LlamaLawyer

Turns out selling houses is a good business right now. 😉

There are cones up at the site that weren’t there this morning and a bunch of stuff is dug up that wasn’t this morning. They’re not messing around.

11-4.

This map is hilarious but violates the redistricting rules will prohibit it. Honestly, dems may GAIN under the new rules, in spite of Ohio losing a seat. Cities with 100k-750k people have to fall within a single district assuming the county in which they sit has a population higher than the number of people in a congressional district, which means Cleveland and Cincinnati cannot be split. The redistricters also only get a total of 28 county splits (18 counties may be split once, and 5 twice). Three of these splits mathematically have to be in Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Hamilton. Given Cincinnati has to be contained within one district, it's gonna be really hard to draw a district down there that won't be blue. After that, Cuyahoga County is almost certainly going to result in two blue districts and Franklin in one. Then Akron and Toledo become a problem because there's only so many county splits you can make, and so you really can't slice and dice up those metros as much as we do under the current map. So it's not impossible that one of those two cities results in another blue district. That would give you five blue districts.

Not frivolous is a pretty low bar. EDIT: To avoid this coming across the wrong way, what I mean is that attorneys can be upstanding and ethical while still participating in cases with bad odds of success.

Ken Fischer, who I don’t know at all.

The HQ project is $600 million. How much can the dumpster easement possibly be worth? Unless the powers that be at SHW are totally irrational or this case goes awry in some way I can’t imagine, I think the worst case scenario for SHW is a nuisance settlement. From skimming the complaint it looks like Reallife didn’t even ask for an injunction, which to me suggests they care more about making a couple bucks than about actually protecting their “easement.”

This would honestly shock me. A discrepancy of 90k in Cleveland would mean Cleveland was one of the fastest growing cities in the country over the last ten years. But if just 16k of the 110k fall in the City of Cleveland, that would mean a very slight gain of residents since 2010. That’s not far fetched.

Here's a comparison of 2020 data to 2019 estimates for each state. NY and NJ are the biggest misses. Keep in mind since it's comparing estimates to actual counts, the percentage difference from 2019 to 2020 reflects a combination of actual population change and misestimate.

Aren’t those still just estimates?

As we were discussing in the Ohio population thread, Ohio's population was underestimated by about 110,000. That's a significant enough bump that I have to think the NEO population loss was at least not any worse than was projected. What's the over under on how many of those are in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, or NEO?

Agreed, and this is going to be interesting to see throughout the whole midwest and New York. Did Wisconsin's gain come from a slowed decline (or growth?) in Milwaukee or from newer growing cities like Madison? Was New York's additional population mostly in NYC or are Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester all doing better than expected? Was the additional population in Ohio in Columbus or Cleveland/Toledo/Cincinnati? My guess is we will find across the whole region that either: a. The rust belt population has essentially stabilized and that is why the growth estimates were too low; or b. The rust belt is losing population as badly as was projected, but the cities that were already projected to grow like Columbus, Grand Rapids, and Madison did even better than expected. It's possible the trend could be something else or a combination of the two, but I expect when we look broadly at the great lakes region we will be able to create a narrative of either a. or b.

What bodes well in particular is that the regional trend was underestimating growth in the northeast and midwest, especially New York, PA, and Wisconsin, but really all of the midwest. The south, on the other hand, was overestimated overall. Obviously it's still the fastest growing region, but NC, TX, and AZ all significantly missed the mark of where they were expected to be.

Someone on twitter pointed out that over 400 people had died from covid in New York by April 1, compared to a much smaller number for MN (which was the state that NY would have taken the seat from if it got it). So it's morbid, but covid directly caused New York to lose one seat.

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/apportionment/apportionment-2020-map03.pdf Here's a map with percentage change by state. The New York estimate was off by more than 3%.

For reference, that's about 1% higher than was projected, which indicates more than 100,000 additional people. Will be very interesting to see where that fell regionally.

While what you're describing could be risky, I think the distinction between this strategy and a conventional cash buyer is sort of moot for the purpose of this discussion. One way or another, the cash buyer has to have a net worth of at least the home value prior to purchase. Banks don't just hand out $300,000 unsecured loans like candy, so anyone who is getting financing like that either has a $300,000+ asset (maybe a 401k) that they're leveraging or has a high enough net worth that they can get a $300,000 line of credit from some bank. So even if the strategy is personally risky to the buyer, it's not like you are all that likely to end up with a cash buyer that will have trouble with making mortgage payments. Someone who is leveraging half of their million dollar 401k may be making a stupid personal financial decision, but I doubt they will have trouble paying the mortgage.

^THIS point stands out to me above and beyond all the others. This is HUGE if it's happening in any volume. Not just converting empty factories into breweries, not just filling empty lots with new developments, but individual, middle-class, homeowners buying individual homes in "bad areas." If that is really happening, it could mark the beginning of one of the most important demographic shifts of the last seventy years, undermining the concentration of poverty that has occurred over that time period.

Are you practicing your Russian or does this mean "not yet?"

The craziest part of the criticism is that if you look carefully at F&C's proposal, they actually ARE proposing a little pocket park. It's just not as big as the greenspace is now. I've seen a lot of the residents' concerns on Nextdoor and it's really asinine. I lived right in that area for a couple years, and the little greenspace was almost always empty. Sometimes there would be someone eating fast food on the picnic table. There are areas of NEO that badly need new parks, but Cleveland Heights has enough park space right now. Cain Park (which is over 20 acres) is approximately a ten minute walk from the intersection of Meadowbrook and Lee.

I am SO glad this project was picked and is going forward. There will be NIMBY opposition, but I don't expect it to be a problem. The population surrounding the Meadowbrook-Lee site is pretty transient compared to the Cedar-Fairmount area. Additionally, while the TOH site is right next to significant apartments, there are very few residences that are actually immediately adjacent to the Meadowbrook-Lee site. Finally, the site is less visible. So these three things working together make me less concerned. There is no way this project will get as much pushback as TOH did, and if F&H could handle that, they should be able to handle this. EDIT: Also, I think a quote at the end of the article is a good illustration of how NIMBYs often do not have the context to understand the significance of projects and their various aspects. A resident says at the end of the article she thinks the fate of the little grassy empty space on Lee Road should become a major part of the mayoral race. Someone thinking that a little half-acre empty lot becoming a pocket park is one of the most important issues confronting a city of 45,000 people shows a serious lack of perspective.

I hate the time aspect too, but it seems like most of the reason it will take so long is because the project is doubling as a place to put dredged sediment. It's sort of like killing three birds with one stone (better land use, highway protection, a solution to where to put dredged sediment). The 15 years sounds a bit more palatable if there's at least a reason for it.

I actually like this plan more than moving the highway. The highway cuts up the area, and that’s inevitable unless it’s moved far far away. Obviously shifting it down a bit would be an improvement, but you’re still just moving the problem, not fixing it, because you still have to cross the highway to get to the lake. This proposal with the little bay has the potential to create an active greenspace that is unique, certainly from anything we have in Cleveland now, and perhaps in the whole great lakes region. The idea has huge potential for fun events and a dynamic environment. You could have swimming races across the bay, boat concerts that could be watched from all around the bay, etc. The layout is awesome and lends itself to cool things. The highway bisection also doesn’t inherently have to be any worse than lower edgewater. The pedestrian access to edgewater is fine in spite of the shoreway. That area of the shoreway has no stops, and while it’s technically 35 mph, everybody goes 50+. So with a bit of relatively simple pedestrian access improvement, the E55-72 area could be at least edgewater quality in terms of access. If there’s something amazing on the lake to walk or bike to, people will get there even if there’s no land bridge.

I did some back-of-napkin math based on the data available in tab 12. Looks like in 2020 the Cleveland metro experienced a slight net outflow of domestic migrants. If you disregard the outflow to other Ohio metros, then there is a slight net inflow, meaning in 2020 the metro gained more from out of state domestic migration than it lost from it. The data is of course incomplete because it doesn't include international immigration and because not everyone necessarily fills out a change of address with the post office.

For you license plate watching folks, here's some actual data based on USPS change of address requests: https://www.cbre.us/research-and-reports/COVID-19-Impact-on-Resident-Migration-Patterns Tabs 10 and 12 allow you to look up information specific to the Cleveland Metro. Data looks positive, but I wish it were broken down more clearly.