jam40jeff

Thanks for the update. As far as the update goes (being talked about in the other thread), I suggest SMF 2.0 RC4, as I would think it would get the site onto the "latest and greatest" as far as SMF goes and be a relatively simple upgrade.

Rich, Is there any chance you could support Tapatalk? (Instructions at http://www.tapatalk.com/plugin.php.) I use the app for other forums on both my phone and tablet and it's a great way to access forums from mobile devices.

0%? How about facts? http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_04.htm or from this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637706/pdf/jnma00863-0020.pdf And since Aurora was brought up, I'll throw in an article about rural areas :lol: : http://rhr.sph.sc.edu/report/scrhrc_teenviolence.pdf I also found articles showing a positive correlation between household income and drug use for school-aged children, but I'll let you do some research on your own. Where anyone gets their drugs from isn't relevant. That's like saying people must only drink beer outside grocery stores because that's where it retails. Besides, the sale of drugs is steadily moving into the suburbs (I found an article or two about this as well).

Your per capita stats will still be better than Cleveland's because they are diluted by all the "suburbs" within the city limits.

Not to go too far off topic, but I have different rules I follow depending on where I am. At home (the flats) I don't ever leave my car parked outside of the garage overnight, let alone unlocked or with anything sitting out. Parked in my parents driveway in Aurora, my car is generally unlocked with everything sitting out in plain view. If I go to the store in Aurora, I lock the car but don't put anything away (I leave the face plate for my satellite radio in, for example). Then the farthest end of the spectrum - my car on Put-in-Bay is presently unlocked with the keys in the car. But I just want to point out the "it happens in every urban area" is a really lame argument. Because there are places where it doesn't happen, where you can leave your keys in your vehicle even, and having that element of safety will make people sacrifice many of the benefits associated with living in an urban area. That seems to get lost on this forum, especially when I see the "it happens in ever urban area" justification. The reason it happens "in any urban area" is because there are many people (and often with a mixture of income levels). Because there are more people, there is more exposure to possible theft. If you left your car at the top of a desolate mountain you wouldn't have to lock it or secure your valuables. It's like saying "I can live in the middle of the woods and run around my yard naked, but I can't do that in Tremont". There's always certain precautions and different behaviors you must adhere to when you are in a more social setting. There are advantages and disadvantages to being around more people. The more people you surround yourself with, the more things there are to do, but there's always more risk and cause to protect yourself. You could use the same argument that a farm in the middle of BFE is safer than the suburbs, but then again there's not nearly as many job or entertainment options in BFE.

You got a results page full of Justin Bieber songs?

But he went to Solon High School. Didn't he graduate in 96? (J/K, I think he's about 6 years younger than SHS96.)

EC, I think SHS96 was just telling you what Kasich and his minions will say. We all know the truth about this project, but they refuse to even attempt to understand. What angers we the most about seeing us be so backwards is that there are so many other things I love about Ohio. If I didn't, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat. This decision is just awful. ColDayMan, you're right that Kasich is looking to be worse than Taft, which does say something. What says something even more, though, is how much he's doing to get people to hate him before he even takes office.

Kasich has the same me-first attitude that caused all those suburban jackasses last night to gridlock intersections. If he wasn't going to use the train, nobody was going to. I am about as fed up with this guy as I have been with any politician, and he hasn't even started office.

The first comment by "suburban_tool" was funny. I actually got quite a kick out of reading some of his comments last night on other articles. Like this one from the article about gridlock downtown: and I wonder if it's an UrbanOhioan.

HAHAHAHAHHAAHA, so true, David. I thought about replying to the original, but then I realized nothing good could come from it.

I think you mean academic scholarship. ;)

I actually think the Shaker Heights/Beachwood border is fairly noticeable, especially along Fairmount. For a little bit east of Green Rd., Farimount divides Shaker and Beachwood. Shaker's side continues the nice tree lined boulevard that extends all the way to Cedar/Fairmount in Cleveland Heights. Beachwood's side has nothing but a few 8 foot trees and looks far more suburban. Also, Shaker doesn't plow their streets the best, where Beachwood streets have a ton of salt on them and are often wet even in the middle of a blizzard. It also doesn't hurt that Shaker Heights uses the old timey white and black street signs and traffic light poles, where Beachwood has more plain blue street signs. The borders I really can't distinguish are more like Garfield Heights/Maple Heights, Lyndhurst/South Euclid, Lyndhurst/Mayfield Heights, Wickliffe/Willowick, Willowick/Eastlake, Parma/Brooklyn, etc. Also, some neighborhoods in Cleveland are very similar to their neighbors, such as Westpark/Fairview Heights, Brooklyn/Parma/Old Brooklyn (in parts), Warrensville Heights/Lee-Miles, etc.

I wish the property values in Cleveland compared to the suburbs would support that! On a comparitive scale, they do! The closer the suburb is to the core, the lower the home values (at least per square foot). Strong cities typically have the opposite effect. The land is also way more expensive near the core (per square foot) than in the suburbs. You can't compare the price of an 8,000 sq ft home on 5 acres with a 1,200 sq ft row home with no yard without taking square footage into account.

Not all that different from buying a used car.

Those are the populations. The size of the circle is supposed to be proportional to the area.

Frothing hate? You express opinions, we express opinions. We aren't here to make you agree with us. You asked WHY we don't like Phoenix, I gave you my reasons. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not trying to tell anyone else what they have to think about it, just clearing up my reasons for thinking the city is a pile of junk since you asked.

But that's most of Phoenix! Skyline shots do not a city make. By the way, I think they have a terribly boring skyline. Yay for nature, but I prefer ours, with green grass, rivers, lakes, and grand old trees. Sure, it's all subjective, but then again, we're discussing the city of Phoenix and the city of Cleveland (urban areas), not the nature in Arizona and the nature in Ohio. You find that beautiful? I'm not sure what to say. The grass looks like its struggling to maintain a hold in amongst the sand, which gives it that unkempt look you see in so much of the middle of Florida. Umm...I'm starting to understand why we agree on so little. Ignoring for a second my comment before about how we're discussing cities... Sure, that is a cool picture, but there's many cool nature pictures you can take in any area. If I was actually there, I think I'd be bored of that landscape in about 30 seconds. I'll take hiking through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in the fall, a Lake Erie beach in the summer, or snow-covered pines in the Chagrin River Valley over that any day. My point isn't to say there's NOTHING of value to ANYBODY in Phoenix, just that to me (and apparently many others here) there's just very little we like about Phoenix, especially when compared to many other cities around the country (not just Cleveland).

You like being outside in 115 dry heat? I love the beach and heat and I can't take it I dont know how you can. That sun burns like crazy. Dude, I'm Greek, it doesn't burn me for a long time. Quicker than when i was a kid, but still yeah, not really burning. I LOVED it. I know it would be different if we lived there instead of just visiting. When you're in work clothes and it's that hot, it probably wouldn't be fun. And when stuff in your house rots unless you keep it in the fridge, or burns when you keep it next to a window, not fun. 72 and sunny is great, but if I have to move 40 degrees from there, I'll take 32 and snow ANY DAY over 112, dry, and sunny. You can bundle up and stay warm outside when it's 32. It's impossible to go outside at 112 and sunny and not be ridiculously uncomfortable (especially if your bare feet touch the ground or you touch ANYTHING in your car). Besides, snow provides much more variety to nice weather than hotter and still sunny.

I could care less about our reputation versus theirs. It's not jealousy. I love NYC, Chicago, Boston, and Savannah, and it couldn't be much more night and day between the reputation those places have and the reputation we have. Those cities are great. Functional, urban, aesthetically pleasing, and beautiful countryside nearby (I'll take deciduous trees and 4 seasons any day over year-round dry heat and dusty, sandy land where nothing but a cactus can grow). Phoenix is just ugly to me. And then of course there's the massive sprawling, which furthers my disdain for the place.

Beautiful is obviously subjective, because I think Phoenix is ugly. I hate dry, brown, desert-type areas. I hate post WWII sprawl. And I hate intersections of 6 lane divided roads with fenced off houses set way back off each side. Almost anywhere I have dropped Mr. Street View around Phoenix this is all I see. http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.484772,-112.139541&spn=0.051542,0.111494&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=33.484772,-112.139541&panoid=WOpSvATu-rA0_nmTepcE8g&cbp=12,165.17,,0,7.29 Any city that looks like that 4.7 miles from downtown (especially one with over 1.5 million people) is a POS IMO. And then there are the outlying areas. I really don't like Aurora, OH, but I'd take it any day over something like Peoria (and places like Peoria, which extend for many, many miles on the outskirts of Phoenix). I couldn't find an identifiable center of Peoria, but these look to be near the middle: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.581018,-112.235384&spn=0.051484,0.111494&z=14&layer=c&cbll=33.57978,-112.235796&panoid=BgEB-N6Q-5JipRYHRrmHjQ&cbp=12,132.74,,0,0.7 http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.581125,-112.231221&spn=0.012871,0.027874&z=16&layer=c&cbll=33.581124,-112.231586&panoid=M_gPhbSh8GBCCSMRXdZFsg&cbp=12,95.14,,0,1.19 Or Sun City (find me any area around Cleveland with something approaching this level of ugly sprawl): http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.638049,-112.261237&spn=0.1029,0.222988&z=13&layer=c&cbll=33.638049,-112.261237&panoid=GLnorPoLXW1VMMVOMOIhjQ&cbp=12,76.28,,0,0.91 For comparison, here's the "middle of Aurora". I couldn't really identify the real center of town in Aurora either, but I think the level of crap, soullessness, and depressing landscape is many levels of magnitude less than the crap around Phoenix: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=aurora,+oh&sll=41.498807,-81.696396&sspn=0.368222,0.891953&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Aurora,+Portage,+Ohio&ll=41.312758,-81.34552&spn=0.04616,0.111494&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=41.313021,-81.345523&panoid=J8AegZH-dJ2PuCcJvnjPGA&cbp=12,199.12,,0,-0.54 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=aurora,+oh&sll=41.498807,-81.696396&sspn=0.368222,0.891953&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Aurora,+Portage,+Ohio&ll=41.320236,-81.34552&spn=0.046154,0.111494&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=41.317414,-81.345154&panoid=eATXPL7zAIE1t2tiDK4Pzg&cbp=12,226.49,,0,5.83 Even many areas of residential sprawl around Cleveland show hints of character: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=aurora,+oh&sll=41.498807,-81.696396&sspn=0.368222,0.891953&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Aurora,+Portage,+Ohio&ll=41.296714,-81.345638&spn=0.046429,0.111494&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=41.296714,-81.345638&panoid=oNml5qHkAjv2tm7FWNsIsQ&cbp=12,55.22,,0,0.91 Don't get me wrong, I don't like Aurora, but Phoenix and its suburbs are just on a whole different level of awful, even within the city limits. And that is why I think most of us here hate Phoenix.

Friends of ours came up yesterday and it took them 4 hours to get from I-70/I-270 in Columbus to Cleveland, thanks to weather, the amount of travelers out, and rush hour. That's an average of about 39 MPH. Maybe we need to have an alternative to the "slow highways".

I really like Pittsburgh, but downtown Pittsburgh has been extremely dead the last couple times I have been there in the evening, and those were nights when the Reds had a game. The general feeling I got was that Pittsburgh's neighborhoods outside of downtown are in better shape overall than Cleveland's, whereas their downtown is worse off. I honestly don't know how the department stores have stayed in business down there. I believe they close at 6 PM.

Do you mean Route 2?

With a smartphone, you can be distracted like that anywhere.