inlovewithCLE

Was that necessary? Political threads are that way. 👈 Smh

Great, detailed answer. Thank you

I’ve always wondered what’s going on with Shaker Square. There’s absolutely no reason why it can’t be competitive with the Van Aken District and the others over there. I feel like Shaker Square should be OUR Van Aken District, OUR Eton Chagrin, etc. It would really lift the entire area. You said it needs a better retail mix. What kind of stores do you think it’s missing? Since you’re a resident of the area, you’d know

It’s a gross overreaction going on around here lol. It’s not that bad

It’s fine to me 🤷🏿‍♂️

What you’re talking about is one of the reasons why I would support giving tax abatement to longtime residents who upgrade their housing stock too. I really don’t think it’s that complicated of a fix. We have people living in homes of deteriorating quality. Right now the city gives loans to some to fix their homes. Take a portion of our recovery act money, turn those loans into grants, give them to homeowners who have been in Cleveland for more than 15 years, and then give them a temporary tax abatement too. This way we don’t do anything stupid like removing the tax abatements for the new projects (as if we’ve arrived already. We haven’t) and the longtime residents who were the backbone of this city when no one else gave a damn aren’t left out or locked out. (While also doing things like real, robust job training so that our current residents get access to high paying, unfilled jobs in the city so that they’ll make more money and be able to afford to stay in these newly expensive neighborhoods.) Problem. Solved. But I digress. Lol

Not necessary to be an A-hole about it. Calm down

I think the whole idea of more police vs less poverty is incorrect. You need both. And what nobody on either side wants to hear is that this is complicated. There is no doubt that poverty leads to more crime. You can look at almost any study of this issue and it’s clear that more poverty equals more crime, less poverty equals less crime. As a black man from the hood, there are some poor places in Appalachia that are just as bad as any ghetto in America. Poverty is a very very strong contributor to the conditions that create crime. The most consistent sources of crime citywide are in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. That’s not an accident. However, you do need a police presence to deal with the immediacy of the moment. You can’t deal with the root causes in an effective way if there’s bodies dropping on the street. You have to do both. But we also have a problem here of not having enough officers that reflect the neighborhoods that they police. We don’t have much community policing anymore, especially in the areas that really need it. The neighborhood ministations are gone. The PAL leagues are almost nonexistent, if not completely nonexistent. The police department needs to be a part of the community. We’ve seen this done in other places. It’s doable. People in these areas want to be able to call the police too. They just don’t want to get cracked in the head unjustly when they show up. So you need both. And back on the poverty issue, the problem that I have with the conversation is a lot of the things being put on the table to address it are either not effective or sustainable in my view. We’re not talking about increasing real wealth and putting actual wealth in the hands of the people. We’re not talking about the fact that the city has a $1.8 billion budget and spend very little of it with black owned businesses, who typically hire more black people than other businesses. (We don’t spend enough with Cleveland based businesses period. Let alone minority ones). We’re not talking about the fact that our school system is not preparing people for not just jobs but trades either. In other places you can be a welder or a plumber making 6 figures. We have neighborhoods with half of the residents or more living in poverty. That’s an atrocity. But the only way to bring a neighborhood up without forcing people out is to make sure that your policies encourage wealth building among that population. If not, you’ll just have new people moving in, pricing out and displacing the ones that were there. I think everybody around here who have seen any post I’ve made know that I’m not anti-development. I’m very very pro development. But if we don’t have policies to make sure that residents have the opportunity to get access to wealth, we’re gonna either be stuck in this or we’re going to just move folks out, which perpetuates inequity.

Did you hear anything back?

Where’s the article you tease! Lol

I love it. Especially the Big Lots and the Starbucks. I purposely try to shop within the city limits whenever I can. I can’t think of another big lord in the city. And I’m always at a Starbucks lol, so I will be here. And I’m sure people in the area are gonna use this shopping center as well.

I’m looking for the actual press release to see if there’s any more details on the “lifestyle center”. Anybody seen the release?

I’m not opposed to the lakefront having the transportation hub. I just think that Tower City would be better. It would breathe new life into it and make it sustainable

@KJPhow do we watch it

Whatever it is it’s a big deal apparently