inlovewithCLE

We never had groups as big or as organized as HF and LA. You didn’t have that in Cleveland. When I was growing up the gangs were like small neighborhood troublemakers. They were cliques, not actual organizations. HF and LA developed fairly recently.

The mob was before my time, so I can’t speak on that. But I know the hood, and there has definitely been a loss of any street code whatsoever today

The wave of the 80s-90s WAS worse than what happened in the 70s. And today is getting worse (in some neighborhoods) than what it was in the 80s and 90s. Both can be true. So if you were talking to people about the streets 20 years ago and they said how bad the streets were, they WERE worse than what they grew up with, and they had the proper frame of reference to compare the two. If you’re not from it, you don’t have a frame of reference to even compare it to, and a little humility and deference to the ones who actually did goes a long way if you actually want to talk solutions.

Not surprised

You’re absolutely right. I’m from the hood, and I was there during the crack era as well. Today is worse in many ways. Because of the level of organization of these gangs, which is something we never had. Also, the OGs are gone. There’s no rules anymore. Poverty and disinvestment in those neighborhoods have gotten worse, not better. Drug use is creeping back up. So what you were told in your class was an absolute fact when compared to the facts on the ground at the time from the people who actually lived in the neighborhoods we’re talking about. (I’m really curious at how many people on this forum who are pushing back against the facts that I brought up and you backed up with what you learned actually spent any meaningful time in the neighborhoods that we’re talking about, either during the crack era or now. I’m not gonna be lectured to by folks who don’t even have a frame of reference to compare what’s going on today to)

“Subculture of violence” is often code for “black people are more violent”. Which is not true. Look at any study that correlates poverty and crime and it’s always the same, when poverty goes up, crime goes up, when poverty goes down, crime goes down. That’s why I said earlier that you have to use both the carrot and the stick approach. Talking about a “subculture of violence” while ignoring the fact that culture generally is a mirror reflecting the conditions on the ground is unhelpful and counterproductive. A “subculture” is a problem insofar as the conditions that it reflects on the ground is a problem. The “subculture of violence” exists BECAUSE of the conditions on the ground. It didn’t create the conditions. It reflects them. So you have to address the conditions on the ground, which I believe is a combination of aggressive RICO style prosecution of these gangs while also improving the conditions on the ground so you don’t create more criminals to replace the ones you just locked up. If it’s all carrot and no stick, it doesn’t address the immediacy of the problems on the ground. If it’s all stick and no carrot, then you’re just trying to plug a boat full of holes. Once you plug in one, here comes another. You have to do both

I don’t know what’s up with the reading comprehension around here. I’m talking about gangs, as in STREET GANGS, not the f’n mafia (who were the ones blowing up cars in the 70s). Jesus. 🙄

Funny that out of everything that was said, that’s what you react the strongest to but I digress

Not like Chicago and New York and Los Angeles. No we haven’t. We’ve always had gangs but never to the size or scale of the two big ones today. It’s different. And I remember the crack era.

It’s time for us to realize that we have a problem that we’ve never really had before, a gang problem. Cleveland has never really been a gang city with a gang culture, nothing anywhere near the level of a Chicago or a Los Angeles, but we do have a problem now. The vast majority of the crime being committed is being committed by gang members. And we need to address it. It appears that there’s a debate about carrot vs. stick with these issues but you need both. I personally believe that particularly for violent gang members, the organizations should be prosecuted under RICO statutes like the mob was. There’s not a single gang that isn’t involved in some sort of drug trafficking, narcotics, etc of some sort. So deem these gangs as criminal organizations and break them up. That’s the stick. But you also need the carrot. You have to improve environments to prevent those environments from breeding new criminals in the first place. Studies show that young black men who grow up in violent neighborhoods show similar characteristics as PTSD victims. We know exactly what to do to address PTSD in other situations, but we don’t address it here. You’ve GOT to start dealing with the trauma that at risk youth have been exposed to as a result of the environments in which they come from. You’ve also got to improve the economy of these neighborhoods, bring that poverty level down. Nothing contributes more to crime than a concentrated, high level of poverty in one area. So you have to fix these trouble spots where a lot of the at risk youth are coming from. You’ve GOT to improve the schools. The school system is jacked up, the way we educate our kids is jacked up, the entire system is fundamentally flawed for the youth that I’m talking about. People spending so much time talking about distractions like rap videos when whatever negative thing you see in there are symptoms of the problem. They’re not the problem. They’re a system of it. So I believe that if you want to address this problem you have to do BOTH an AGGRESSIVE prosecution of violent gang members with the intent of breaking up the gang while also cutting off the spigot in these neighborhoods by addressing the conditions and the trauma that leads people to gangs in the first place.

Ooh that’s a good one. And it’s for sale

Correct. Why not both

Oh yeah they went through all of this to pretend that they wanted to come downtown 🙄

I hope there’s a way to make it work in the city

Might have to be new construction if they are interested. Or maybe there’s some space that size at the Tech Park, which has suburban style parking

Hopefully they’ll be encouraged to look at midtown or right outside of downtown where it’ll be easier to serve their parking needs.

It’s a jail. I don’t think it’s supposed to engage with the sidewalk lol 🤷‍♂️

I would hope they would’ve already done that before making plans

That’s a good question

What neighborhood in Cleveland are you living in if you want to be as close to downtown as Scranton Peninsula would provide, in a single family house and a good neighborhood? (Lakewood doesn’t count. That ain’t Cleveland) Moving back to the topic, I love the idea. I think it could really be a dynamic neighborhood

The neighborhood I’m from is dominated by duplexes (as are most city neighborhoods on the east side) and a lot of the city’s housing stock in general is old and outdated (outside of the far west side).

I personally love the idea of single family homes there (you know I don’t care much for the “this is too suburban” trope) and I think they’d sell very very quickly. I think there’s a market for people who want to live in the city, close to downtown but want a house. Probably people who are/were living downtown. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who’ve said “man I loved living downtown, but my wife and I had a kid and I had to move to a house. I didn’t want to go to the suburbs but I had to.” I hear it all the time. So there’s definitely a market for this

First of all, in all seriousness, is there a Getgo planned for 30th and Chester?? I’d definitely go there, love Getgo lol

The justice center should NOT be on the lakefront. There are better uses for that property

That would be incredible