relocate to a smaller Ohio city with him. These towns are harder hit by industrial decline than the bigs. For a long time there was just no work. But an increasing number of jobs aren't tied to location at all, and people have always enjoyed living in smaller communities. That can be its own selling point. Those seeking an urban experience are often kept away by school quality, but smaller cities often have more to offer in this regard. The biggest challenge my brother reports is finding other young professionals to spend time with locally. So anything you can do to facilitate that is a big plus.

^ My parents lacked that fear, but I've seen the phenomenon at work with others. It would have been great to throw my own keggers in high school. Alas.

True. And you're right about them sucking at it. As illustrated yesterday, they don't do their homework well. When it comes to outing corruption, the Scene/FreeTimes have done a better job recently. The key is getting at the records and really tearing into them. It seemed to me like the PD only jumped on them after the weeklies and the feds did. They should have been years out in front. This is a core function of the local press and they don't even seem that interested, to me.

Bands are reasons for kids to hang out together, rather than play on a computer. Modern suburbs are designed for playing on a computer. Garage bands from the 60s weren't dealing with a lot of cul-de-sac action. That said, my high school has been producing a lot more bands recently than it did when I was there. So at least it's kind of come back into vogue.

It's rare that any artist use live musicians, unless you're a band. I know of cases where even bands copy or lay tracks. This is a travesty. It's the reason modern music is garbage-- unless you're a band. But there aren't as many bands anymore, which is a travesty. I blame techno and I blame American Idol.

Wow, suburbia as The Raven. Not bad.

Disclaimer: I'm no pro... but I think mid-sized cities like Mansfield could probably benefit from a "hook" of some sort. Of course the hook used to be steel and GM. I'm a little surprised Mansfield doesn't go further in promoting its proximity to Mid-Ohio. But motorsports enthusiasts aren't usually urban pioneers, so scratch that for this purpose. Although it might help Mansfield in general if a NASCAR track were built nearby. Maybe not the crowd you're looking for, but maybe the easiest one to draw there, and it builds on an existing asset. I think a lot of Ohioans would be surprised to find that Mansfield has as much of a downtown as it does. You can't see it from I-71, so many people assume it's much smaller. Mansfield could probably do more to promote its overall urbanity. Then it may be able to start gathering urban-minded people who work from home, a growing demographic. Some may find that they like having the urban without all the suburbs, and without sacrificing "good schools," and the chance to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Also, there have to be a good number of people whose business has them bouncing between Cleveland and Columbus a lot. It's a good location to set up shop for something like that.

Notice that R&B scarcely uses musicians anymore... I'd love to see some suburban kids copying Steve Cropper and Donald Duck Dunn. Very, very unlikely.

It's unprofessional to call anyone a pimp like that, but the metaphor has merit. And the family connections are fair game to question. Hagan has every right to call them out on it and defend himself. But there needs to be more open questioning and criticism going on. I'm surprised the PD hasn't really gone after one or more of these guys. They went after McFaul and that seems to have been effective.