Clevelander17

What you people don't get is that on the list of problems facing Greater Cleveland, fragmented government is not at the top, and probably not even in the top three. And here's what I mean by cultural differences. There is a culture of people out there that treat their homes/neighborhoods like crap, don't value education, commit crimes because that's what their idols do, and generally feel like they are entitled to everything while doing nothing. Then, they vote for "leaders" who must look like them, speak like them, and kowtow to their interests. These people treat their schools like overpriced daycare centers and their kids completely lack discipline. They move from bad neighborhoods to better ones, leeching off of the sympathies of people who feel sorry for them, who truly want to help, but can't because they're too blind to see the reality of the situation. Cleveland, East Cleveland, Euclid, Maple Heights, Bedford Heights, Warrensville Heights have all succumbed. Shaker Heights, South Euclid, and Cleveland Heights are close to a tipping point. There is still hope for University Heights and Lyndhurst, but they need to remain steadfast and continue to fight. Regionalism, on any level, is not going to solve this problem. Regionalism is only going to hasten the demise of the areas of Cuyahoga County that remain nice. Spreading mediocrity is not going to fix the situation, it's only going to encourage the productive members of society to move further and further away from Cleveland. This cultural sickness is not limited to any one race, so please do not make this discussion into something it's not. The point is that this region needs to starve the beast and stop giving in to these people, because you can't fix the problem on the local level, and continually throwing more money at the problem is only going to make us all losers. I expect most of you to disagree with me, and that's fine. I once was an idealist about these types of things myself. Hopefully one day you'll get over it and see reality for what it is.

You obviously know very little about Shaker's financial condition. So Shaker Heights is doing worse-off financially than Cleveland Heights? Maybe SH needs to set up more speed traps and hire more meter maids, then. :laugh:

I see CH as slightly more liberal than SH, but they're very close. The biggest difference is that while SH is liberal, they also have the funds to support their liberal agenda. CH isn't as well-off, and any attempt to merge with UH (i.e. annex UH) would certainly be a big money grab for the city. If I'm a resident of any city, especially a homeowner, someone who has invested in the community, I'd be a fool not to take into consideration all potential consequences of any merger. As a resident of UH, I just don't see there being enough of a benefit, enough of a gain, from merging with Cleveland or Cleveland Heights. Telling me that such a merge would help the greater community sounds great in theory, but we need to see tangibles, especially when we're talking about something that would almost certainly lower home values and decrease services.

UH may be "lame," but CH's "coolness" comes with hefty baggage.

I said that. Just like we won't have you, and you won't have Cleveland. This is why regionalism will never work. Glad we had this talk. See ya out there!

Higher than Mount Union OK, I ported a d3boards.com OAC joke to the UrbanOhio regionalzation thread. Yikes. MUC isn't even in the same conversation.

Not that it matters, but even if it were relevant, it's worth noting that most of the kids at Wiley are from Cleveland Heights, too. Huh? Are you saying there are no orthodox Jewish people in Cleveland Heights? Many people in Cleveland Heights send their kids to private schools as well. The schools aren't really an issue here, though, since CH and UH already share the same school district. Do cities need to be demographically homogeneous? Even so, SE isn't much more like UH than CH is. If anything, SE is more similar to CH (especially with respect to average household income). Although if it's % black that you're worried about (I think that' the elephant in the room), sure, you could shun the 41% black city and associate yourself with a 21% black city. Is that what everyone's so worried about? Either way, I think both CH and UH (as well as a bunch of other communities, SH included) should be merging with Cleveland. University Heights residents send their kids to private schools at a rate that is unmatched in the region and from I gather, even the state. That's no coincidence Many UH residents want nothing to do with CH and the schools. Yes, but look at household and family income levels. There's a pretty significant disparity there. In a perfect world, University Heights would merge with Beachwood, but that's not going to happen. UH's next best dance partner would be Shaker Heights, and that possibility would probably be 50-50, at best.

Let me try phrasing this another way. As far as I can tell, UH derives very little benefit from teaming up with CH in a shared school district. A full merger between the two would be more of the same story, a transfer of wealth from a city that manages itself well, UH, to a city that has a sketchy track record, CH. University Heights has almost nothing to gain in the short-term from a merger with Cleveland Heights or Cleveland, and the long-term benefits are debatable, at best. I think it's simply too risky for limited or nebulous reward. I'm probably not going to convince many of you to see things my way, but again, I don't really have to, because it's not really up to you. And if there comes a day when the voters of University Heights change their minds and decide that they want to merge with Cleveland or Cleveland Heights, most of us that don't agree with such a decision will simply move elsewhere.

The idea that it would be an "annexation," and that you guys openly refer to it as such, is a big part of the problem. :police:

Don't worry about it, many of us grew up wearing different large cats, namely a Wildcat or Bengal instead. :-P

Wow. We're talking about a 5-mile radius here, tops. The Amazon Valley is less tribal than what you're describing. Like I would expect, you don't get it. I guess it's easy for someone to sit and look at a map and postulate about which cities look like they fit together. It's not that simple. I'm just really glad that there is no way, legally, for anyone here to force their Utopian view of how this region should look on to others. I'm glad that these things will have to be voted on and in all likelihood, are going to lose embarrassingly. As an insider to the situation, I don't see that much of a difference culturally or philosophically between Cleveland Heights and University Heights. I see the same attitudes, battles, biases, advantages, disadvantages, etc. in both places. The western half of University Heights and the southeastern portion of Cleveland Heights are barely indistinguishable, IMO, in many ways (people, housing, income, "philosophy", etc.). I feel that many University Heights residents think their city is something it isn't, and have a view of Cleveland Heights as something it isn't, when it reality the two cities are incredibly similar in a lot of ways. Fine, yes, there are similarities between the Northwest corner of UH and eastern CH, I'll give you that. But the further you move east, the more evident the differences become.

What, those real differences won't go too far amongst the pro-regionalism, pro-Utopian crowd? It's not about race, it's about cultural differences. If you really want to take this debate to the next level, we can do it, as long as it remains mature.

I have two direct questions for you. What are the vast cultural and philosophical differences between University Heights and Cleveland Heights? Why would a merger with South Euclid be more beneficial than a merger with Cleveland Heights for University Heights? University Heights has a more conservative populace than Cleveland Heights (though UH is still fairly liberal overall). University Heights has a much larger chunk of families that opt for religious/private schools than Cleveland Heights. Perhaps I'm overstating these differences a bit, but they exists and they become apparent every three years when the CH-UH BoE calls for a new levy. South Euclid would be a better fit demographically and also because it is close in size to University Heights, thus its voting population wouldn't be able to enforce its will on the people of UH. It would be much more of a partnership than an annexation (which is essentially would a CH-UH merger would amount to).

Wow. We're talking about a 5-mile radius here, tops. The Amazon Valley is less tribal than what you're describing. Like I would expect, you don't get it. I guess it's easy for someone to sit and look at a map and postulate about which cities look like they fit together. It's not that simple. I'm just really glad that there is no way, legally, for anyone here to force their Utopian view of how this region should look on to others. I'm glad that these things will have to be voted on and in all likelihood, are going to lose embarrassingly.

Since you and someone else brought it up, and only glossed it over, let me expand. As a resident of University Heights, I, like many other residents, have and will remain strongly opposed to any merger with Cleveland Heights. Your understanding of the situation is way too simplistic. There are vast and deep cultural and philosophical differences between the two cities. Not to mention the reality that one is about three times the size of the other. The fact that the two cities share a school district is almost irrelevant. Many (probably a majority of) University Heights residents would prefer if that weren't even the case. The CH-UH school district "partnership" is probably one of the most contentious in the state. Unfortunately for us, the Ohio DoE isn't very keen to allowing cities to split from school districts, and considering the fact that UH accounts for a much high percentage of district funds than percentage of enrolled children, CH would probably mount a big fight if we tried to leave. Long story short, if the discussion were about merging with another one of our neighbors, perhaps South Euclid or Shaker Heights, you better believe that more UH residents would think favorably of such a possibility. However any talks about merging with Cleveland Heights aren't going to go very far, and the former mayor's comments really are in line with what a large chunk of residents feel about the issue.

How much money is being left on the table is certainly up for debate. That said, I still don't know if it's enough incentive for anyone other than Cleveland to get on board with full-scale regionalism. Do you have a break down of the cutoff points for block grants, and how much money each level receives? For instance, I know one of the cutoffs is 50,000 people, because Cleveland Heights officials were whining about Census numbers from 2000 hurting their access to such grants. I've never been able to track down an entire list, though. Great, I know that a lot of that money is made in Cleveland. But it's not as if they're taking the money and running without helping Cleveland. These people pay high taxes--income, sales, etc. that all go to benefit Cleveland. Not to mention other money-generating tactics by the city, including strict enforcement of parking rules, illegal speeding cameras, etc. I think the fact that you're demanding more, more, more of these people is completely ridiculous and unfair. It was bad policy that scared these people away from the City to begin with, rather than insisting that they be merged back in against their will, try instituting good policy to bring them back willingly.

That's a pretty good list. You're right, Beachwood would probably want to stay solo. Shaker Heights could go in any number of directions, as could University Heights, so perhaps the two could team up together or maybe join in with another group. South Euclid-Lyndhurst-Richmond Heights makes a lot of sense, and they also share a lot of commonalities with the neighboring suburbs of Mayfield-Mayfield Heights-Highland Heights. Those six make up the Hillcrest suburbs and that would be a nice, neutral name that could be adopted if they all got together.

There was time, about five years ago, when I was younger and more idealistic that I thought that full-scale regionalism was the answer for Northeast Ohio. The more I've read about the issue, the more I've learned about economics and unintended consequences, the less I feel that way. I still feel that having 33 school districts, 59 municipalities in Cuyahoga County is way too much, but I don't think I'll ever be convinced that a complete city-county merger (including school districts) is the answer or even feasible (in other words, it's never going to pass). So at this point I think it's better to consider all angles or what we're doing and look for more realistic alternatives. That means merging similar suburbs/school districts together to hopefully cut those numbers down to a third of what they're currently at. As for Cleveland, the city needs to tough love and to stop looking to suburbanites to bail them out. There's a reason why many people left the city proper but stayed in the region. Clearly Cleveland and it's leaders weren't offering what they were looking for. Instead of continuing to make the same mistakes, why not learn from that and try a different approach? One of the few positives of losing 60% or more of your population in the span of a few decades is that in a lot of ways it does almost give you a blank slate. There are thousands of acres of rundown or vacant land just on the eastside alone. DO SOMETHING CREATIVE WITH IT! Cleveland is never going to have close to a million residents again, not does it need to necessarily. Last thought: If our state leaders in Columbus don't stop handcuffing us and bleeding us dry, it probably doesn't matter what we do. HALLELUAH...HOLY SH-T!!!! Where's the Tylenol?

Certainly some of the problems have been beyond their control. But truth be told, you've got too much one-party groupthink downtown, and too much special interest influence. If things have gotten progressively worse over the past 50 years, it's time to stop making excuses, and start trying things another way. Annexing your more successful, more stable suburban neighbors is one very misguided solution that may put a band-aid on things in the short term, but won't do much long term.

If you're a resident of Cleveland, you don't have any say over who governs the people of Mayfield Village, or Moreland Hills, or Strongsville, or any other independent suburb. If the people of these suburbs want to stay independent, then there's nothing that you, the county, the state, or the Feds, can do about it. Let me give you an idea of what you're up against. I live in an inner-ring suburb. Last summer there was some innocent discussion by council members in a neighboring suburb about merging the two together. Just talk, no plans set in motion. The backlash from people in my city against such a possibility was amazing. There wasn't a single citizen that I heard from or spoke to that was in favor of such a potential merger with said neighbor. NOT ONE! And we weren't even talking about any kind of a merger with Cleveland itself. Put such a proposal on the ballot and it will get beaten so badly that your head will spin. Move beyond my city and further out, and you've got no chance of bringing those suburbs on board. My city has nothing to gain with merging with Cleveland, it would simply be a wealth transfer and a decrease in our level of services.

Since when are the Feds paying for 60 city halls? Since when are you paying for all of those extra city halls? An overwhelming majority of local governments are funded, you guessed it, locally. The people that benefit from separate governments in the suburbs are the ones paying for it, too. And since some of us do work in Cleveland, we're paying for Cleveland's government and schools, as well. It's more than just corruption, it's differing ways of looking at the world. Cleveland is the largest city of employment in the region, and thus it has access that enormous tax base, and all kinds of other suburban subsidization, and it's still struggling. I don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it, but there is something there, some sort of a disease, that right now, hasn't completely spread to the suburbs. Call me crazy, but I think that's a good thing, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Great post! Re-opening this thread was worth it just to read that excellent explanation.

Especially if you consider that many of the people that have left Cuyahoga County may still have jobs here, but are looking to call another county "home." And I do believe that some of the fastest growing areas of the region are northern Summit and northern Portage, areas that would certainly be conducive to a commute to a job in Cuyahoga County.

I don't think it really makes a difference either way. I could be wrong (though I don't think I am), but I don't believe that Federal funding is based upon metropolitan area's, it's based upon incorporated areas. Further, I don't think it hurts us in how we are represented, either. Ohio is still going to have X amount of Congressmen, based on the state population, regardless of how that population is distributed around. Now when we're talking about Cincinnati's MSA, which may see a movement of people from Ohio to Kentucky, then it's a potential problem of where those people are living.

Your first point about the benefits of regionalism makes sense, but I think we can see a lot of the same benefits simply by merging like-minded suburbs with each other. They don't have to merge with Cleveland proper to get the benefits of less overhead and perhaps even access to a larger block of Federal funds. Secondly, if you read the PD's article about fire departments from 2005 or 2006, I think the implication is clear that there are too many "indians" on the ground in some areas, meaning that the cuts being made in the name of savings possibly wouldn't just be at the "chief" level. I think that such possibilities could be extrapolated across all of the services provided by local government. Here's a radical thought: Is it possible that Cleveland, even at only 400,000 people, is too big to be managed by the people currently in charge? It's clear that there are problems on the local level, in the neighborhoods, that seem to be ignored in favor of talks about downtown and grand plans for things like the medical mart. I'm just not convinced that big, centralized government would do any better if it grew larger. Sometimes more localized government works better, and in the case of Cuyahoga County, we may have a perfect example. Another great thing about our system is that if Cleveland's taxes are too high or their policies are too anti-business, a company can simply look for headquarters in a place like Beachwood or even a bit out-of-county, like Avon Lake, and make a move there without completely leaving the region. Look at Cincinnati. A lot of the fastest growth there is on the Kentucky side of the river where taxes are lower and regulations are looser. I almost wish the Cleveland metropolitan area were split like that so a similar option existed for businesses and people.