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It's not at all uncommon for downtowns to have a full complement of retail, even though suburban retail also exists. Between the growing core and the solid inner ring, there's plenty of market for downtown. Just like in most other major cities.

The new rendering is better. The parking isn't ideal, but I agree that if we're going to have that, it's well placed next to the RR tracks.

Biggest local scandal of our lifetimes... bigger than Jimmy Dimora IMO.

This board goes out of its way to paint a rosy picture, which is hardly a bad thing. But the majority of the city proper has been in free-fall for some time. Large parts of the east side don't even seem salvageable. IMO, many of the city's redevelopment efforts have been misguided. Even the best projects in the most desirable locations are smaller or less dense than they could be. Cleveland is critically short on apartment buildings, which have been abandoned and torn down at an especially high rate. That makes it harder for growth to occur. Areas that were once jammed with apartments are being rebuilt with sparse McMansions. And instead of developing retail downtown and in the neighborhoods, Cleveland developed a suburban big box plaza in the center of the city. In short, the whole plan has catered to local suburbanites, who by and large aren't interested. Even the inner-city poor get new suburban neighborhoods. Unfortunately they aren't given free cars, so many have moved to the inner ring, much of which is more urban than the city itself.

Well true idk why TC cut hours anyway it's not like they close the entire complex at 7 the lights are still on as well as other things. For example in my store we have our own lights that we pay for but TC also has their own set of lights that run 24/7 so the expenses are still there; why not run then for an extra couple of hours to make more money from it to offset costs? It's especially bad when downtown has large amounts of tourists that come in the mall at 7-7:30 looking to spend money but leave disappointed when we tell them the mall is closed. That is a nice amount of money lost because you don't want to stay open, and this happens constantly when tourists are here huge groups cant spend their money its kind of discouraging. Exactly. The money you save by closing early is received in exchange for permanently alienating the market. That is a bad deal every single time.

If you close your store at 7, you have no one to blame but yourself.

At some point the term ceases to have meaning. It makes no sense to call the core of the city a "Gateway" to anything. You're not on the way there... you're there. This is there.

Disagree. Not about Lakewood being a great town, about Quaker Steak being a bad fit. We think of these chains as having a suburban crowd, but that's mostly because they've avoided investing in urban locations. I'm glad they're starting to do so. I don't see why Lakewood and Westlake can't both have a mix of businesses.

As someone with hillbilly roots, I'm hearing a lot of open prejudice here. That being said I agree that department store spaces are best suited for department stores.

I've had it with this guy. Trade him while he's hot.

Every time I see a story I like, it's her. I disagree with this person's post. But if they'd only posted the second paragraph, I could at least respect them while disagreeing. That bit of sugar on top-- the part about I'm laughing hysterically at you-- is what makes them contemptible. Even if you're 8 years old talking like that, you're still a jerk. And this jerk is probably 35.

I'm sold.

I'm curious what "D-word" I was supposed to be thinking of. None that come to mind are all that offensive.

There certainly could be more programming. Biggest problem is that Edgewater wants to be a beach, and even though thousands use it as a beach every year, it really isn't one. You can hardly walk barefoot there at all. Hats off to those folks who volunteer to clean it.

Agreed about the "creative class." I don't like classes to begin with, and I can't think of anything more elitist to call one. As if those of us who don't "CREATE!" for a living are just drones. Listen buddy... I create spreadsheets like you wouldn't believe.

That example of the Altimas is a lot smaller than what we're talking about, and I find it hard to believe you're unfamiliar with these concepts. Is this some sort of Columbo thing? The whole of the banking sector acting in concert, whether orchestrated or not, is a large enough player to alter a national market. A used car distributor probably isn't, although 5k 2001 Altimas is an impressive figure. But it's just one model year of one car, and we're talking about homes generally. Now, something on the scale of Cash-4-Clunkers can and did impact the used car market. That was done to serve (questionable) political ends. But if a private actor took millions of cars off the market for its own purposes, eyebrows would be raised to say the least.

And you can do that. It only becomes an issue when the whole market is affected. With all due respect, that's probably not an option for you. Restricting supply is also a core purpose of unions. They're actually allowed to affect their whole market, as a counterbalance. Well, not so much anymore, but that's the general idea behind it.

Thanks for visiting the forum! I too recommend consulting the County Prosecutor.

Express routes be unavoidable when/if they extend the line, but timing out the passes with the local trains could get tricky.

Indeed, there will probably be more rented s-f homes going forward. That's the reality of an economy demanding more flexibility from everyone. But at least if they're rented, they're not sitting idle.

I would guess that demand isn't there for homes at propped-up prices... but the gist of market theory is that if prices are allowed to float, they will find a natural balance with wages, and then there won't be so much unused inventory. Then regardless of who snatched them all up, be it private equity or the Chinese or the Klingons, their asset would be a lot more liquid. Eventually homes would find their way to individual owners. Corollary effects would be the repopulation of neighborhoods, as well as a possible uptick in demand for paint.

While each bank is obviously a separate entity, their interests on this matter are pretty tightly aligned. None of them want plunging values to hurt their capitalization so it's rational, from their perspective, to do whatever it takes to prop up prices. That hasn't changed since the bubble days. Banks prefer higher home prices and the bigger loans that accompany them. And to the extent that they're holding inventory, they're doubly concerned with keeping prices up. It isn't hard to discern what's in the banks' individual and collective self-interest. Clearly they're acting with that in mind, as is proper. The question then becomes what external effects arise from their behavior, and how those effects are evaluated. Individual homeowners would also take a bath if prices dropped, while potential buyers would benefit. But there are other externalities to consider, like the condition of our neighborhoods, and the effect that has on economic development in general. There comes a point when the self-interest of the current owner of a given property, or of ten thousand properties, is not the only issue.

Mixing legal/moral rules with economics is prickly thing, so I'll avoid it here. But I would reiterate that when anyone corners a substantial part of any market, they gain control over that market, control that is proportionate to their ownership of the total supply. This is not some goofy theory I'm positing, it's 101-level econ and it's the basis of many century-old laws. So to compare the banking industry with individual homebuyers-- or individual purchasers of anything-- is simply not valid. Again leaving moral issues aside, the banks' unprecedented acquisition of America's housing supply, ownership of which had previously been dispersed, undeniably has wide-ranging effects.

It's completely different, because banks own a sizeable portion of the nation's inventory. Enough to effectively control the market. No individual owner has that power. I daresay banks own more houses than the government does, so I don't see how their intervention is somehow of a lower order than that of the government. I find that distinction quizzical. What's worse, the banks are keeping their inventory empty and no they're not maintaining it. Cities have to drag them into court to get basic tasks accomplished. Are you expecting prices to "recover" to bubble levels? Do you really think those prices were legitimate? Do you think current prices, supported by all this bank hoarding, are legitimate? Even though the banks are simultaneously letting their inventory fall to ruin? Everyone from Adam Smith to Abraham Lincoln has warned us about this very problem.

Dang, Quiznos is the only subs I'll eat. Maybe the chain is having problems. The one by me in Lakewood closed a couple years back. Although both stores were a bit lacking in customer service, compared to other Quiznos I've been to. The one on W 3rd seems to do well.