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I'm curious what the endgame is for the site and for the businesses. It sounds like these containers are to be treated as actual storefronts, if they're to be turned over indefinitely. Does the turnover mean businesses are failing, or that they're successful enough to go elsewhere? Neither is a positive outcome for the neighborhood itself. In that context, this doesn't seem like super great news as "Neighborhood Development," not without a plan for transitioning into something a bit more upmarket. I too love the idea of a low-cost open market area but that isn't exactly what we're talking about here. Devil's in the details. These boxes were not designed to accommodate people or to replace buildings. Does that not matter at all? How about tents, which feature airflow and natural light because they're designed for human occupancy? Tents would also create an atmosphere more like a traditional bazaar and less like a junkyard. I just don't think distressed areas need "developments" that add to the appearance of distress. I also wasn't thrilled about seeing freight containers amongst the Victorian-era architecture downtown, pretending to fit right in. They don't.

I think we all agree on those goals, it's just that the neighborhood has existing storefronts and they're in shambles. Sure, this is a cheaper solution than putting locals to work renovating those commercial buildings, but that's about the only advantage I can think of vs multi-level irony. How much more would it cost to provide these entrepreneurs with used vans or box trucks and let them seek out additional customers? Like food trucks. Instead we're just replacing neighborhood commercial buildings with a ramshackle substitute. Here ya go, Kinsman.

As long as it encourages and incubates legal entrepreneurs, so what? Ever been to open-air markets set up on plazas of European cities? This isn't quite the "European city" concept anyone has been suggesting but OK. I mean, it seems more useful to simply give people vans. Then they could do two things.

I'm glad something commercial is happening on Kinsman, but this box container concept doesn't seem too different from selling stuff out of the back of a van.

Redeveloping areas for new uses is different than surrendering them to weeds and rodents.

This almost sounds like an argument for never building Cleveland in the first place. Cleveland will never progress until its own people stop advocating its destruction. The answer is not destruction. I live near railroads and industry and I love it. That's what we are, that's what we have, and if we treat is like it's valuable others will see it that way too. So we need to stop saying it's garbage. Many of our neighborhoods are in bad condition due to abandonment and disinvestment, due to bad management and bad policy decisions, but not because this city shouldn't exist. Agree with all your points, but I think the best way to do this is to put the Health Tech along the Opportunity Corridor, allowing the area around Euclid Ave to be developed into walkable mixed use. Euclid already connects two desirable areas so why not continue that theme? Health tech installations aren't particularly walkable. While neighborhoods containing industry can be perfectly viable, there's no reason to make our Main Street into one. That's not what cities usually do, instead they usually make Main Street their premier neighborhood. Kinda like Cleveland did in the first place... we don't need to reinvent it!

We continually injure ourselves by writing off Pittsburgh's competent policy decisions as a function of hills. Topography is irrelevant to development choices, otherwise Atlanta would be developed like Chicago and vice versa. German cities are dense, and it's mountainous there, but so are English cities and it's flat. The Bay Area has an extreme topography-related land shortage but enacted policies to minimize density, policies which are absolutely effective despite all the market demand in the world. Everything you mention besides topography is heavily influenced by local policy and local leadership. That is where we keep losing ground.

Our leaders say "healthcare" about as often as they say some version of "boulevard vibrant greenspace" but neither has produced much after years of incessant focus. We're hardly the only metro trying to rebuild its economy on healthcare while closing hospitals left and right. Something doesn't quite add up there. I honestly believe we need more manufacturing, not less. It also builds on a current strength and it has hardly disappeared from the Earth or from the US. Automation is also a danger to knowledge and service sector jobs-- so those concepts don't necessarily bail us out either. We need to focus development on what we can sell to people from outside the region, what will convince them to invest here and move jobs here. That means real TOD and functional, recognizable urbanity. It's crucial that the suburbanization of the city ends now. The growth in Columbus is not due to sprawl anymore. Instead Columbus is urbanizing its core and it's working like gangbusters.

It's a part of it but not the full story. Otherwise, Lansing and Tallahassee would be the "Columbus" of Michigan and Florida (state government + large state universities). It helps a lot that Columbus itself comprises most of the metro. It also helps that Columbus has a government structure focused on the good of the entire city, rather than the empowerment of hyper-local interests and activists. Cleveland's patchwork arrangement never worked well and has become untenable.

If rail use is growing RTA would probably not want it known. They seem hellbent on promoting BRT instead. And several bus routes were canceled/shortened and shunted to the health line, so its numbers are juiced. "Concentration of jobs downtown" becomes a more important factor when the agency blocks off its own rail lines, preventing itself from ever serving newer job centers. Even before the recent cuts, bus service to job centers near the outerbelt was minimal. And crosstown service is a shadow of its former self. Some of this is funding issues out of RTA's hands, some is due to the increasingly convoluted situation downtown in which RTA seems complicit. The very notion of east and west transit hubs works against crosstown travel. Every transfer is a hurdle and a potential hour-plus of delay. It all adds up to make transit use impracticable for everyone, especially for those who need it most.

It really does. That's the kind of authenticity money can't buy, and it's the reason preservation is so important to our future.

Interesting... maybe with all the ownership wrangling here, they can swoop in and get downtown parcels relatively cheap. Everybody wants an arm and a leg for the surface lots. City policy is so parking-friendly there's no motivation to sell. Hard to keep historic buildings around like that.

But cities rebuild depressed areas all the time. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have both done it, with city government heavily involved in the efforts. Our problem is too many leaders who would prefer to tear it all down and start over. Just like the Flats but everywhere. City policies guide private investments by choosing which projects to support, financially and otherwise. No support means no project. And by announcing what sort of development is desired for any given area (including "none"), cities exert influence on what sort of proposals will be made. Proposals cost money, and few developers are going to work one up that clashes with the stated intent of local government. One rogue councilman has the authority here to simply veto a business. That isn't true everywhere. City government also decides whether or not to empower every local kook who shows up to a meeting demanding shorter towers. In reality, developers have been proposing a lot of major construction outside downtown but they keep running into interference. Battery Park, Duck Island, Little Italy, and remember how Uptown was shortened to appease Hessler Street. I'd be happy if we could get things built in areas that aren't depressed at all. "The market" says yes but the market itself says no. In that environment, I agree, there's no hope of building anything on Kinsman. But that isn't economics talking, it's just bad policy and it's homegrown.

^^ Sounds more like wealthy millennials are what's actually in short supply. Regardless of how any generation views city living, only a small portion of it will be able to afford pricey apartments and gourmet coffee every day. That's why cities can't just focus on their downtowns, and also why downtowns can't just focus on apartments and restaurants. Cleveland in 2017 presents a stark example of what happens when the priorities get so far out of line-- we've let most of our city fall to ruin while making one small part of it ideal for a privileged few. Downtown has improved greatly over the past 20 years, no doubt, but at what cost?

Family sizes are shrinking though. Even in Gen X, three kids is considered a lot and many are entering midlife with zero, meaning there might eventually be one child maybe. This doesn't mean cities should be inhospitable to kids, but houses with tons of bedrooms may not be what's needed. The bigger issue with house size seems to be bathrooms and common areas. Everyone wants huge living rooms and kitchens compared to the old days, and some want workspaces too.

Agree about the deceptive percentage. But as for kids in the city, they seem to do OK in NYC or SF, or in dense cities overseas. Kids have been successfully raised in cities for as long as both have existed. They do not require suburban-style planning in order to thrive. It's a positive sign that at least some local parents understand that. Without kids, there's not much point in having a city at all.

Depreciation has nothing to do with this. The grant consisted of money and money does not depreciate. As far as I'm aware the city has no grounds to tell the feds "too late ha ha." But I wouldn't put it past them to try it, they've tried everything else. Walked an old lady from court to Tower City this morning. Neither of us felt like zigzagging through the square so we avoided it altogether. Public Square is now a bewildering mess for pedestrians. Some of that is due to the initial design flaw of ignoring Ontario, some of it is due to Jackson's recent changes.

Why should the rules suddenly change just because time passed? I wish I could do that with my credit cards. We're not talking about the depreciating object. We're talking about the money, whose value grows over time.

These obstructive residents should not be allowed to get away with this. They're not living in a cul de sac with a HOA where their expectations might be reasonable-- they're living right outside downtown. If they want this parcel to be minimally developed they're welcome to buy it. Instead they're demanding property rights beyond their own property, with no compensation for the other city residents who need growth and who are harmed by their actions.

It works both ways. When that poor 69-year-old woman from the Shaker Rapid was struck and killed by a bus a few months ago, some pro bus-through-the-center advocates pointed to this as an example of too many buses forced to round-about the Square when it was really just about an irresponsible bus driver who was fired by RTA and, IIRC, could still face charges. If someone gets struck by a bus (hopefully never a child) in the through Superior roadway, the keep-it-closed crowd will point to that... It's all a matter of personal politics. At some point the politics have to make sense though, or they really shouldn't control policy. Somebody got killed by a red line train in Little Italy... do we need to close that too? The principles of TOD are being upended by all these anti-bus arguments. "Gotta keep em separated... hey hey hey... come out and play! [mediocre guitar riff]"

Great idea, hope you're able to make it happen!

2 questions are raised by this: why, and is it the best way forward? Income taxes just went up and that's not exactly the best way to attract non-hospital employers nor residents who work elsewhere.

Careful. Jackson is the lesser of six evils. Maybe at one time, but these days he's got them trounced in complacency and hubris. The question becomes whether we're even able to remove a bad mayor.

At the University of Toledo, they weren't sure where to put the concrete paths through their quad. So they waited till it snowed and went by the footprints. In other words, they studied and prioritized the needs of the people they were doing it for.

Doesn't look terrible, until it's compared to: https://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=22927.msg842680;topicseen#new