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If this project is successful it will host a lot of truck traffic, so sound walls might not be the worst idea. I want dense mixed-use development as much as... everyone here except ERocc. Those desirable areas require a tax base and a jobs base from industry. As I made clear in years past, I was not willing to sacrifice Euclid Avenue to that end. I firmly believe that if any place in Cleveland is appropriate for the proverbial Urban Paradise, Euclid Avenue was it. Alas. But my view toward Central/Fairfax/Kinsman is very different, based on different circumstances. The city's original organic arrangement put industry here, and lower-class housing too close to it, which limits our choices in reviving the area. There is no particular track record of successful urbanity in this area; even at its best it was the worst part of town for clear structural reasons. This road seems geared toward accomodating the needs of modern industry. The benefits of better connecting UC with the near west side as well as the rest of the metro is just icing on that cake. The tradeoff is that an utterly disfunctional part of town will have an additional road through it. I'm willing to make that exchange.

The problem with my approach is your ridiculous description of it. I have advocated "recognizable urbanity" on major inner-city thoroghfares and in areas under downtown's afternoon shadow. One might call it "typical Cleveland negativity" when these ideas are opposed on the grounds that we're not worthy because we haven't built enough suburban plazas yet, on the very sites where we want the opposite sort of development to happen. I would strongly disagree that bad development is a necessary component of good development. Quite the contrary, in many cases the bad development hinders a neighborhood's functionality and marketability to the point that its very existence makes good development less likely. Ripping down those plazas is a cost to either the city or the next developer, and I don't believe a causal link between suburban plazas and mixed-use density has been established.

No. If you build a retail plaza in the middle of the site, with parking in front, you're not likely to let anyone build on your parking lot because 1) there goes your parking, and 2) nobody could even see your squat little building with another structure in front. What about planning for them, with public backing, on open sites? To the extent that the city says "this is what we want to see here" for any given area, which it already does, the city would stipulate only appropriate developments and never suburbanization. All I'm saying is shift the planning direction and the public funding away from those plazas, away from those tract hosues, and toward recognizable urbanity. The only "other people's money" this involves is our own. Would you be opposed to that?

Instead of Strickland opposing Obamacare, which would have baffled everyone, Kasich is backing it in the form of Medicaid expansion. Ohio law allows insurance companies to refuse coverage-- at any price-- to people with preexisting conditions. Obamacare is likely to be very popular here and Kasich knows that. He can let Taylor tow the party line, but he realizes he has to come to the middle. Which is good.

Getting there, but your point gets lost in all the ad hominem material about mountaintops and fantasies and wagging fingers. Are you sure attitudes and interpersonal approaches such as this are not part of the reason development might still be moving in the wrong direction? Do you honestly believe that seeding an under-developed area with desirable mixed use developments would be counterproductive? Frankly, I think opposing such a thing would be counterproductive.

I'm with you all the way, Mendo. I think most of us are. IMO the best way to nurture that collective desire is to demonstrate that classical urbanity (for lack of a better term) has a core constituency here. Without that core, there's nothing to build on, nothing for anyone else to latch onto. I think there's a belief, among those who would tear down everything and replace it with garbage, that there's no counterpoint and no alternative. Good things have been happening though, just in the past year or two. People on the planning commission have pushed back against bad designs, on the grounds that they're inappropriately suburban. There's now a Cleveland City Councilman who consistently seeks to preserve historic buildings. And when a cruddy plaza was proposed on Clifton Blvd, neighbors banded together to demand better. So my advice would be to stay on message and make noise publicly. It seems to be working. It's working so well that right-wing crazies have a name for it now!

"Other people's money" typically includes public funds. Almost always, when you're talking inner-city developments. The tract housing that people are bringing up here was not brought to us exclusively through the magic of the free market, nor through the magnanimity of private-sector developers who tend to be born into that position. To a significant extent, these questionable developments resulted from public policy decision-making by local officials, and were paid for with tax money. I strongly agree regarding your topical points on overlays, business development, and neighborhood bricks and mortar. That sort of discussion has to fit in somewhere, so why not here? And no, it's not just venting, it's a collective attempt to identify problems and develop solutions.

Can you not see a distinction between zoning and planning? Your post reads like a snide parody of a false picture of every fellow forumer you've ever had the pleasure of attacking. The topic here is whether urban development in Cleveland is still going in the wrong direction. I get the impression you believe it's not, or maybe that it's above our station to even care. Would you like to explain, or perhaps clarify, your position on the subject being discussed?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I definitely think there's something very slimy going on with JobsOhio. I'm just very disappointed that Strickland didn't sack up and try to win back the governor's mansion. Although I don't think his chiming in helps or hurts FitzGerald, I personally just don't want to hear anything come out of Strickland's mouth right now. He could have had a much stronger stage on which to be lodging his criticisms. I sometimes wonder if Obama/the Chicago Machine had dirt on him. All he had to do was distance himself from them, in particular Obamacare, and he would have been reelected. Under that logic, shouldn't Kasich NOT be pushing an Obamacare-related Medicare expansion against his own party in an election year?

No, that thread is about the zoning code. This thread is about... what it says it's about. I'm afraid there is no thread for making fun of people who seek a better future for the city, so you'll just have to keep doing that wherever you see fit.

Here again, I don't see an issue of cars vs density. It's easy enough to have buildings front the street with parking anywhere but there, and to utilize styles that mesh with the urban fabric. Lakewood does this. The issue I see instead is leaders who want to surburbanize the city because that's what they value. Certainly not all of them, but enough to keep the negative momentum rolling.

I wanted Cordray to run, but I'm happy with where he is now.

The same program minus the self-dealing and minus the cover-up might have some value. As it currently stands, it's an abomination.

You're absolutely right. These demos are senseless and each one reduces our ability to revive the city. In the case of Club Envy, at least it's in service of a historic structure, but still a problem nonetheless.

FWIW, Fitzgerald is also whining about what increasingly appears to be major corruption at JobsOhio. People who sit on its board are funneling public funds directly to their own private interests. I don't think it's possible to bring that up too often, because it seems a lot more serious than Coingate.

Neither is this model. This model is actively destructive and needs to be stopped. In other neighborhoods, citizens band together to petition the city when this sort of junk is proposed. Here, sadly, not so much. But the need is just the same. Similar problem, cheaply built and unmarketable housing types that don't belong in the areas where they're placed. Suburban planning for the inner city is an automatic fail. Even if these properties were well-managed this plan could never work, because it's structurally and functionally wrong.

These types of developments are destructive to their surroundings and should not be permitted in the city, as they reduce the functionality and marketability of urban neighborhoods. Instead, units should front the sidwalk with no lawn buffer and parking should go in the rear. And single-story single-use structures should not be placed on major streets.

There's so much residential there now that nightclubs don't seem like the best possible fit. WHD needs to transition beyond entertainment. The spaces are large enough for a variety of uses, and they already have the look and feel that suburban lifestyle centers try to mimic. So...

Good plan.

I remember East 4th from the 90s and most people would consider it scary, especially if "most of the crime" was literally a couple blocks from there. That's what we call "the same area." The thesis of the article applies just as well to the WHD as it does to East 4th, although the focus is on Ari Maron and his experience, since that's who they interviewed.

MTS you speak as if they're just extending 490 to E105, which clearly isn't happening. This very-much-not-a-highway is in itself a plan to attract manufacturing. I agree that additional efforts are needed, but modernizing the transport infrastructure is a threshold matter. You can hate highways and highway access all you want, but they are essential to modern manufacturing. That is more true now that it was 50 years ago and there is no going back.

If You Build It, They Will Come: How Cleveland Lured Young Professionals Downtown http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/if-you-build-it-they-will-come-how-cleveland-lured-young-professionals-downtown/6406/ "There wasn't a market for urban living in Cleveland until developers built places where young professionals would want to be."

Most of the city and inner ring were planned as TOD, before it was called that. Before it was trains it was oxcarts and carriages, but the structure is really no different. There's a certain organic "urban plan" that's pretty much the same around the world and throughout history, for communities of all shapes and sizes. The only sort of development that doesn't follow said plan is sprawl. So to that extent, those neighborhoods you list were indeed planned, if not in today's more formal sense. Keeping industry separate from everything else is usually a part of that plan. Cleveland was such a boom town that this rule was sometimes ignored, resulting in some poorly planned areas like the one we're talking about. To the extent possible, it would be wise to separate industrial activity and traffic from everything else, which is why this road isn't supposed to be thoroughly integrated into the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, I thought the Euclid Corridor made perfect sense as a New Urbanist Paradise... but it was decided that our city's main thoroughfare-- Millionaire's Row-- was too far gone for any such thing, so we should be happy to get light manufacturing there... even though we'd just rebuilt the road to feature a block-by-block mass transit system that was clearly designed to service a New Urbanist Paradise. But here... in what has always been the worst part of town, interspersed with heavy industry and logistical infrastructure, soaked through with chemicals... here we should hold out for ideal high-density residential and retail.

We agree here, as we often do, on the key principles. But the examples you're listing are all retail developments, while the project at hand is overwhelmingly industrial in focus. This road is for trucks at least as much as it's for cars. UC's concentration of biotech should help create adjacent job centers in biotech manufacturing, but the surrounding infrastructure is not properly arranged for that. It was arranged at a time when manufacturing was a completely different ballgame. To a certain extent, we can't double down on the existing layout of these old-school industrial neighborhoods because they're functionally obsolete. That point doesn't apply to downtown, or to Shaker, or Lakewood, or even Tremont, the way it applies to this part of town.