mu2010

Absolutely thrilled by this news, this was just about exactly what I've wanted them to do for a year now. I like the "Cleveland" and "Guardians" script and the colors a lot. The "G" with a baseball logo is fine if a little underwhelming, I'd have preferred direct use of the Guardians of Traffic sculpture for the logo. But I'll chalk this one up as a win, now they just need to tell me when I can buy my merch.

Those were the exact other three I was thinking about adding, but I think Medina and Hudson are a bit further out to be perfectly analogous to some of the Cbus suburbs I listed. Chagrin Falls, I wasn't sure about the exact history of but I knew it's always been some kind of wealthy bedroom community so I didn't know whether to count it as developed independently from Cleveland or not. But, they all have nice old downtowns. Chagrin probably being the nicest and largest.

The nice thing about several of Columbus' large suburbs is that they were originally created as towns of their own, completely separate from Columbus. They were later swallowed by suburbia as Columbus grew. Westerville, Worthington, Dublin, Hilliard, and Gahanna all have "old towns" even though those old towns are today surrounded by suburban subdivisions. Cleveland doesn't really have as many of these - Berea and Willoughby come to mind, but most all of the suburbs surrounding Cleveland were developed as true suburbs. Even Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, though developed pre-car, were developed as suburbs of Cleveland.

Yep my grandma lived over there, clear memories of riding by that building in my younger years. Between the new CVS and the new Marc's setback compared to the old, yeah, it's a shame they didn't redevelop with more of a focus on setbacks/walkability.

Yeah I agree. Politicians like the Joe Bidens and the Eric Adams' of the world are downplayed and underrated by the intellegentsia, but actually their main political skill is being in touch enough with mainstream sensibilities to be able to see clearly through those echo chambers.

The NYC mayoral race was very interesting to follow in light of everything you're discussing here. They just finally projected the winner yesterday. Eric Adams, a Black Democrat and former cop won the race by winning the Black vote and broadly the multi-racial working class vote. He didn't go for the very progressive or wealthier voters. He talked about crime a lot, while still talking about addressing police brutality and abuse. The two should not be mutually exclusive. (Though he supports stop-and-frisk which many liberals rightly despise). The takeaway is that progressives can't just pretend crime doesn't exist, especially in the short run before more systemic solutions can be realized. For me Adams' win is just another example of how progressive politicians and activists can be out of touch with those they proport to serve. How this will play out in the Cleveland race remains to be seen because I don't think we have a candidate that's analogous to Adams. Kucinich's Cleveland Sign gimmick is tasteless as hell and I certainly wouldn't argue against calling it a racist dog whistle, and I'm no fan of Kucinich, but crime is going to be an issue in this election.

It's a pretty standard arrangement (called "council-manager" as opposed to "strong mayor"), where Mayor is a ceremonial title but in actuality there is no independently elected executive branch. Perhaps citizens in those places don't like it because it doesn't match their expectation as to what a Mayor does. Cincinnati worked exactly that way until 1999, then voters went to the ballot box and approved a hybrid "stronger-mayor" system. They had much of the same complaints you mentioned above. To broadly generalize, under a council-manager form of government, you'll probably get more efficient service delivery, but a government that's less responsive to big changes or big issues/controversies that arise. The Top of the Hill development was the big controversy in Heights that started the debate about the form of government.

I tend to agree, but it's very unpopular - see what happened in Cleveland Heights.

Bingo. The lowest hanging fruit to improve Cleveland is to simply to follow good management practices and make City Hall less dysfunctional.

I'm not saying this to be snarky, but do you mean the entire west side or just Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway? I'm going to vote for him too but my big concern with him is the following: https://www.thelandcle.org/stories/can-justin-bibbs-change-campaign-reverse-a-15-year-slide-in-cleveland-voter-turnout I think he has the gentrifier & hipster crowds locked up but we'll see if he can get the working-class votes he'll need. He is actually from the East Side which will give him a social network and the credibility to not come off like a carpetbagger. He will need to assemble a coalition of the educated voters and working class black voters (competing with Zack Reed and Basheer Jones). You probably have to figure most working class white voters will split between Kelley & Kucinich. Not sure about the Latino vote as much, you could see it going either way.

Ha, that's actually not the worst outcome I can envision if he gets elected. I can envision him grinding all development and investment to a halt by launching a dumbed-down populist war against the idea of the public-private partnership.

On Dennis.... His stand against CEI / Cleveland Trust in the 70s certainly looks better with age and you have to give him credit for it. Still, his speech yesterday didn't mention any economic development issues at all which was a little frightening.

Republic Steel used to make Nuts & Bolts down there. Probably pretty standard Cleveland remediation. If they could put single family homes at Battery Park, they could put them here no doubt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourne-Fuller_Company

All the wonderful brick apartment buildings across the city and inner suburbs, and all the Cleveland doubles we revere, were the 'uninspired' cookie cutter developments of their day.

I'll be down there tomorrow for a haircut, hope he's there lol.

Yep, that's what I meant. Doing that actually "changes your registration..." After that I'd show up as a registered Republican in the voter records until the next time I vote in a Democratic primary.

I might have to register as an R now just to vote for DeWine in the primary and the D in the general.

I don't think you'll find much disagreement with the concept, but, the hillside is truly very unstable. There is a sewer line running through there that is showing new signs of cracks and twists every year, so much so that the sewer district itself is ponying up $7 million to the stabilization effort. The stabilization designs are not being made to accommodate buildings up on W. 25th. I'm not sure if it's technically possible to do it that way, but even if it is, it's probably a safe bet that it would carry a higher price tag and higher risk of future problems, which is what everyone's trying to avoid. It's possible that man-made interference caused the current instability of the hillside in the first place, when the river was widened to accommodate shipping several times in the mid 20th century. Then again, sometimes hillsides are naturally unstable. But the design is going to be completed with the goal of having as little man-made structures as possible on that hillside, on the top, middle, or bottom.

Since the $9 million federal grant is going to have an expiration date, and any stabilization work is going to require demolishing the building first, I'd assume some urgency on the city's side - this will come to a head in the next few years.

Yes, my info could be out of date but as far as I heard, design work on the stabilization is wrapping up and then they'll go to bid to have that work done. It's possible the stabilization itself could need to be two phases, depending on how much it ends up costing vs. funds available. They are working off a $9 million federal grant they got two years ago, and a mishmash of other state and local funds. So, we're still a ways away from a park, but progress is actually happening. Once the stabilization is complete, the park should be an easier sell, and private foundations and corporate fundraising are more likely to come into play.

Given that Bobby George is a pariah in City Hall, it is certainly interesting that Bowen would work for him.

He must not have been to Columbus in the past 25 years

I'm finally getting to the point where I'm in a good spot to buy, but don't really have a big reason to right now given the market. My rent is cheap in Edgewater and I'm saving money due to working from home and nothing to spend on during a year of quarantining. Want to stay in the area, ideally would be right off Clifton in eastern half of Lakewood or in Cleveland so I can ride the 55 downtown. Anyways, I re-signed my lease so hopefully things get a little more reasonable by next summer. Another year of socking away cash as well. Ultimately, I can't fathom moving further out so I feel like I'll just have to pay the price to be here.

I was in Baltimore in 2015 when the Browns won (last away game they won for 4 years) - nobody was a jerk to me or my friends, they were more in shock that we beat them and, we made it a point to make conversation with the Ravens fans sitting next to and behind us. I went to a primetime game Browns/Bengals game in Cincinnati (don't remember if Sunday, Monday, or Thursday) a few years before that, Browns won that one too, there were so many Browns fans there that you could barely call it an away game. I know a Bengals fan that was spit in the face in Cleveland tho haha.

I'm much more excited about street-level density in that area than I am for height, though some added skyline density would be nice.