327

I hate this building, but I love the views from it.

I don't doubt that the flats are part of the absolute core, since that's where the city came from originally. I too like this site better than TC, but less than the mall. That rendering could be a lot worse. At least it has windows. It justifies building a whole new set of amenities down there, but it does nothing for the rest of downtown-- all the bad of the TC plan, but with additional upside. Those amenities should make nearby residential an easier sell. There is enough room down there that even a CC doesn't have to block the lakefront. I could get behind this. If any sort of Scranton peninsula possibilities were in the mix, the TC plan would look a lot better than it does.

Wow, this has been talked about for some time. ODOT really should meet with the locals.

Very cool. Every town should have a 20 bourbons place.

I like that old design a lot. The new one is reminiscent of the new downtown bus shelters. I'm not a fan of that swoopy roof style, looks like someone is making a cheeseburger. The Q has that problem too, made worse by sitting next to a really attractive ballpark. Meanwhile, RTA continues to build excellent looking new train stations. I wish the transit centers could be in that style instead. My burning question about the whole transit center concept, which I understand is still under development, is how this doesn't break one bus system into two. Interplay between the two centers, and the rail hub in between them, seems crucial and I'm unsure how best to approach it. My best guess would be to only have one new transit center, particularly since tower city is automatically another one anyway. Just a few years ago I could take a bus from the west end of Lakewood straight to Shaker Square. Now that's a 2 seat trip, and it seems like many crosstown journeys will become 3-seaters if there is to be a separate downtown bus hub for each side of town. It is not clear to me how the healthline will be helpful in linking the two, since it reaches neither proposed site. I hope the new way to get across town is not: walk to bus stop, ride to Prospect, walk to Euclid, ride to square, walk to warehouse district, ride to west side. Not every rider is as spry as I. Hopefully, I've misunderstood the whole plan.

That's why I would be OK with the state winning this. If the cities win, I would be OK with that too, for the reasons listed above. It's a messy issue, as is home rule in general.

. I'm pretty sure a private entity can fire you for literally anything or nothing, in the absense of a contract. I once had a private company tell me I had to move to Cleveland from Youngstown, to demonstrate proper long-term devotion. They can do that. The only restriction on "at will" terminations would be a specific prohibition of civil rights law, like you're fired for being Chinese or for being Baptist. That's not legal. A private entity also cannot fire somebody for refusing to break a law, or for complying with jury duty. Ohio requires that the employee cite a specific statute or regulation when challenging a termination on these grounds. All exceptions to the at will doctrine are very narrowly construed.

Thank you for the explanation.

Cool... but, "MidTown is updating its Master Plan for this area to create a vital mixed-use neighborhood which can become the largest and most attractive Research Park in the world." I have a picture in my mind of what a "vital mixed-use neighborhood" looks and functions like, while I have an entirely different picture of a "Research Park." I'm having trouble merging them into one cohesive image. I keep seeing a Pierre's ice cream fortress on every block, and most of the new bus stations being unused most of the time. A "Research Park" is neither an origin nor a destination for most people, ever.

I wish the bank, and congress, saw it that way. If I still owe them most of it at the end, I will die unashamed.

Ohio hasn't worked like that since 1912. On some issues, which are virtually impossible to categorize or define, local trumps state. The debate here centers primarily on whether this is one of those issues, I would assume.

I can see both sides of this and don't have a strong position on it, but I lean toward the cities' position. If municipal finance were handled differently, more fairly, the cities would probably not even bother fighting this. I can understand a blight-stricken central city not wanting to pay out its own tax revenues to enhance some suburban tax base instead of its own. And technically, "at-will" employment in the private sector means anyone can fire you any time for any reason, including where you live. If cities now can't, they'd be the only ones who can't.

The only way for big 3 pay packages to actually match those of Germany or Japan is for the workers' health and retirement expenses to be covered by some third party. They don't hang old people out to dry in those countries. You may be referring instead to foreign plants in deep southern states, states that don't carry their weight in terms of paying for federal welfare benefits they recieve. Either way you look at it, the spectre of "OK, then who does pay for health and retirement?" will not go away. Paying contracted benefits to retireees is not a gift. If it is, they paying back my student loans is also a gift. Either contracts count or they don't. If we're now saying some don't, we'd better tread carefully on that slippery slope. I'm all for saying some contracts don't count, although the ones taking care of old sick people are probably not the first ones I'd void. I can also think of better uses for these funds than putting them into big 3 retirement accounts, but I can think of worse ones too. People spend their retirement checks, and those dollars then bounce around the economy in constructive ways. Think of it as stimulus money, targeted specifically at rust belt communities.

I don't know, but I think the entire Italian political spectrum is to the left of ours. Renault is at least partially an enterprise of the French government, and I wouldn't be surprised if Fiat is similarly structured. In either case, the legacy costs that burden our auto industry are spread across society there. Re the union article, what part of it was so troubling? Are bank employees expected at this point to concede their health and retirement benefits? Perhaps, but I haven't heard one account of that. Why is that so much more important for auto workers to do, when both industries have failed? Can I break my contracts with student loan providers or other creditors because I no longer find those deals expedient, after the other side has performed their end of the deal? That sort of free pass is what the union is being expected to grant here, and it's legally unusual to say the least. Are the banks facing a "viability" ultimatum and deadline? When will they begin their process of revolutionizing the way they do business?

How will people move between the east and west transit centers, or between the east center and tower city?

Fiat taking large stake in Chrysler Deal would be an 'initial' stake, hinting that Fiat could take larger stake ROME - Fiat and Chrysler said Tuesday they have agreed to form a strategic alliance that would give the Italian auto empire a 35-percent stake in the troubled U.S. carmaker and could eventually bring it full control. The deal means Chrysler, which is fighting off bankruptcy and struggling to sell less fuel efficient larger models, would have access to new markets and cheaper, more environmentally friendly technologies. Fiat Group SpA, which makes Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo vehicles, would gain a foothold in the huge U.S. market. The company has bounced back recently with cars such as the tiny 500 two-door hatchback, a hit remake of an earlier iconic Fiat model that competes with Daimler AG's Smart, BMW AG's Mini and other very small cars. The two companies said in a joint statement that in exchange for sharing its small-car platforms and fuel-efficient engines, Fiat would take an "initial" 35-percent stake in Chrysler but would not invest cash. More at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28747620/

I never dealt with him personally, but the guy working next to me got a call from him one night saying "There's a trailer of mine at some strip joint on 8 mile! I want it gone! NOW!" I think it's perfectly natural for the government to not want somebody owning a national border, whoever they are. I'm not sure how that was ever allowed in the first place. Either you drive around the great lakes, or you pay Uncle Matty for the right to leave the country.

327, I hope you don't get Litt up for it. Ha, you beat me to it. I was going to quote that and claim psychic powers.

Almost nobody in Youngstown area has the vowel shift, and many people there have a drawl. It makes Cleveland seem exotic. Half my extended family has farmed around Columbus for ages and their accent is not neutral, it's rural. But they aren't Appalacian and they'll let you know it. My dad's side is Appalacian and they let him know it.

For the past week, whenever I look at CNN I get ads for gay snowboarding groups, or find out if your husband is gay. Not sure how adsense works exactly. But I think the culprit was this link http://www.lovegodsway.org/GayBands which I found on a band's webpage. It's a church group that's compiling a list of "gay" bands and "safe" bands for your kids. The safe list is pretty short. The gay list is surprising, or alarming if you go to their church. Edit: I don't think these people are serious, could be wrong.

It is not fair to extrapolate from any of these arguments that I support what the freeway system did to the city, or that I would rank freeways over transit like ODOT does. My attitude towards the existing trasportation infrastructure has something to do with spilt milk and something to do with making lemonade. You and I may differ greatly on how to get there, but I think we both have the same goal: a city built around walking and mass transit, with cars and trucks serving much smaller roles than they do today. As for the people who live in the forgotten triangle-- I bet they like thru streets as much as anybody else does. I don't think they don't count. Putting 271 through Beachwood doesn't mean people in Beachwood don't count...? I'm not even sure what that means. Are you saying people like the forgotten triangle as it is now? I just don't see much functional urban layout there to begin with.

I disagree that even as a 490 extension it would do "nothing but" benefit the western extremities. It would benefit any place with access to it. That would include at minimum UC, Tremont, Broadway and E55th. Those are all currently benefited by 490 as is, except for UC. Tremont in particular would be in deep doo doo right now if not for 490. Weren't Tremont business owners recently out protesting the lack of access to their neighborhood? Obviously they should all go work for ODOT. These are all inner-city entrepreneurs, so explain to them how good urban development should make their area harder for people to get to, from other parts of Cleveland itself. I have a feeling those (fully urban) people love 490 and would love even more if a longer 490 could bring them some lunch business from UC. Hopefully there would also be a couple more access points on the OCB, be they intersections or not. Stop lights aren't the only way to get pedestrians across a street, they're just the most annoying way. I realize they were invented by a Clevelander and I should be more respectful of them for that reason, but sorry I really hate stop lights. And... making this thing the primary connector between the west side and UC should get a lot of traffic off of Chester, which should make Chester more suitable for all the residential development we'd like to see there. It's win-win. Besides money (a more troubling issue), all we'd lose by building this is a shred of the current fabric of the embarassingly awful forgotten triangle.

I am not highway oriented at all. I use transit a lot more than I drive, based on principle, even when it's less convenient. I also don't oppose all highways just because they're highways, and I don't believe good traffic flow within cities is bad for them. Quite the contrary. I see a huge difference between a new interchange in Avon (which I'm totally against) and a new highway increasing the connectivity among several dense urban areas. That's the reason I support this project and question the west shoreway conversion. Like somebody's tagline mentions, Cleveland is not an apple but a bunch of grapes. The better the linkages between those grapes, the stronger the overall city. Being able to move people from A to B as quickly as possible is beneficial no matter what, because capability beats incapability. It was true long before highways and it led to the development of mass transit as well. Ease of getting around does not alone make for good cities, but there's absolutely no way it hurts. Slowness and frustration are not values, while getting where you need to go is. I see no benefit from forcing people to sit in traffic for one moment longer than they need to. The "B" in A to B doesn't have to be Avon-- that's a separate issue. A person going to from UC to Tremont instead would get the exact same benefit from this road. That is good for Tremont and good for UC. To expand on Matches' point, the area proposed for this has apparently been lacking in "urban fabric" forever. It's an unfortunate mess of suburban-style dead ends. I don't see what harm could come from giving it a thru street.

Permanently obsoleting the mall complex would be quite destructive. That makes me lean toward the get it right or don't do it position. I also haven't seen a satisfying explanation of how they'll prevent the TC CC from being a logistical clusterfunk.

I think the heights always will be one of the most vibrant parts of town. I also think it's fairly clear that it's declined in recent decades, and I think we all agree that UC during those same decades has been lacking the vibrancy we'd like it to have. I think with better access the UC/Heights area could be much more vibrant than it is today, maybe competive in vibrancy with the (highly accessible, I'm just saying) area around OSU main campus. No, Case isn't nearly that big, but throw in all the other UC offerings and the Clinic and there's reason to expect the two areas might top out similarly. Ours would be need to be more adult/professional focused instead of catering to freshmen hordes, but vibrancy comes in many forms. We can have more of the party atmosphere downtown, which Columbus can't match. I also think that without the good access it has, Euclid would have looked like East Cleveland for the past 20 years.