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I agree it's probably a ploy, but it could have been neutralized had they been more forthcoming up to this point. Hagan's stated expectations are inappropriate.

I'm glad they're paying attention to ballot language wording this time. Didn't happen on the smoking ban.

Fully agree about the grocery. Maybe Kroger should open one on the ground floor of their tower. Are there even small-scale grocers downtown? If not, that should be a gigantic priority. You can't do downtown residential without at least some kind of grocery store.

I was hoping nobody would reference that article quite yet... trying to measure how good the outlet plan sounds in the context of already having retail. Oh well, a new outlet center going up near Cincinnati kind of kills the analogy anyway. If Cincinnati has no downtown movie theater, I would put that high on your list.

But hypothetically, if a developer were hot to redo Tower Place as outlets, what would you think? What if the idea were extended beyond Tower Place to a larger portion of downtown?

I've never heard anyone from Akron or anywhere else call it a "devil strip." What does that even mean?

I would show up just about anywhere for whirlyball.

What if they were to redo the whole place with mostly outlet stores?

I really think the nosy neighbor problem gets worse the more suburban the area becomes. The further out you get, the more suspicious and security-minded the people are. People in the city are used to weirdos and weirdness, so they're less concerned about what everyone else is up to.

This was inevitable as soon as we began outsourcing and offshoring.

I thought we agreed on the age issue but not the regional issue. Why is the south different? I say it's not. You say it is? Only a [whatever you are] would say something so stupid!

I really think that this is possibly true in Midwestern area's, but far from the truth in the Sunbelt, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. How so? It's certainy true historically in those states. I'm not familiar with their current demographics, but I'm familiar with 60s era litigation over their old demographics, voting rights, and housing discrimination. Edit: I totally agree that it's the fault of earlier generations.

So now part of OB is with lower St Clair, and part is with Slavic Village? They need to rethink the entire map.

Many times when a criminal defendant gets off, it's because the police behaved in a manner unbecoming to a free country. Different ways of enforcing the constitution on police have been discussed. Unfortunately these more punitive options aren't popular with the police. Suburban living, with its high price of admission and overtly racist initial setup, has exacerbated both racial and economic segregation. It has also strengthened the link between racial and economic segregation. This leads to all kinds of results nobody likes.

Was this the best possible outcome, or the worst?

In what ways do you feel that you act as someone form the '70s-'80s? Little things. Expressions I use, my baseline of taste. Anyone my age has that era for a childhood frame of reference. The difference for me was overexposure to adults and underexposure to kids. So I was the dork who brought up Jackson 5 when everybody was talking about Thriller. When Nirvana and hip hop came around I was a rock purist. These dang kids and their music. It's probably like this for a lot of people who grew up in exurban or rural settings, pre-internet.

"I-490?" For most intents and purposes, yes. But is there a direct RTA connection across 490? Plus 490 can't be walked. You ought to be able to walk from SV across the valley somehow. If you can't, they're different wards. Regardless of wards, I think both sides of the valley would be better off with more links. In particular, and I'd never thought of this, non-drivers in SV need a direct path to SYC. I guess this all applies more to Brooklyn Center and Tremont than to Old Brooklyn, but that makes it even more clear to me that OB and SV should not share a ward. I also found it interesting that Bracatelli resents Cimperman for being able to represent downtown and live on the west side.

Right, at that point we're already into the suburbs. There would be a ward that would require a trip through suburbs to connect the two parts of it. Whatever happened to the Clark/Pershing bridge? Is there no way to make a bridge or path through that area without hitting a steel mill?

This is where I would put my district of flagship retailers. It's the only available area in/near downtown that could accomodate one. It's perfectly located near much of downtown's population and the innerbelt. The one thing it lacks is rapid transit. This is true of the entire area between Euclid Ave and the lake. It needs rapid transit very badly.

Wow, this could get uglier than I anticipated. I agree with him (and didn't know he cared) that linkages between Slavic Village and the rest of the "south side" are notably missing. To have no crossing between Carnegie and Harvard is just ridiculous. After Harvard/Denison, what's the next one? Brook Park? Rockside/Snow? I'm not counting freeways. How do you get to Steelyard from Fleet Avenue? I'd almost like to see SV and OB merged into one ward so that this gets addressed by somebody.

How very meta. That's a great idea.

The Beachland/Waterloo area is partcularly hard to categorize. It's becoming its own thing entirely. I guess modern Collinwood has several disparate zones and that's all there is to it. What's most interesting to me is that my dad, who lived there in the 60s, tells the same story of integration/encroachment that friends my age do. It's as if the process has been at a virtual stalemate there for decades.

The explanation I get from friends who grew up there is that the line between North and South moves, and is determined by what color of people live where. The way they quickly interject "North!" when someone says Collinwood speaks volumes.

I didn't expect the mass closing of mental institutions to come up, but yes, that caused major problems for US cities.

Outlet malls are successful in a tightly defined role. Downtowns involve a host of additional goals. Mainly, we aren't trying to draw 20,000 new residents to Lodi. On the other hand, the right mix of outlets could functionally accomplish the same thing as an anchor store. The trick is providing downtown thru inner-ring residents with a mix of available goods that is comparable to suburban offerings.