jam40jeff

I would say Mayfield Village or Beachwood would be your best bets.

I'm not a suburban-minded person, so I can't fully or accurately comment on what attracts people to one suburb, but at least I get why people would like a Beachwood or a Mayfield. It may be a little bland for my tastes and not built for walkability, or have homes with character, etc., but at least there's a variety of things to do and you don't feel like you're hanging off a rope from the edge of civilization (US 422).

I am not against the road, but I do wish the Red Line could be rerouted down the middle (like Shaker Blvd.).

How many times have we gone over the fact that the ECON 101 assumptions don't ever hold in real life, though?

Solon probably has the largest number of Asians of those communities, but also would be the furthest from both downtown and Ashtabula. OK, and now for my personal opinion: Solon feels "isolated" to me. It's a good drive to anything of interest to me (other than Chagrin Falls). There are not many good restaurants (unless Applebee's is your sort of thing), movie theaters, coffee shops, etc. Mayfield, Orange, and Beachwood are all closer to a wider variety (and more upscale) shopping and activities. Also, I find many of the homes in Solon to be of the oversized cardboard box variety. But this is all just my opinion. Apparently Solon is for some people, as it is one of the "hot" suburbs right now. I just don't see it sustaining momentum.

Great, let's keep it that way.

The OP didn't want to move to Shaker Heights because he would be too far from Ashtabula. Solon is even further from Ashtabula and also further from downtown (and Hudson even further from both) so I would assume the southeastern suburbs are out of the question.

No it's not, but there is talk of trying to organize some streets into a historic district to prevent more craptastic home from being built. East 89th absolutely is a historic district: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Cleveland,_Ohio #54 The sign is just north of Chester.

What did you decide? Don't leave us hanging!

I may actually be able to make one of these if it's on a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

Yeah, Kirtland Hills is where the money is. Kirtland itself seems more like a dump with a tourist attraction (the Mormon Temple) to me from my very limited experience of being in Kirtland (apologies in advance to anyone I may have offended from Kirtland).

Yeah, I highly doubted that when I saw it too. Kirtland Hills is much wealthier than Kirtland, but it shares its zip code with Mentor and Mentor-on-the-Lake, so I'm sure it's not one of the wealthiest either. Hudson seems to have a sizable Asian population based on the NMSF list that just came out: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22433.msg512815.html#msg512815 Also, lopsidedfrock, your PM inbox is full.

For the poster looking for a suburb with Asians in it: Hudson High School: Daphne Chen, Jeffrey Choi, Ellen Chuang, Anne Kim, Tiffany Lin, Eric Xie and Peter Yao.

Yeah, check the date now EC. Same news for September 17. :)

Who said anything about loving the project as is? There are plenty of things I'd like to see done differently as well. But I haven't seen any good arguments for turning away the $400 million of federal money. Is the project that bad that it's better to give the money to another state and let them build the same thing we could have? Sorry, but I'd rather see my tax money spent in Ohio when we have the chance to.

I've tried to explain that to him multiple times, but he just doesn't get it. He'd rather continue the fear tactic of throwing around the scary $400 million number even though it's meaningless for this discussion.

Many people (especially businesspeople) fly on trips which would be shorter (or at least similar) to drive. The difference is that they can get work done at the airport while waiting and on the plane. And they also don't have to worry about actually doing the driving. My point is that there is more to a decision on which mode of travel to take than simply which is the fastest.

Yes. That was where you backpedaled. So what makes it "half-hearted" when compared to all the other states that have successful rail systems?

You said the "issue has to do with spending a large amount of money (and yes, $400 million is a LARGE amount no matter what you are going to randomly compare it to)" so I think your argument was that $400 million is too much to spend. My point is that we are not spending $400 million. It has been shown about 5 million times how we are starting off similar to how other states with less population density than Ohio started off, and it worked in pretty much every one of those states, so I don't know what can possibly be said at this point other than you have no basis for this argument. You are purely speculating with nothing to back it up, even in the face of the opposition having significant data to refute your point.

So what happens to that $400 million if we kill off 3-C? IT GOES TO ANOTHER STATE. So by killing off the 3-C project, you're not saving the country ANY of the $400 million. So stop throwing that figure out as a cost. It's a sunk cost (and one covered by the federal government, not Ohio). It all comes down to $17 million per year. Do you think we get $3 million more benefit from cutting the grass next to the highways (which costs $20 million per year) than we would get from an alternative mode of transportation connecting our major cities? How about from the suburban sound barriers which only protect the idiots that built cardboard boxes on cheap land right next to a noisy interstate, then whined about the noise? Stop scaring people with your erroneous $400 million argument. Talk about the facts and let's see if you still have an argument.

Why does anybody drive when driving is slower than flying? Maybe we shouldn't invest in roads anymore until driving is as fast as flying.

I got a laugh out of it.

For $40 million, couldn't we get a dedicated ped/bike bridge over the valley?

"Large amounts of spending" like less than the amount it costs to mow the grass along the interstates? I don't see Republicans crying about that money.

I'll be there Sunday.