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If you don't reach high you never get anywhere. Is the Q renovation a reach? Depends on who you ask, but nobody doubts they'll get what they need. And we just did the stadium too. Great gobs of money. There's always opportunity cost and this city has hardly been austere. I remember Stark complaining when FEB received the support he wanted for his WHD proposal, he even called FEB the suburbs. It's nice that he's still trying so hard, isn't it? He's got gumption.

From the article: Cleveland city councilman Kerry McCormack, whose Ward 3 includes downtown, said negotiations between the developer and city administration have “gotten sensitive around the schools. Normally with tax increment financing plans, they don’t include funds from the schools (just the city). From what I understand, there are some solutions for the schools, and Stark wants to get creative how it does it.” Based on that, it sounds like the only way to make this particular bond issue work is by diverting future school funding. That's not something I would rush to approve. Other forms of funding and support do exist, so one can only assume those have been ruled out. That's what I was originally getting at. That, and our city's recent history of official resistance to large-scale development proposals. We aren't being told much here and what we're hearing raises as many questions as it answers. Everything is speculative right now.

This kind of project should get top financing priority. I would hate to see it not happen just because the city believes it has better investment ideas. In general I think we've spent enough on downtown, but the retail component of this project could boost all the city's neighborhoods at once. And we need all the new-build hi-rise housing units we can get.

Summers' concept of an eyesore is different from mine.

I was unaware of that change. Baltimore had been doing much better with preservation and redevelopment, but obviously they're now rolling down Vibrant Greenspace Boulevard at a brisk 35.

Not really a fair comparison. Baltimore has the good fortune to be in a "one-city" state. Maryland, i.e. the Washington suburbs, subsidizes everything that happens in Baltimore. In addition, MAryland had a senator (Barbara Milkuski) who didn't waste time on "national issues" she worked very successfully and non-stop for Baltimore and surrounding jurisdictions, moving thousands of federal jobs to the area. Cleveland, on the other hand, is in competition with at least at least two other peer cities for Ohio's attention (and cash) and the whole state has too many folks in DC who have forgotten who elected them. (Not you, Marci.) Cleveland needs to make a better case for itself in Columbus as well as DC. True enough but you also don't see those solo cities wasting their time and treasure on dirtbikes or vibrant greenspace. They're focused on residents and businesses, and on new buildings to put them in. Their priorities are identifiably urban. They're making things happen while we make excuses. While Baltimore does have neglected areas, they're in no hurry to bulldoze those areas and replace them with half the density. They realize their historic architecture and traditional urban form are more marketable than greenspace. That is a policy question on which Jackson and Johnson differ. Jackson wants everything torn down and has no vision for rebuilding. He's hardly alone in that, so we need someone in charge who disagrees. Cleveland's biggest challenge right now is self-destruction.

And a great deal more has been lost to their bungling. As for Jackson, he'd be nuts to stop now. He's on a roll and his power appears limitless.

The building design is from Toronto but the setting was explicitly here, at least for a while. They came up with Metropolis later.

My neighbors too! Their hours seem very friendly, I'll check it out this weekend.

Those look fine in comparison and, to make it worse, this stuff here is not low-income. We're selling cinderblock and siding as an upscale investment, and we're selling suburban height/density limits and use-segregation right in the core of the city.

This is another wrong side of history situation for those insisting on keeping it. I'm fairly confident that it will be gone within my lifetime, but more likely than that much sooner. Not necessarily. I think we had evidence last November that there has been a backlash against oversensitivity and overdefining "offensive". There's no guarantee that this movement will continue or won't actually reverse itself. Keep in mind most Amerinds nationally don't really care and that in this area the strong majority favors keeping him. There would have to be a pretty large-scale reversal of thought for Wahoo to become inoffensive. The semi-non-offensive original intent of the Indians name and logo is worth considering, but that argument only goes so far and we'll probably see Wahoo gone sooner rather than later.

"Better than an empty lot" is the reason we get so much rubbish. Our only standard is profit as much as you can as easily as possible. That means using off-the-shelf designs equally suited for anywhere and ill-suited for their context.

But, but, 327[/member]... The Vibrant Greenspace initiative will make Cleveland a green-tourist destination: " In addition, stewardship of green spaces, such as parks and natural areas, enhance the city’s potential to attract tourism and to increase its profile as a green-tourist destination. Green space also lowers the city’s footprint, improves air quality, preserves natural habitat and biodiversity, as well as strengthens the resilience of neighborhoods and increases property values. " And world class signage that says Cleveland, as if people didn't know. Dirtbikes, you see, are necessary to vibrate the greenspace. It has something to do with those knobby tires. But I'm no scientician. I'm sure Frank Jackson consulted with many scienticians to make sure our greenspace hits the right frequency.

Cleveland's future is not as a tourist mecca, not in any significant way. We've already topped out with a party convention. That's among the biggest tourist events possible. We should fight harder for the rest of the Rock Hall inductions, it's crazy that we only get 1/3 right now. We also need a major music festival, at least on the scale of Comfest. We now have a comics convention, which thankfully has been moved from January but would still benefit from sunnier scheduling. Rock music and superheroes are Cleveland's main contributions to world culture. We aren't doing nearly enough to capitalize on those, and superheroes in particular have never been more popular than right now. In general, the city's authentic steampunk look and feel should be viewed as an asset. Any city can bulldoze itself and rebuild in a semi-suburban manner with lots of "vibrant greenspace" but few can match what we already have here. The only question is how much we choose to value that, before it's too late.

I really can't say the dirtbike track in GTA Vice City was effective in reducing crime there. Seems like every kid was still in involved in some sort of gang.

Buy now, while each unit includes a porta potty! This deal won't last forever.

I agree that programing will make or break this from a visitor perspective. How much programming are we ever likely to see in January? But buses are just as necessary as ever, if not moreso, during the winter. Winter didn't used to keep people away from the square, it was always busy. I know... busy with them. But still.

http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2017/01/clevelands_year_of_vibrant_gre.html#incart_river_home For years I've used the made-up term "Boulevard Vibrant Greenspace" to represent a particular line of thinking in urban development. The City of Cleveland has now unironically stolen my line. Been working downtown recently and my twice daily observation is that the square is completely empty most of the time. It can feel downright creepy after dark. It was never like that before, it used to see 24/7 activity.

Hyperloop is a form of rail, is it not? In function it doesn't seem all that different from a traditional subway.

I must have missed something... what is Snavely building at the corner of W25 and Detroit? I knew there were some renovations happening in that area but yesterday I saw a very big dig that I wasn't expecting.

That's unfortunate, as those are very distinct issues. But the resistance to density is a constant refrain and we won't get far until it ends. All these concepts are related: low density impairs neighborhood businesses, which impairs the neighborhoods, which impairs the tax base, which impairs services as well as the funds available for future investment. And then we say, well, development in Cleveland is just really tough. At some point we have to address why.

Maybe we can put the comics museum in that area.

This is where the area's resistance to higher-density housing really comes back and bites the behind. There should already be a lot more people there but ugh, that would be too urban.

Superman has a bit more cultural impact than the free stamp does. Cleveland should be doing more to capitalize on its "home of the superhero" heritage. This is a good start.

Banning words won't fix anything. It sounds like the issue is with capacity analysis. To put it mildly Lockwood thinks the standards for that should change, which is a reasonable position to take, but you can't use magic vocabulary to make the opposing position, or the entire issue, disappear. In the cartoon at the top of that article, the city planner is trying to eliminate a big setback and he's the bad guy because that's "a disaster" for residents. Gotta have that yard. Then the article suggests we can make neighborhoods more walkable by making cars sit at traffic lights longer. The issue for pedestrians isn't the street or the cars or the lights, because they rarely interact with those. Setbacks, however, are an issue. Pedestrians care about what's between the intersections, what's along the streets, whether it's worth walking to. If low density and single-use planning forces them to drive, they'll drive. Making them drive slower won't change that. It can't. Design the built environment for pedestrians and you've solved walkability. Build mass transit and you've solved traffic, plus you've enhanced walkability. Walkability has nothing to do with speed limits or lights or lanes, it is a need independent from the need for cars to move efficiently. Both can and should happen at the same time. This is not a zero sum game.