mikel

Haha I gave up on the dogs after I realized I would have to miss 4 innings to get any. I am not exaggerating...4 innings for hot dogs. The crowd was pretty good, better than the series against the Red Sox but I think people still thought it was going to rain or get too cold tonight. It was actually quite nice for the whole game and best of all THE TRIBE WON!!!

There is the new grocery store at 1900 Euclid across from Cleveland Marshall Law School.

This is a bit more about what I mentioned earlier in this thread. It applies to Business school but the lessons from it may apply to some other fields as well. The Default Major: Skating Through B-School By DAVID GLENN Published: April 14, 2011 This article is a collaboration between The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education, a daily source of news, opinion and commentary for professors, administrators and others interested in academe. David Glenn is a senior writer at The Chronicle covering teaching and curriculum. PAUL M. MASON does not give his business students the same exams he gave 10 or 15 years ago. “Not many of them would pass,” he says. Dr. Mason, who teaches economics at the University of North Florida, believes his students are just as intelligent as they’ve always been. But many of them don’t read their textbooks, or do much of anything else that their parents would have called studying. “We used to complain that K-12 schools didn’t hold students to high standards,” he says with a sigh. “And here we are doing the same thing ourselves.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edlife/edl-17business-t.html?pagewanted=1

I totally agree with this. I have been in a lot of Little Italy apartments over the past few years and most of them are dumps. A lot of them look like nothing has been changed in 40 years. It is so easy to make money without doing anything that landlords don't do as much upkeep as they could. If they would slap some new paint on the walls in some of these places with a slightly updated kitchen they could easily get a few hundred bucks more a month. None of these places ever go to sale to the general public, the people who own them just sell the buildings to friends. I think the landlords kind of like the dumpy old school feel of the place and don't want it to turn into Tremont with a lot of yuppies running around.

Just as a total guess I would say maybe around 20-25%. I would have to say that it is definitely less than half but there are still a visible number of old timers that live in the neighborhood. A lot of the single family homes still have Italians living in them but almost all of the multi-family buildings are students. I kind of wonder how long the neighborhood can go on being a true Little Italy because in 20 years if anybody living there has Italian Heritage it will be a few generations removed. I feel like events like the feast have lost a lot of Italian cultural aspects and are becoming parties with Italian food. As long as the restaurants are there it will be Little Italy but that might not last forever.

I know a few black students that live in Little Italy and seem to get along fine. I don't think the old-timers in LI really care much about the race of people in the neighborhood especially if they are students or employees in University Circle. I think a lot of the animosity back in the day probably came from the fear that Little Italy would be the next East Cleveland or Hough. The neighborhood has become a very stable college student neighborhood and I don't think anybody thinks Little Italy is in danger of becoming East Cleveland any more. It may not be the most welcoming neighborhood in the world but I think the sentiment by some black folks that they will not even drive through LI is just as misguided as a white person not driving through East Cleveland.

I am all about Peterson if he is available. Our secondary would unstoppable for the next ten years with him and Haden and Ward. I think he is pretty risk-free compared to some of the defensive lineman. I think Peterson will likely be gone by the time we pick though.

I never thought building dorms around a baseball field was such a great idea anyway. They can pay for extra transportations costs to League park with the money they save on broken windows. League park would be an amazing place to have college games and I bet would be really unique compared to most schools. How many current college players can say they play at the same park Babe Ruth hit his 500th home run at!

Cleveland is still ahead of 4 teams as far as payroll goes so to everyone crying about how much we spend it is no different than many other rebuilding teams. We are not the Yankees or Red Sox. I know losing CC and Cliff hurt and I still am not totally over those moves. I am ok with Martinez because what we have now is as good or better with Santana. I think the mood around the Indians is way overblown this year and while they are not stacked they just beat the world series favorite (at least a week ago they were) Red Sox and look like they have some fight in them. When they are down 20 games at the All star break I will give up, but not yet.

The rise in community service is an easy one. Students have to do hundreds of hours of community service for graduation requirements for high school and college. I remember my high school doubled the number of hours required about 6 years ago. Facts for this issue are hard to come by because it is such a complicated issue. What exactly can we measure to look at this? I don't even quite know what I am trying to get at with this so that doesn't help the conversation but I think my basic argument is that the current generation is just so busy and stressed out from trying to do better than their parents that they don't have time to sit back and think about the larger world around them. It is by no means a guarantee these days that we will do better than our parents and the stress from that problem is difficult to deal with. I try not to idealize the past because older generations did a lot of not so great things that we have tried to reduce in the present day and because I am still a youngster I don't have as much experience with the past as some on this board so I am open to being corrected. This issue also may be more of an American thing that i just noticed when i lived in Scotland. I am not trying to say that today's young people are stupid or careless, I just think a certain skillset is being replaced with a new one that has some positives but also some drawbacks for the future. To connect this to UrbanOhio, I think growing up in far-flung suburbs has made young people less empathetic and less understanding of problems that plague cities. Anyway I'll let it go at this because this is really an education thread and should probably move more that way.

Am I not allowed to have an opinion X? Sometimes personal anecdotes and observation can be useful, but if you need academic studies this is close to what I am getting at: "Another cause may be changing expectations about success. Since the 1980s, there has been a steady trend in people feeling more stressed about trying to "get ahead," Konrath says. "With so much time and effort devoted to yourself so you can succeed, who has time for others?" O'Brian says." http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-06-08-empathyresearch08_st_N.htm "But the authors speculate a millennial mixture of video games, social media, reality TV and hyper-competition have left young people self-involved, shallow and unfettered in their individualism and ambition." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27StudiedEmpathy.html

As somebody who recently graduated from a top 50 college I can definitely agree with some of the sentiments on UrbanOhio that people of my generation lack any cultural awareness. I am a big believer in a traditional liberal arts education or a technical education that at least stresses the liberal arts at some level. I realize that the liberal arts do not prepare people for a job but they really do teach people how to think. School is seen by many of my generation as a way to get a diploma and be qualified for a job by taking somewhat mindless technical classes. They end up thinking that they are smart educated people but they can't remember the last time they read a book or even a newspaper (or online news). I studied abroad in Scotland for 5 months and it was instantly noticeable how much more interest EVERYBODY took in the world around them. Politics and world affairs were commonplace for everyone to discuss and only a few circles of students at home would regularly discuss these things. America is supposed to be the most creative free place in the world but my generation has been taught from a young age to take the safe route and do what we are told and we will be successful. We have had our lives planned out from the time we are in middle school. I think the recession opened peoples eyes up a little bit though and made them realize that being truly creative and flexible would be necessary to either find a job or make a job in the post recession economy. All the promises we had been told all of these years were not true, we did not get anything we want just for following the rules, getting a technical degree, and becoming part of the machine. I mean no disrespect to people that are involved in technical fields because many people I know that have technical jobs are very culturally aware and involved, I just feel that many young people today value a degree or qualification much more than the ability to actually think. My classmates were apathetic to politics, the arts, and the world around them. Someone may bring up the Obama campaign as an example of how my generation got involved, I volunteered for the Obama campaign and I felt like people were doing more because it would help them get a job than actually believing in the message. They may have leaned more towards Obama'd ideas but looked at the campaign as a way to further their self-interest than to help out their country. I could rant for hours on this subject but I am too tired and will have to save some for later.

Wow that is scary. I lived across the street from those houses last year. This thread caught my attention on the main page for not the best reason but in more upbeat news a new sign was put up where the proposed Mayfield lofts are supposed to go. Is this project back on?

I believe the fine is in the $70-$80 range. Somebody can correct me if i'm wrong because I am not 100% sure on that. I don't think its less than that (but might be lower for juveniles).

people without tickets just pay attention to if rta officers are getting on the bus and if they are they get off at that stop. I have seen half of a bus unload at around e. 65th in the rain when the RTA officers got on. It actually seems to have gotten better in the past year but it still happens a fair amount.

I got yelled at this morning on the Healthline because I was drinking coffee on the bus. Is this normal policy on most transit systems? I know that no food or beverages are technically allowed on buses but I ride the bus every day and have never been told to not do it before. I understand that the rule exists to keep kids from spilling soda everywhere but for adults that want their coffee in the morning on their bus ride I think the rule sucks. Does the Rapid have a similar rule?

I went to Holy Moses Soda fountain today and actually liked it a lot. It was $4.50 for a decent sized root beer float with homebrewed rootbeer and homemade icecream which I thought was really good. That really is not that bad in my opinion for what the product was although not cheap. It did not have quite as much of an old school feel as I had imagined but was was pretty nicely set up overall. I thought they had a LOT of seating for an icecream shop. I think it just seemed small because the place was packed today because of the grand opening. I think it makes a nice addition to the neighborhood and is a good place to grab dessert for anyone coming out of the movies or nearby restaurants.

I'll say it: There is no panhandling problem downtown. Do people get panhandled? Yes all the time, but unless you want to round all the panhandlers up and jail them for asking for spare change it will never stop. I agree that this perceived problem is caused by suburban folks bringing their perception of what their subdivision should be like compared to what downtown Cleveland should be like. How do I know? I used to be one of them. As a suburbanite I too thought that downtown had a panhandling problem but since living in the city for 5 years and being downtown a lot I have become very comfortable with it. While seeing one panhandler made me nervous before, being exposed to it more often shows it for being what it is, a harmless nuisance (in 99.99% of cases). When I would come in from the burbs, getting asked for change was downright scary because i wasn't used to it and for many people the only experience they have with panhandling is downtown. Downtown Cleveland should be compared to other downtowns, not Crocker Park. Have you ever been to San Francisco? The place is frightening compared to Cleveland. There were groups of homeless people smoking pot asking me for money to buy more pot everywhere i went last year. Cleveland is better than a lot of cities as far as panhandling goes but not as free of panhandling as a cul-de-sac in Westlake. It never will be and the effort to do so would be for nothing more than to pretend like a problem is being fixed. I have been panhandled hundreds of times in the past year and have never felt threatened or harassed. My big point on the suburban perception of crime in Cleveland is that in Cleveland their is a chance of being the victim of a crime. In many suburbs there is no chance of becoming a victim of a crime. For many people (including myself back in the day) any chance at all was too much. The chance in reality of being the victim of a crime in Cleveland is really small, especially downtown during the day, but media coverage of crimes along with the chance of crime happening at all compared to the suburbs leads to an unreasonable fear of crime.

I think the debate over how to run the government and budget for the state goes like this: Republican: How much do I want to spend? (not a lot) Ok, what kind of government services can I get for that? (not a lot) Democrat: What kind of services should the government provide? (a decent amount) Ok how much should I make the check out for. It is basically a fact that Republicans are more selfish and do not want anybody spending their money and Democrats are more sympathetic and realize how much a collective effort can accomplish but sometimes at the risk of overspending. A healthy balance is necessary and the citizens of Ohio think Kasich has cut too much in his budget. I think the voters of Ohio got what they deserved because Kasich really has not done much that he didn't say he was going to do. If they would have paid more attention to the election they would not find themselves being unhappy with him. Maybe they will think more about their vote next time. I am surprised at the level of apathy towards politics among Americans these days but when something doesn't go the way they want they complain. Its called voting. Voting really does affect people and with the drastic measures that Kasich has taken maybe people will figure that out.

Yeah I think you have to look at the 12 month change to account for seasonal differences so with that in mind the numbers don't really look bad.

If you look at the renderings it shows that the new building that fronts a large portion of Euclid will be brick on the street side so I don't think this will be as much of an issue as some people think.

I don't really agree with this article. I don't think anybody in Cleveland is forgetting about the inequality that exists. There are a lot of things being done about Cleveland's problems from the school transformation plan to the evergreen cooperatives along with a lot of foundation and non-profit involvement. When somebody comes up with a plan to solve poverty in the United States please share it because I think every mayor in the country would love to know about it. I don't think we need to avoid boosterism in the mean time. I think we also have to talk about Cleveland as a region because in that sense it is no worse than many other cities. Unfortunately the city itself has a disproportionate amount of impoverished communities and the statistics mentioned in the article abuse this fact. If we include Shaker Heights, Lakewood, Rocky River etc. the statistics are not anywhere near as bad. I think the boosterism exists as a backlash to these types of statistics that are often unfair and paint the city in a bad light undeservedly. If we are not allowed to boost the city we might as well leave. I think people are Cleveland boosters because of the potential for change that they see, boosterism is pride in solving these problems, not ignorance to them.

I don't know if anyone has posted this before but flipping through the library of congress photographs on Cleveland is pretty amazing. A lot of good stuff here. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=cleveland+ohio&st=slideshow

Of course because the rejection of the 3c was purely political. As long as the project makes Kasich look good he will consider it.

I don't think its Jeff Johnson's place to be deciding whether this development is rentals or for sale. When is the last time a private developer wanted to spend $10 million in his district on new market rate housing....? I hate to be negative but this is the kind of stuff that keeps Cleveland back.