Brutus_buckeye

The problem is the media likes to make things out as a black and white thing. You are either Red or Blue, If you vote on team Red you are pro-life, pro gun, pro-cop, pro military, in favor of lower taxes and less government regulation, and local control Federalism. If you are team Blue, you are pro-choice, want a large social safety net, want strong environmental rules, favor higher taxes, in favor of a strong federal government and central planning. The thing is, that people are complicated and not everyone fits into such a box. There are many in the military who are Democrats and vote blue. There are many Republicans who care about the environment and may be pro-choice. There are pro-life Democrats. Just because you may identify with one party on many issues does not mean you have to agree with them on all issues and that is what I think we are seeing in Ohio

That is really not an excuse. If the electorate in Ohio leaned D or straight down the center, you would have Democrats winning statewide elections where gerrymandering does not matter. Outside of Sherrod Brown, whom I think will lose in 24 (unless the GOP nominates someone like Bernie Moreno) the Dems have not won a successful statewide election going back to 2010. So gerrymandering aside, if Ohio were truly a swing state, it would look more along the lines of Michigan, or Georgia or Arizona where you have multiple parties in the executive office. Heck, even Kentucky has has split leadership continuously over the last 40 years and that is considered a deep red state. For all people want to blame gerrymandering, it would not make as much of a difference as people claim (unless there is a strong gerrymander to the D side which secretly is what some people want)

It would be false to claim that the majority of Ohioans do not support Republicans. Gerrymandering may effect the edges, but the statehouse would still be majority republican in Ohio regardless. If you need proof, no Dem has won a statewide election in Ohio since 2018 and Republicans have been pretty solidly winning statewide elections since 2010. Now, it is fair to say that just because the majority of Ohioans prefer Republicans, that does not mean that they walk lockstep with them in all their policies. It is fair to argue that the majority of Ohio voters are center/right or even more slightly right than center. The far right agenda does not appeal to many but they still end up choosing that path over the left or even center left agenda that the Democrats have presented recently.

^ Why not extend the Blue Line to the Xavier Campus? Would that be beneficial at all? With Xavier having a medical school, it seems that connecting the streetcar to both campus's could be collaborative in some capacity. Maybe it can be integrated with the innovation corridor.

In the case of the Denison, that may be true at this time. I would argue that if it were a large enough parcel, adding parking for the short term would be beneficial (short term use only). However, they should have a greater plan than just banking the space as a parking lot or greenspace for the indefinite future. As far as the Denison is concerned, IMO it is better in its current condition than a run down eyesore. It is closer to being developed into another place like the Blonde (or dare we say Fortune 100 HQ, LOL) and the developer does not need to deal with the demo costs (and court costs from upset neighbors about demolishing the property)

Also, not all trucks come with liftgates. Scheduling a liftgate delivery can often cost extra or delay delivery by a few days. When we order equipment, oftentimes we have to have a forklift on site for the day to unload since we do not have a loading dock.

Personally, I am generally in favor of it. While I do identify as "pro life" that is not the primary reason why I would support it. I felt that the process had been too easy for a long time to be influenced by outside money and that bad amendments such as Marcy's Law and the minimum wage had been inserted into the Constitution where they did not belong. Furthermore, regarding the abortion debate, I think referendums that allow abortion are fine if that is the will of the voter but they do not belong in the state Constitution. I think that the problem is that people want to make the Constitution into something it shouldn't be and that muddies the document a bunch. However, at the same time, just like the proposed abortion amendment, there are a lot of things on Issue 1 that go overboard and not really support the overall purpose of the bill too. Instead of creating something that is reasonable, it is akin to taking something too far. At the end of the day though, this fails in August, so I think a lot of it is moot.

I am skeptical this will pass. It probably fails 66-33. Even in a special election with low turnout, it is hard to get people to vote yes for an "in the weeds" type proposal such as this. Like @Ethan points out above, there are a few people who in theory support the proposal and think it makes good governance sense yet it too restrictive and does not strike the right balance. There are a number of others who do not understand it at all. So what you end up with is a strong group that is opposed to it, and a squishy middle that would be for it but feel the current form is too restrictive. This pretty much sets it up for failure.

I understood it was not a serious proposal. It was also a bit of a joke that there was such a fight to tear down that blighted building.

True. The conversation was more about the MQ project and was about residents not liking that there were going to be apartments and only wanted single family in the area. The councilman told me that outside of the Blue Ash airport area, there really was no entry point for new residents in the Sycamore schools district and this was a good catalyst to get people to choose to live in the Montgomery area.

It is not built out yet. To be fair, they are supposed to build office and hotel on the corner of Glendale Milford and Reed Hartman. The original apartments were supposed to be connected to the park. they do a good job with that. There is a nice ice cream shop there and Sugar and Spice has a place there along with a bottle shop. I get what you are saying though. I just think it has not been built out completely yet. The fact that office has struggled has contributed to that too

There are. I was more trying to highlight the fact that the Sycamore school district is pretty built out with the exception of that area. I was talking with a Montgomery City Councilman recently and they mentioned that outside of the Blue Ash area where you have an influx of new housing coming, much of the rest of the school district is stagnant and shrinking because of the lack of new product and the fact that the older generation is not moving.

If you look at the price point of the homes being developed in Summit Park, these are family homes and not geared toward a walkable community. Everyone has multiple cars and two-3 car garages at those houses. The park offers a walkable amenity, but what else can you walk too? Need groceries, send kids to school, get food to eat? you need a car. The one thing about the development is that it brings families into the school district and sustains the schools for a while. Sycamore schools were starting to shrink because the housing stock in the area had been built and there were fewer opportunities for families to relocate to the district. Summit Park's housing has allowed the district to sustain itself a while longer as it offered an opportunity for new housing to come to the district. Otherwise the rest of the area has been built up and the new housing has a very high price point because it involves a tear down. SOme of the new apartments in Montgomery and Blue Ash will also help but there is really limited room for future development in the area.

I was at a museum once and I saw a Pentium computer. Dude you are old :)

If you read his post, he is not championing sprawl. However, he does point out that some high growth markets like Houston and Atlanta still can offer a reasonable cost of housing because they are not restricted (less for Houston than Atlanta by geographic limitations that allow for affordable housing to be constructed. In addition, there is government that does not place as many restrictions in those areas toward construction. Although you clearly do are not rational in your argument and seem to have the belief that all the worlds problems are caused by Republicans, it would be worth pointing out that, if there were more of a balance of power in California, there would likely be more construction of housing, especially multi-family housing in urban areas as well as much less restrictive regulations to allow for construction to occur at more reasonable price points. If the GOP were in charge, I agree that California would still have a housing shortage (albeit not as bad). In addition, California would still have high housing costs (that has been the case for 40+ years now). However, one of the biggest challenges to construction is California is the hidden costs of over regulation. The regulatory burden in place by the State and then many municipalities drives up construction costs. Furthermore, California regulations and policy discourages housing, especially lower margin workforce housing in favor of other commercial or high end development (more than other states). With the GOP in charge, this would probably be lessened a bit. So yes, California housing would still be expensive but not as much, and there would still be a shortage, but it would not be as exacerbated as it currently is.

They definitely act as a line of delineation separating Cleveland and Akron IMO

It is interesting to see how many of the suburban cities are changing their master plan to include the option for higher density housing closer to the town center. I know Mason just updated their plan to encourage higher density housing near the town center to encourage a walkable community. I wonder if this will blunt some of the growth in cities in Ohio when you create a similar product out in the burbs. WIth remote work, there is less of a need to be close to the urban core for jobs.

I hate to break it to you, but yes it is a matter of life choices. It is a matter of supply and demand. Right now, there is a shortage of housing, especially in Southern California where affordable housing is at a premium. Certainly, government could enact less restrictive housing policies to help encourage development and increase the supply, but that will typically start with rental housing and it will take a while to trickle down and make the price of purchasing a home there more affordable. Even then, there is only so much that can be done (after all, they are not making more land close to the city or studios). So that leaves the aspiring screen writer who can get a good paying job in LA to decide if it is worth it to go out there or if their lifestyle in the Midwest is better. Yes, they make less money, and yes they may not be able to follow their dream as easily, but they have to decide what is most important to them at this time in their life. There is no right to everything you want when you want it. That applies to housing too. Many people decide that the tradeoffs of being a screenwriter in LA is just not worth the hassle and they find a comparable job doing something else in another market. That is rational and that is normal. It is up to the individual to figure out what is most important to them, it is not the worlds job to make things easy for you.

Considering @Lazarus is a published author, I highly doubt he has a distain for creatives I think the bigger point that he makes is that life is full of tradeoffs. We cannot always have the big house and great job doing what we love all at the same time. Sometimes it takes time to get there. Sometimes people have to decide that having a good quality of life in the Midwest may be better than a paycheck as a struggling screenwriter on the West Coast. If you want to be a screenwriter in California, that is fine, but recognize that it is harder to get a house and the sacrifices you give up in doing so. If you choose to stay in the Midwest because your desire to own a 3 bedroom cape cod is more than your passion for writing movies, then your screenwriting passion may need to be sacrificed. As the saying goes, "you can have whatever your want in life, just not everything all at once"

Fannie/Freddie mortgages are designed to cater to W2 employees for many reasons. 1) as @Lazarus properly points out, the risk of having income that is not steady significantly increases your default risk. If you have two different borrowers that earn $100k per year, and borrower 1 earns his money over a 6 month period while borrower 2 is spread out over the course of an entire year, it is much safer from a lending perspective to loan to the individual who earns his money over the course of 12 months instead of 6 months. Why? Because there is always the temptation that the other money is mismanaged. Statistics show that it is a higher risk. 2) Buying a house on a Fannie/Freddie loan is a program that is designed to cater to the middle class. The one thing that essentially the middle class borrower has is W2 income. Super wealthy borrowers typically make most of their income through 1099 or K-1. Middle class and upper middle class borrowers (to which the conventional loan program is designed) tend to have W2 income. This is one of the reasons why W2 income is important. You can still get a home loan as a 1099 or K-1 however, it takes much much longer, there is a lot more scrutiny involved and it is harder to qualify. However, if you fall into this category and you want to buy a house and have the income to afford it but cannot qualify for a conventional loan, there are other types of loans you can use to purchase the property, you just need to get creative (which should be no problem for the creative class).

I dont know the reasons why but it seems as if there has been a large drop off in people willing to volunteer in the last 10-15 years and festivals and events are struggling because of it. Maybe it is less people identify wiht a church or otherwise people just have less time on their hands. Maybe it is the rise of dual income households where both parties work that led to this decline.

I remember thinking at the time about what Fortune 100 company would be relocating to that area. Of the local companies at the time, Macy's had their own building (smaller than Fortune 100), P&G was not looking to build and had their site, 5/3 was content in their space, W&S had their HQ site set. Maybe Kroger, or AK Steel at the time, but no Fortune 100 companies were moving to town. Maybe now GE (not being serious here) could have been an option but realistically, what Fortune 100 company would have built a campus there? IT was a joke of a proposal back then

It seems as if festivals have been struggling a lot lately. While many are church related, and certainly church attendance nationwide is struggling, there are a number of non-affliated neighborhood festivals that also seem to be dying out or not what they once were. Crowds are down but the bigiger issue is that volunteers are down too and it is becoming more and more difficult to recruit the volunteers to put on such an event. What used to be something that everyone in the community would take part in, it now seems like a shrinking core group of people are involved and others just do not feel like or have the energy to get involved anymore. One thing (anecdotally) I have seen is that the rise of remote work and technology may play a role. Where, in the past, many of these groups planned their events on evenings and weekends, with flexible schedules, people now devote some of that time to work whereas they would have had that time blocked off in the past, thus making it harder to commit to volunteer. Couple that with the fact that there is a lot more burnout going on, people are less apt to volunteer their free time it seems.

This issue is going to fail, even given it is an August election. Such issues are tough to pass anyway. It is always easier to vote no. This will probably fail 65-35 even without an active campaign against it.

I support our tax dollars supporting that 40% because they are taxpayers too and they should at least get to benefit from the taxes that they are paying into the system. I feel that you have a bit of a warped impression on how a conservative or libertarian would think. Outside of a very few fringe people, the accepted view from many conservative/libertarian scholars is not that "all government is bad" and there is "no place for taxes" etc. Most conservative and libertarian viewpoints recognize that there is a place for government and taxes. The debate is not whether we should pay taxes but rather how those taxes should be spent and what is the true purpose of "public good." Part of the problem is that many of the progressives on the left have often turned the debate into a caricature by taking the most far off radical viewpoint that some chuklehead might say (like MTG or Boebert) and acting as if that is the mainstream argument of Republicans. To be fair, conservatives do the same with the far left morons like AOC, but I get it, that is what drives the vote today vs a true intellectual debate.