CTownsFinest216

http://www.walkscore.com/index.shtml this is extremely depressing......i only got 56/100. i think it goes to show you ohio is too car dependent. i dont own a car either

you are making excuses. because hough became overcrowded apartment buildings and there are "lifestyle changes" it shouldnt be a dense urban neighborhood anymore. you say that "the city and lifestyles have changed since Cleveland's peak population" yea like white flight and everyone moving to the suburbs. since lifestyles have changed in cleveland and america with people preferring to live in the suburbs i guess we should all move to the suburbs right? built form density first and foremost. cincinnati has a lower population density than cleveland yet has a much denser built environment and feels more urban disagree completely. why would you have to demolish large swaths of historic singles and doubles when there are plenty of vacant lots in the city to begin with to build denser housing on? even within those neighborhoods of doubles apartment style buildings have been knocked or burned down. much of that housing existed back when cleveland had 900k+...difference is the whole city was filled with homes and entire neighborhoods werent gutted. it seems like with developments nowadays they can never get it right. they may be on the right track and have some good qualities but ive yet to see many that are all the way "there".

ummm.....yes. why shouldnt it be? you are on a site called URBANohio.com yet you are justifyin de-urbanizing of a city if it were up to me every neighborhood in cleveland would return to the same density it had in the 50s i want to live as close to downtown as possible, but when cleveland hts or lakewood are more urban than 2 miles from downtown we have a problem. good cities are built up with high density close to downtown, not demolished and mcmansions strewn over what were once dense urban neighborhoods

"we" being the city planners/officials/architects cleveland has torn down enough old buildings as it is that we dont need to tear any more down while there are projects like the avenue district, warehouse district, flats east bank, and stonebridge there is still a lot of crappy suburban stuff bein built in the city of cleveland. while this isnt a view thats probably shared by the majority on here, there is more to a city than plush condos for young professionals and downtown. im not sayin im opposed to buildin condos downtown but a city is not a city without real neighborhoods. we cant just build a nice downtown and neglect half the neighborhoods in the city. some of us normal folk dont wanna live in a cul-de-sac we dont know what half of those are gonna look like yet either theres too much suburban crap bein built here. it seems like everything gets knocked down for crap or an empty lot. -st lukes pointe -steelyard commons -cleveland clinic developments........a bunker that has no regards to the urban surroundings -lexington village -the mcmansions on central ave.........looks like youre in solon 2 minutes outside of downtown -rennaisance village -church square. shopping center -beacon place/woodhaven -that shoppin center on w. 25th that has parking in the front and looks suburban. they couldnt build somethin up to the street with parkin the back? theres plenty of room there -kingsbury/reservoir place in mt. pleasant those are just a couple of examples off the top of my head...theres a bunch more suburban townhomes/mcmansions that have been built within the city how hard is it to built UP TO THE STREET? why cant builders nowadays build anything decent? the phrase "they dont build em like they used to" is true. whats so hard about building all brick structures and half decent looking? it doesnt have to be world class architecture but its not impossible to build somethin other than cookie cutter suburban lookin stuff. i want to continue to live in cleveland but i dont want to live in a suburban city. cleveland isnt the densest city in the first place so theres no need to suburbanize it further. if we continue to tear our city down, will we have anythin historic left in 50 yrs time?

cleveland NEEDS to fight the census. detroit is fighting it. st. louis has fought and won before. no way i believe these numbers. i think all the older industrial cities are being undercounted too. personally ive been uncounted in cleveland. i dont understand how i've still seen new subdivisions bein built WITHIN cuyahoga county when cuyahoga county has supposedly lost 6% of its population since 2000. how can you continue to build sprawl when there are hundreds of foreclosures and vacant lots in the county. this isnt just the city of cleveland either...its the whole county.

MyTwoSense- i said fuck frank jackson too as well as the county commisioners. i dont place all the blame on him but he is as much to blame as anyone else. jackson is our mayor and the only comments hes made about he seemed to be pretty adamant about this being the right decision and there was no other feasable alternative. what has he done so far during his tenure as mayor? hes pretty much a ghost and only speaks up when things are already set in stone. anways, check this out on cleveland.com with people's reactions to the decision http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2007/06/commission_approves_ameritrust.html#comments very depressing lookin at these views... i especially like these ones yea thats a perfect justification. i think that guy posts on here too LOL......except pittsburgh isnt tearing down skyscrapers "WE NEED SHINY NEW TOWERS!" hahahaha exactly oh if only it were that simple. calling this progress in the first place is the problem. yup and the bright people we already have here will take note of it when they consider staying in or moving out of cleveland

i feel like a tape recorder as ive already said what needs to be said so this is my last post in this thread. the ECP is a glorified bus route and a waste of money. nothing more to be said. its common sense. maybe i wouldnt be so heated over a BRT if i knew it was going to be converted into rail after it is trialed. but knowin RTA this is going to be somethin built to last decades. i live on buckeye. where do you live half of the time? new york city? LOL... what the hell is this about and what is it supposed to mean? seriously... where was i when the ECP as being planned? probably in school lookin at the clock waitin to get out. what kind of sense does this question make to ask me? im not a city official i wasnt even referrin to BRT when i said cleveland is suburbanizing itself. i was referrin to planning and new development in this city as a whole and knocking down what already exists. but if you want to be honest, BRT isnt going to urbanize anything the way that rail + TOD can. you cant "suburbanize" euclid ave downtown obviously but what about the stretch adjacent to DT in midtown? thats an area that badly needs to get built up. considerin that corridor houses CSU with their college town plans it makes perfect sense that this be light rail/modern streetcar with TOD. i dont see how BRT is going to spur that kind of TOD, but i could be wrong. what should be traversing euclid... portland oregon is urban planning and TOD done right glorified bus route even atlanta plans to have streetcars in the CBD and nearby. houston has light rail on downtown streets. these are cities that are looked at by all of us as much worse urban planning than cleveland sorry grandpa, i'll only speak when spoken to. im just a "hot headed 23 yr old"....what do i know about anything? back in your day they used to walk barefoot 15 miles in the snow i didnt know i was a "youth" though. i wish i was still a youth....wouldnt have anything to worry about. this is your response to me sayin there used to be a streetcar network? :clap:

did he say no? and ive already said it was the county officials (comminsioners) you make no sense. if cleveland was facing a huge construction boom with old buildings being torn down left and right you would understand everyone's frustration? LOL hello.....if that were happening i wouldnt care that much because things would be getting built!!! since there is no construction boom and we cant even get 1 highrise built at the moment its even worse that cleveland demolishes a skyscraper and wont build another one on that spot. do you hear what youre saying? you sound imbecilic right here......

wow... what the hell happened that it went from a vote not to tear the buildin down to suddenly a final vote to tear it down? i didnt even hear it until now and ive been keepin tabs this is just corrupt politicians. how much they cut the check for frank? obviously nothin could be done to save this building because the county politicians already made sure they were gonna get their way. am i on urbanohio.com? you got some people here bashin w28th and callin his posts "a little dramatic" cuz he doesnt want cleveland tearin itself down like it has for decades. dramatic is spendin millions of dollars to demolish a buildin just because its not attractive to some. the shit dont make sense. there are 2387054592039 parking lots in downtown cleveland that you can build on, instead you choose to destroy a skyscraper. i want any building old (even only 30 somethin yrs old) to be standing because soon we wont have anything here to remind us of the past lets not even get into the environmental factors of demolishing this building cleveland already has an unimpressive skyline for a metro of 3 million. yea, its unimpressive. theres key tower, terminal tower, bp and thats about it. thats the only real height and that side of the skyline is empty apart from them. not that those are very impressive anyway.....now picture those without the cleveland trust tower look at all those parking lots...yet frankie and his goons wanna DEMOLISH a skyscraper? everyone should be mad at this. there's no excuse for continually tearing down cleveland and its not gonna stop. this is a city that simply doesnt get it. tearin down this buildin would be unheard of if it sat in new york or chicago. fuck frank jackson

RENTAL?? UGH! yea really....we dont want those damn renters. those poor renters are all horrible people and cause nothing but trouble. the neighborhood will go to hell! we should only cater to 30-somethin young professionals who can afford yuppy high priced condos. afterall, thats the true model of urbanity. anyways......kudos to 3M and eli mann. its good to see local investors investing in cleveland and helping the city. bruce ratner could learn a few things from that.

how about instead of discussing my age you tell me how i dont have a valid point. since i express my opinions and dont sugar-coat things my posts are all "negative". to please all of you maybe i should just act like the ECP isnt what it really is- a glorified bus route. cleveland, as in the people in charge of things in this city, is a joke because they dont seem to get it as far as urban planning goes. i think just about everyone on this website could do a better job than city officials of cleveland can. government officials have even pointed this out. if none of these urban renewal policies were planned in cleveland years ago we wouldnt be havin this discussion today. if you love cleveland so much why dont you point out its negatives and not settle for less. or should we sit back and watch cleveland suburbanize itself? i say these things because i want real progress, not a watered down version. ah well i guess cleveland can stay this way. afterall, if residents are happy and doing cart wheels over a new BRT why should RTA care to expand rail or build a subway downtown?

so then lobby for a federal grant to extend the light rail instead of a glorified bus route. typical "cant do" defeatist attitude that exists here. i never received an allowance as a kid either. "if you build it they will come" but alas, traffic isnt bad here and no one takes the rapid so whats the point? lets just stick to the defeatist cant do attitude that we love so much here in northeastern ohio Son, you obviously haven't been here too long, and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's make a few things perfectly clear: The Euclid Corridor project is far more than the construction of "a couple fancier bus stops along Euclid". It is the complete re-thinking, re-engineering, and rebuilding of a major transportation corridor for the area, from the ground (and below) up. Dismissing it through minimalist statements such as yours demonstrates a distorted perception of the facts. What makes you think that lobbying wasn't/won't be done for additional projects? The pot is only just so big, and sometimes it's worthwhile to know when to walk away. Had all of our efforts been directed toward just getting what we wanted, Cleveland might have been left with nothing, and there's no way you can convince me that a cratered, desolate Euclid Avenue would be better than the rebuilding that's going on now. Look at some of my prior posts - lumping me in with anything resembling a defeatist attitude is sheer folly. I left Buffalo, NY because of the perceived defeatist attitude among "leaders" there. I am, however, a realist. "why is it that a rapid transit system over 50 yrs old has less coverage than newly built systems"? You've just answered your own question. One of the disadvantages of rail infrastructure is that it can't easily be moved to adapt to changing lifestyles/population patterns. Check out the systems in the cities you mentioned 50 (or even 20) years from now, and you may find some of the same concerns. Also, with regards to St. Louis, I had the occasion to strike up a spontaneous conversation one day (while waiting for the Waterfront Line) with a couple of tourists from that very city, and they couldn't help but mention how much they enjoyed or transit system, mentioning that they hadn't rented a car for the long weekend they were planning on spending here, so let's not begin to suggest that any solution somehow functions as a "universal truth"... clvlndr, I'll keep my comment brief, as I do feel you and I share some common frames of thought, but I would respectfully disagree with your assessment of a subway working "to curb at least some of the embarrassing, widespread blight" -- rather, I think it would keep it hidden from those who would board at the outskirts of town, ride into downtown, and never have a clue what it is that is (or isn't) going on above them. RTA is still working with integrating inherited, disparate systems (both bus and rail) with individual histories than it has as a unified organization. Combine that with strong neighborhood-level politics and a non-regional government infrastructure with far too many chiefs and not enough indians (Glenwillow, population 449, has a mayor and a six-person village council, fer chrissakes!), and you get the quagmire we're in the midst of. Sometimes, you don't criticize the bear for how poorly it dances, you applaud the fact that it dances at all... havent been where too long? UO or cleveland? check my registered date and check yours....i dont post a lot i mostly read here. im born and raised in cleveland and 23 yrs old right now. how can you possibly describe the ECP as something that will supposedly revolutionize cleveland's transit system. please tell me how it isnt a glorified bus route with better stops. its not rail, its still a bus. nothing re-engineering and re-building about that when there was a streetcar line down euclid avenue before. doing that would be building light rail or a subway line. i never said you were among the defeatist attitude here, i was refering to the general populous in this region. still, i dont see how you can defend the ECP. watching other cities do what my hometown should be gives me a sick feelin in my stomach. i'm well aware there are obstacles here like state funding for pub transport (which is paltry compared to even michigan) and incompetant city leaders/officials/planning and thats what frustrates me. RTA isnt completely to blame but i doubt they are doing all they can. calebrese is in charge and he's a rail hater himself......i doubt he was doing a whole lot of lobbying for rail along euclid when the ECP was being planned. RTA has a "settle-for-less" moto itself......it trickles down to everything in this city. everything clvlndr said was on point. i dont really know what else to say besides we dont seem to get it here.

2009? are you effin kiddin me? what a JOKE. this city is a damn JOKE. rta is a damn JOKE. theyve already been workin on this for ages too.....seems like its been like 2 yrs. so you tellin me it takes $200 million and 4 yrs in order to build a couple fancier bus stops along euclid? why is it that a rapid transit system over 50 yrs old has less coverage than newly built systems in portland, salt lake city, denver, and sacramento. look at what rail has done for those cities in terms of urban environment, TOD, and ridership numbers. all of those systems have far exceeded expected ridership figures. these are areas that have never had the rail/streetcar culture or density of cleveland yet they get it and are URBANIZING, not de-urbanizing like cleveland. the worst part about it is that WE ALREADY HAVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE HERE! i really dont want to ever move from cleveland but the idiots here are gonna give me no other choice so then lobby for a federal grant to extend the light rail instead of a glorified bus route. typical "cant do" defeatist attitude that exists here. i never received an allowance as a kid either. "if you build it they will come" but alas, traffic isnt bad here and no one takes the rapid so whats the point? lets just stick to the defeatist cant do attitude that we love so much here in northeastern ohio

yet parking lots still stand on public square would be greater to see them having a big impact on CLEVELAND

ive said it before and i'll say it again........i dont like the euclid corridor project at all. yay BRT.......a glorified bus route. that's all it is, and it seems to be takin them ages to finish contruction. if theres not a subway down euclid there should be rail above the street similar to chicago and taipei metro. RTA should be usin money that was spent on the ECP to expand rapid lines. it makes zero sense that lakewood, cleveland hts, euclid and more extensive areas of cleveland are unserved by rail. building rail down euclid would also spur some TOD and re-urbanize the area adjacent to downton on the eastside, which BADLY needs to happen. how much would it cost RTA to get some of the old street car lines up and running again? that would be more beneficial to our public transportation system. that's just my opinion though...

LeBroom=SWEPT

LOL....notice all of those buildings were demolished to build ANOTHER TALLER SKYSCRAPER? singer building was in NYC....what stands there right now? one liberty plaza "One Liberty Plaza is a skyscraper in Manhattan, New York, which resides at the location of the former Singer Building (in 1968, the second tallest building to be demolished). One Liberty Plaza is currently owned and operated by Brookfield Properties. The building is 743 feet (226 m) high and 54 floors" 2nd chicago one is only 17 floors and probably got replaced by one of the many taller skyscrapers that have been built there nice examples. too bad cleveland just tears down the whole city for surface lots.

No its not. geez...I know its frustrating, but lets cut the "Only in Cleveland" pitty party. Sh*t happens in other cities as well. cost to demolish is further down in the PLJ email that has been posted. what other city has demolished 383 ft buildings?

only in cleveland will they demolish a 383 ft skyscraper only in cleveland i say we knock down key tower and turn that into a surface lot too. its ugly! how many millions just to demolish a building?

yea i saw those threads when they were posted KJP. very sad images...... the photos of hough really tell the story this for example looks like it could be in NYC i think the saddest part for me in these photos is the street car lines that were stopped

you're completely right, which makes it even sadder i would love to see pictures of what cleveland's neighborhoods looked like back in 20s, 30s, and 40s but it would probably just depress me even further whats so hard about building up to the street? i guess in 2007 that concept of urban planning makes too much sense. a bigger problem though is the fact that there are so many areas of cleveland that are just bombed out, looks downright rural yet is 5 miles from downtown. cincinnati may have lost population but at least it didnt lose its great architecture and is built up right around the CBD

this makes me sick. the building is NOT ugly IMO and i like the way all the buildings form around it. STOP TEARIN MY CITY DOWN! please tell me the building in front of it wont be demolished. i would be ok with it maybe if they were gonna build a new tower that is taller/better but then again we've got enough surface lots on public square already. is there any way this building can be saved????

yes cleveland has been single family home but single family home can also be dense does that or the townhomes at st lukes look more urban to you? and to say that "we're just getting into multi family, vertical, row housing" is stupid. cleveland has had this kind of housing for decades. it USED to have A LOT more but it was all torn down when the city decayed and lost half its population. chicago is mostly single family bungalow homes but its still more urban and has a higher density than cleveland. and thats exactly why we dont want the whole core leveled to build these suburban developments. otherwise cleveland will be less urban than phoenix in 20 yrs time. cleveland has all this historic architecture that you wont see in those cities, but it keep gettin torn down. no one said we had to be chicago. i want cleveland to be cleveland. but does not suburbanizin our city mean we are tryin to be chicago? whats so hard about planning right and not tearin down everything good about this city? we here on this site can figure it out yet city planners and council cant i personally never want to leave cleveland but if the city keeps tearin itself down and de-urbanizin i will have no choice but to

definitely the west side is young professionals......whole near westside is becomin gentrified sadly, ohio city and tremont for example. i suspect the westide is the "place to be" because there arent many blacks there.

thats what im sayin, in cleveland all the new development is piss poor in terms of relating to the (once) urban neighborhood and interactin with the street. whats the point of puttin a little of grass in the front too....its not like you are gettin a yard, so why not build it all the way up to the sidewalk? like look at these examples: those arent perfect but they are a lot better than what was built at st luke's. haha, kinsbury run is funny....right by kinsman i guess cleveland just wants to gut whats left of it entirely to build a suburb. soon we are goin to have to look to the suburbs if we want urban so all those people movin into brownstones in nyc are fleein the city for bigger lots in the burbs? i dont see their population in half, its still growin.