Clevelander17

Don't you get it? THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR US! ;)

According to the Census Bureau's technical definition, Akron isn't a part of Cleveland's metropolitan area. However according to many other sources, Akron is most certainly a part of Greater Cleveland. It doesn't really matter though.

Yes, if Cleveland can get these places on board to begin with, they'll probably become allies in the sense you're describing. The interests of Lakewood, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Berea, etc. are very similar in theory, but don't assume that those cities' residents would like to cede overall all control to downtown Cleveland. Sovereignty may be more expensive, but some are willing to pay a little extra for it.

Some might argue that the Canton-Massillon MSA should be combined with the Akron MSA or Youngstown MSA. :)

You may be right, but I think that suburban residents are going to be hesitant, as they should be, about merging with a larger, failed neighbor. The current residents of the City of Cleveland have shown an inability to vote competent leadership and policies in for their city, adding a few hundred thousand residents isn't going to change that. Instead, you'll simply be spreading failed policies and leadership over a wider area. I'll say to you the same thing I say to 327 and others, though: Why do you think this would happen when suburbanites would be the majority, not the minority, in a regional government? For any individual suburb to merge with Cleveland might be psephological suicide, but if all merged into "Cleveland" at once (or, more accurately, all of those suburbs and Cleveland together merged into Cuyahoga County), how would Cleveland be able to outvote its former suburbs? Maybe. But with numerical superiority again in their favor, they would have to be pretty weak-skinned indeed to flee, and that's assuming that urban-suburban issues really are "us" vs. "them," which on many issues, they really aren't. Yeah, we're on the same page there for the most part, but we're talking about two different things. My comments had more to do with merging most of the inner-ring suburbs with Cleveland, like someone else suggested. I don't think that would be enough to tip the scales towards getting better leaders and policies put into place.

You know what I mean. Public housing extravagance, welfare, there's too much of it. The city can't be in the business of providing a livelihood for everyone right now, we just can't afford it. Maybe they move elsewhere, maybe the Federal government comes in takes over the dole, I don't know the solution, it's complicated, perhaps even a vicious cycle, but we're taxed and regulated out of the wazoo here and no business wants to deal with that. Scare businesses away and they're taking the jobs with them. The local government can't create anything that will turn this city around, it can only grease the grooves. Columbus is doing so well because they've created a nice public sector bubble for themselves by confiscating enough funds from all corners of the state to build a gigantic state university and a thriving state government. We need to start telling them "no more," too, because their policies are hamstringing us, as well. As for your comment about 100,000 people working downtown, like I said previously, I'd love to see some data and trends for the sake of comparison. I get the feeling that it's convenient for some here to gloss over the suburban job centers and their growth in the past 5, 10, or 15 years.

There are too many people within the city proper who keep voting themselves big entitlements and keep punishing business. That cannot continue, we can't afford it. The culture must change. As for your other comment, you may very well be right, but I'd love to see a map or data because I know that there are also large employment centers in the suburbs, especially Beachwood, Independence, Westlake, Mayfield.

You may be right, but I think that suburban residents are going to be hesitant, as they should be, about merging with a larger, failed neighbor. The current residents of the City of Cleveland have shown an inability to vote competent leadership and policies in for their city, adding a few hundred thousand residents isn't going to change that. Instead, you'll simply be spreading failed policies and leadership over a wider area. Economies of scale makes sense in the private sector because they have big incentive to control costs. I'm not sure we've ever really seen the same incentive in public sector. What you'll probably have is a big power grab by people who shouldn't even be in power, and a loss of sovereign control for suburban residents, many of whom won't even bother to stick around to fight the battles that need to be fought.

Perhaps, slowly but surely, the City of Cleveland is becoming a satellite city of its vast suburban area. Gone are the days where everyone from the suburbs commutes to their offices downtown. We've even past the days where the people living in the city with jobs would drive to their offices in the suburbs. We've reached a point where a large chunk of people, perhaps even a majority, are commuting from one suburb to another each morning and back at night, without even having to step foot in Cleveland. Heck, there are a lot of cultural amenities in the city, but there are a lot of the same, or similar amenities in the suburbs. Say what you will about the way we use our spaces, but I think a lot of the inner-city blight is beyond repair. If it's true that we've lost another 150,000 residents since 2010, and if it's true that blocks upon blocks of the eastside are vacant, perhaps it's time to stop dreaming about the day that people move back to the city and instead find better, more creative ways to use that space.

Not ONLY, but is it really debatable that these are substantial factors? There aren't enough police to patrol the city, period. Add more police and some of the crime we're seeing now becomes physically impossible. There aren't enough maintenance crews to keep things in working order. Couple that with the higher incidence of things to maintain in an inner city and you're looking at a serious conundrum. But it's nothing that money can't solve... and cutting overhead is a time-tested and private-sector-approved way to increase operating funds. All fair points. I just don't see that they lead to this: As I've said in the past, a regional government would very likely be dominated by suburbanites with suburban habits, ideals, priorities, and (therefore) voting patterns. The consolidated jurisdiction would be what ... 1+ million (maybe 2 million?) suburbanites and <500,000 Cleveland residents? See to me this would be a huge benefit of regionalism. So much of this region is being dragged down by the leadership of the primate city, currently voted upon by residents who in general are "takers" and not "makers," which means the largest city in our region has become very anti-business. This is a huge problem. Spending must be reigned in and much of that is going to have to come from cutting entitlements. We just can't afford it anymore--the city and region must get back to basics, cut taxes and regulations, and make ourselves more competitive with other metropolitan areas and states. The sooner people realize that we're in a competition, particularly with Sun Belt cities, and that we're losing, the better.

Rather than merge all of those cities into Cleveland, which in my opinion would be a mistake, I think that these communities, as I grouped them together above, should consider working on merging services and sharing taxes, and even go so far as to look at the feasibility of full mergers with each other. That would make more sense to me than merging with Cleveland.

Not ONLY, but is it really debatable that these are substantial factors? There aren't enough police to patrol the city, period. Add more police and some of the crime we're seeing now becomes physically impossible. There aren't enough maintenance crews to keep things in working order. Couple that with the higher incidence of things to maintain in an inner city and you're looking at a serious conundrum. But it's nothing that money can't solve... and cutting overhead is a time-tested and private-sector-approved way to increase operating funds. To answer Clevelander17's broader contentions, I suppose the threshold issue is whether we view these individual communities as truly interdependent. If the answer is yes, then it's not too relevant how this or that community does in comparison to its regional neighbors. In the macro sense they rise and fall together. Strongsville and Solon may be better off than Cleveland, but are they better off than comparable suburbs in a stronger overall region? Of course not. At the end of the day both are suburbs of Cleveland, and are viewed as such by outsiders. If the answer is no, then by all means, keep viewing your neighbors as rivals and see how far our region gets. We're not doing too well right now, and we're about as balkanized as can be. Have been for decades. This alone would seem to teach against continued balkanization. Something's gotta change, and doubling down on pro-sprawl trends of the late 20th century seems a bit backwards, considering how poorly that approach has worked for us over the course of its 70-year trial run. Yes, but like I mentioned in my post, other regions with fractured government have still done well, so I'm not sure your argument holds water. Maybe Cleveland's problems are deeper. I fully realize that the communities in our region are interdependent. However there is no denying that the suburbs, as a collective group, account for a large portion of jobs and residents, perhaps larger than Cleveland proper. The suburbs are doing okay, not great, but well enough. I think it's right to worry that linking them to struggling Cleveland could endanger that. Cleveland needs to get its own house in order first. If there isn't enough money for public safety or maintenance, perhaps Cleveland needs to take a hard look in the mirror and do a better job of prioritizing spending. Taking more money from suburban residents is not the answer right now. I know that that's probably not what many people want to hear, but oh well. However, like I said yesterday, regional mergers amongst suburban communities could make a lot of sense. Below I'll give an example.

In other words, throwing more suburban money at Cleveland proper is going to make things better? I just don't know if I can agree with that. Additionally, our boundaries aren't imaginary when you realize that these suburbs are self-governing and can enact policies that make or break them. Drive west to east down any of Cleveland's main thoroughfares that it shares with the suburbs and tell me it's just a coincidence that things get better when one crosses these "imaginary lines." The City of Cleveland has a lot of money and still has a lot of problems. Until the city's leaders do a better job with their current resources, forgive me for being hesitant about wanting to see a mega-merger between Cleveland and its neighbors. I think doing so at this point in time would be simply legislating mediocrity across the region. At least now when people flee Cleveland, there are nice places for them to go in the suburbs such as Mayfield, Beachwood, Solon, Shaker Heights, Strongsville, Rocky River, Bay Village, etc. Merge all of those cities with Cleveland and I think you're going to have big problems and an even bigger exodus of people out of the county. Then the next step will be to try to merge Medina and Geauga counties until we chase people even further away. Merging just isn't going to solve the regions problems and in a lot of ways it may make things much worse. There's also something to be said and respected about an area's right to local self-governance. I'm not convinced that gigantic is necessarily better. Sure we can point to a number of regional success stories, but what about all of the cities that have done just fine without regionalizing every aspect of local government? It may help, but the other problems need to be addressed as well, perhaps first, for it to really work, in my opinion.

I'm aware of the Cavs recent regular season troubles with Charlotte, but I'm also aware that the Cavs swept the season series against San Antonio in 2006-2007. :wink: Point being, if the Cavs play the Bobcats in the first round of the playoffs, expect a sweep, unless, perhaps, they get lucky and maybe steal one game on their home floor, five games, tops. A playoff-tested team like the Cavaliers focused on winning a title isn't going to get tripped up by a team like Charlotte. Though there is also the Dallas-Golden State precedent from a few years ago where an 8th-seeded Warriors squad that had dominated the top-seeded Mavericks team in the regular season continued that domination in the postseason to pull off one of the biggest upsets in NBA playoff history. As a Cleveland fan, I would just put that out of my memory if we do get that first round matchup with Charlotte. :laugh: I'll also try to ignore the fact that Michael Jordan just bought the Bobcats. You know what, on second thought, let's just hope the Milwaukee Bucks come to town when the playoffs start in two months.

It would be a bit of a tedious task, but one way of doing it would be to add up the population numbers from the seven county area (Cuyahoga and each contiguous county) for each decade's Census report, and do a comparison. The Census has a very technical way of defining metropolitan areas, so one city's geographic metropolitan area can change from one report to the next (for instance, there is some speculation that the Dayton MSA will be joining up with the Cincinnati MSA at some point in the near future). So even if you have the technical MSA numbers from previous years, who knows exactly what kind of geographic area that is measuring? Just quickly looking at the data, Cuyahoga County peaked in 1970 with about 1.7 million people. Summit County peaked in 1970, as well, with about 10,000 more people than it currently has (though it's grown a bit in recent decades). Beyond that, every other county bordering Cuyahoga is currently at its population peak, though not quite enough to make up for the 400,000+ residents that Cuyahoga County has lost since its peak in 1970.

So for some reason my first post didn't go through. Anyways, to summarize, as a resident of one of the inner-ring suburbs mentioned above, I'd be strongly opposed to a merger with Cleveland. I'd prefer to see my city explore sharing services (or merging) with some of its neighboring suburbs. I think that doubling Cleveland's size and population would be way too much for the city's current leadership. And I think that, yes, though our lines are "imaginary," Cleveland's problems and blight would quickly spread to its new neighborhoods.

This is right on the money. The Cavs basically picked up Shaq as an answer to Dwight Howard. That being said, I'm still a bit worried that once he is healed up, he'll have to quickly turnaround and getting back into the flow of things right when the playoffs are heating up. Hopefully he's back by the time the first series starts, since the Cavs will probably be steam-rolling Charlotte or some other weak team and he'll be able to use that gametime to get into shape.