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The mall is perfect for concerts and there should be a lot more of that. Sports leagues would be great too, although that's a semi-exclusive use (others can't pass thru) and conducive to wear & tear. For those reasons, sports fields are often dedicated to that and only that. To me the ideal type of programming here would be shows or bazaars, where the public is invited in an open ended way.

15 people playing frisbee is a lovely thing, but for a block in the core of downtown that's almost no activity at all.

There's always talk of people "enjoying the greenspace" but it's never clear what that means.

When you do see a plow or a streetsweeper around there, it has a sign on it thanking Ken Johnson. That's how I know who he is.

I used to live right by that, had to walk past it to the square. Scary scary. Thanks for posting these pictures. That's exactly what I thought it looked like inside, but my version had ghouls. Still it's a shame to lose this kind of building. Great designs and details that aren't getting replaced. Shaker Square needs more help than it's getting. A lot of those apartments are in bad shape, occupied or not. And Buckeye is right there and it really needs help. There is no reason for that area to not be nice, but the slumlords have wrecked it and the city has just watched.

Sounds great but they haven't scheduled any movies, they scheduled plastic animals. I vote for movies!

Open container is go, in Canton. http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-stark/city-council-creates-outdoor-open-container-area-in-downtown-canton Has Cleveland done this yet? I understand wanting it in time for the convention, but I also understand why not. I think I lean toward not. It's an extra wrinkle the police won't have time to get used to.

This wasn't some Great Conspiracy. There were very real reasons why the suburban model prevailed in the US. It's possible for both to be true. Does anyone still doubt that the automakers actively sought pro-sprawl policies? They built world's fair exhibits explaining the plan, so there was definitely a plan. And they got the results they wanted, on a previously unthinkable scale, which would be an amazing coincidence if we're calling it that.

Just saw it up close today, love the trees and hills. There's an area around the NW edge where the hill is interrupted by a concrete wall and becomes small cliff, with dropoffs just high enough to raise safety concerns. I assume there will be railings or some such? Not clear why they didn't just go with a smoother slope. As we've seen recently, railings don't solve everything.

Good on Cleveland Heights. Hopefully part of a trend, as this is what local governments need to be doing.

Sucks to have the reigning champs in our division. But they came out of nowhere and we can too. This team should clean up in the playoffs. And hitting like this, plus Brantley, should be enough offense to get there.

The best antidote to sprawl is urban living done right. Growth in the outer areas is going to continue, so the focus needs to be on fixing those big red splotches on the map. That's going to require a lot of policy changes, most of them at the city level. Getting people to live in old office buildings downtown (the nice little blue dot there) is easy compared to rebuilding the neighborhoods. And re-purposing downtown as a wealthy enclave doesn't make that second task any easier. Most of the city's population can't afford a downtown apartment. Not even close, the prices are seen as hilarious. On a good day. So on a downtown scale, most of the city's population is technically riff raff. And riff raff is bad for downtown, because now it's a place for wealthy people to live. And that's why I don't like that plan. Downtown can't pull away and become its own thing. That big red splotch on the map needs downtown to focus on being the city's commercial hub, to focus on bringing the riff raff in, as shoppers and workers. But now there's a growing constituency against that. We just fragmented our whole transit system, no big deal, so the city's central square could be more quiet and contemplative. Because who wants a commercial hub in their back yard, right?

Looks like Akron and Canton are pulling it southward. Some degree of sprawl is inevitable here because there are multiple urban centers and Cleveland can't grow north. That can be a regional advantage though. Northeast Ohio offers a full range of urban, suburban, and rural environments. Nice range of terrain options too, from hill country to open plains.

A lot of residents might prefer better bus service, and a lot of places rail could go to aren't interested. The West 25th-Ridge Road corridor really needs rail. But that went over like socialized medicine, RTA considered it for 5 minutes. Extending the western red line is almost taboo. And now they're literally building a wall between the blue line and Beachwood. That's TOD the RTA way.

Cleveland will have several, soon after the convention. Probably. Two from Stark, and maybe WHD? Also one or two near Case.

No reason a future extension couldn't go through the ground level of the garage. Could have been worse. Big reason: if the owner of that garage was promised otherwise, and built it there in reliance on that promise.

Problem being, Calabrese is not the perpetual sovereign of RTA. He can speak to current plans but he has no business capping off a rail line forevermore. If he OK'd that, he should be removed from office. We cannot afford the needless destruction of potential.

Blocking a rail line seems like anti-transit development. Blocking it with a parking garage seems like a bad joke.

No doubt we got good value on the trade. But if Wentz goes at 2 and becomes a star, those draft pick values don't really matter. Unless one of them gets us our QB, in which case no harm done.

Compared with the People Mover, Cincy's streetcar is practically linear. It goes well beyond the CBD and will eventually extend up the hill to UC. That's a lot more than a downtown loop. I'd love to have that here. I don't see how looping the WFL around downtown would attract many additional riders, because it still wouldn't get them anywhere they couldn't walk to. I mean, what sort of fare structure are we talking about, 25 cents per block? Per tenth of a mile? The cost/benefit of building that just isn't there, not when we have so many areas of town that desperately need something, anything.

That's why we should run trains to where people already live and work. There are large job centers, 10-20 miles out, in every direction from downtown. Step One should be servicing those. FWIW, most of these places already have rail lines nearby.

That sounds like what they've been doing every year, through several regimes. Somehow we go from 12 picks to 5 reaches and a guy in a wheelchair. Recently we've been drafting people who don't even seem to lift weights. If that's our version of quality, I'd rather have quantity. I just wish we could-- occasionally-- keep it simple. 3-13 with no QB? Well then use your awesome draft pick on a QB. Quit screwing around.

It takes 20 minutes to walk downtown from end to end. I cannot fathom using a train for that. A downtown rail loop will be about as useful here as it was in Detroit. Exorbitant cost per mile, even worse cost per person who benefits.

They better hang onto McCown. RG3 could be worthless, and now we probably won't be drafting anyone ready to roll.

Great thread, as always. Where are the people? I see some coming out of church, but apart from that the place looks deserted.