arenn

It strikes me that air travel is among the least subsidized modes of transit out there. Airlines are private, taxpaying businesses (if they ever make money). They pay money to land and take off from the airport, and also collect various taxes and passenger facility charges which are used to pay for things like terminals. Most of the cost of air infrastructure in the US is borne by the flying public in the price they pay for their tickets.

Great article. It is interesting to see that a lot of the right thinking about pedestrian scale and urban development was known some time ago. And it goes to show just how long cities like Cleveland have been struggling. Was 1973 when the oil embargo hit? We had the oil crisis, Watergate, stagflation, and elsewhere if not Cleveland major labor strife and late 70's strikes, the '82 Volcker recession with 22% prime rates that broke the back of inflation but also really was the massive triggering event of the industrial restructuring that continues to this day, and onslaught of Japan and Mexico. I'm not one to blame all troubles elsewhere, but this was not a great environment for Cleveland or most of the Midwest. There were serious headwinds.

sir2gees, I agree 100% with what you said. Comparative advantage is music to my ears. So often cities and states try to adopt some one-size-fits-all, cookbook approach, when I argue most places need to look at where they are best positioned to compete. Commodity strategies aren't going to cut it. Incidentally, here's a link to one of those articles Strickland referenced http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=104177 It's truly shocking to know that 10% of Ohio is on food stamps. People are hurting out there and they are angry. People who played by the rules as they new them found their world turned upside down by forced they could not understand. Unfortunately, they are largely also not willing to listen to any hard truths. I fear we are in for some major social unrest in this country if things don't change course.

sir2gees, I agree with a lot of what you say. However, the Midwest has known that the global challenge was here for quite some time. It has been 15-20 years since Japan and Mexico hit the Midwest manufacturing base hard, and there was little change in approach. Contrast the Strickland speech with this column from the Detroit Free Press http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/OPINION01/807170322/1008 You don't have to agree with everything that guy writes to at least get that he is serious. Perhaps one should look at the south and why they were able to be so successful. Any chance of Strickland getting behind a right to work law, for example?

Boreal, perhaps he isn't increasing spending in aggregate. But looking at the speech I see: - A $1.57 billion stimulus plan (sounds like spending to me) - An with education he says he "increased funding and access" Where did the offsetting cuts come from, incidentally? Regarding regulations, I see: - "That’s why we passed an energy bill that will protect jobs by ensuring the availability of reliable electric service while preventing the kind of devastating overnight increases in electricity prices – increases of more than 70 percent – that some states have endured." (sounds like regulation to me) - "And the new law requires expanded use of advanced energy technology" (sounds like regulation to me) Beyond the speech, we know there have been new regulations on, for example, strip clubs and payday loan stores. That's not to say all regulation is bad. The previous administration gutted local mortgage regulation, to the detriment of the state. I'd certainly rate Strickland as an improvement.

Let's distill down the message of that speech in executive summary form. "While Ohio is struggling because of structural problems, most of what's hurting us comes from macroeconomic factors beyond our control, so obviously no one in Ohio can be held responsible for that. The way we will deal with this is through additional government spending and more regulations, combined with some educational investment. Because Mississippi is poor, pay no attention to the high growth rates in much of the South. Ohio's cities like Cleveland don't really have serious problems. Rather, the biggest challenge is perception, so if we just say how great things are and put together a better marketing campaign, we're on our way. We'll build a great economic future based on the exact same industries everyone else is trying to attract because we must have a competitive advantage over all the other Midwest states, to say nothing of the rest of the country and the world." I'm not in favor of doom and gloom. And let's face it, we expect our leaders to exude optimism. But real leadership is about taking on hard challenges. The Midwest has to make serious, painful change to adapt to the future. I don't see anything in there about the hard, painful choices and changes that Ohio needs to make to change its trajectory. This is Exhibit A in how Richard Longworth noted the state of denial in Ohio (and Indiana), and how Cleveland seemed oblivious to what was happening to it. There are actually a number of advantages that Ohio has for the global economy. For example, it has a polycentric urban structure. While this probably hurts each individual metro versus other states with a primate city system, it can make the state stronger as a whole. Because the new economy is based in cities, and much of Ohio is conceivably within the economic zone of a metro area with the scale to compete. This is unlike say Iowa or Illinois. The geography of Ohio is favorable. But I don't think this spin cycle approach is the right one. Imagine if Strickland had come out and, for example, issued a strong call for better regional cooperation and shared municipal services. Or said, gosh, maybe splitting our investment resources across four separate childrens hospitals isn't the most efficient say. He didn't ask for them to do anything except feel better about themselves. More complacency is not the answer.

Denial's not just a river in Egypt, as they say.

I'm not sure what reports you are looking at, but I have done what exploration I can of the social compact methodology, and it is underwhelming. They have projected 40% undercounting in some neighborhoods in some cities. But if that's true, it should be possible to go out and find some actual bodies. The fact that no one has tried to do a partial special census on these areas (which is allowed, btw) to capture that population and the associated revenue is telling. Most suburbs that grew 40% would be doing just that. If Cleveland is really understated by 100,000 people, a special census to update the county would be well worthwhile.

Let's put this in some context here. The city of Chicago, which has experienced what is probably urban America's largest central city condo boom, with literally thousands of new units coming online ever single year, has lost population since the 2000 census and was up a measly 5,000 last year. Interestingly, they have not challenged the census. Pretty much all land locked cities are seeing population flatline or decline.

Great article in the Chicago Tribune today. http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-express-busjul11,0,2044717.story

C-Dawg, unfortunately the hometown booster club crowds will never accept anything other than their own sugar-coated spin version of the truth about their cities. Any study which doesn't align with their a priori thinking is attacked. Any study that supports it, no matter how dubious (e.g., Social Compact) is lauded. I thought the Toledo Blade series was great. The data wasn't perfect and data never will be, but it was a great series of profiles of Ohio's downtown. What's more, they actually reported a lot of the positive developments and momentum, especially in the 3C's, all of which are, while they have private sector job declines, re-positioning their downtowns as entertainment and residential hubs, often with quite a bit of success. So the picture is not monolithically bad.

It could be worse in Ohio; it could be Michigan, where there is a similar self-inflicted death spiral going on. Not only the auto industry imploding, taxes have been going up, the state spends more on incarceration than it does schools, the Detroit mayor faces several felony indictments, the Detroit city council has many members under investigation, etc. One difference is that there seem to be some media types calling the state's leadership on the carpet. See this column from today for example: Has Michigan passed its tipping point? http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080704/OPINION03/807040342/1322/OPINION0301 That guy writes mostly about the auto industry, but has many scathing columns about the political class and the state's economy. See: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION0301 and http://info.detnews.com/redesign/blogs/danielhowesblog/index.cfm Oh, the Journal hates Detroit too. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120916727098046281.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

You all might find this article interesting. It is from the republican magazine the American Spectator. For some reason google/firefox say this is an attack site and block it. Not sure if it really has malware or if this is just part of google's ongoing program of conveniently blocking web sites of organizations that don't line up with what they like. (Google definitely does this - you might have recalled the tempest last week about the pro-Hillary bloggers who suddenly all had their sites blocked by blogger as "spam" when they started attacking Obama). In any case, consider the source, which is another right wing publication like the Journal opinion page. How the republicans lost the Buckeye state: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13450

I am skeptical that Ohio can regulate its way to some imagined Portland-like nirvana. I do agree that previous regulations has unintended consequences, many of them negative. However, no one seems to have learned the real lesson, which is that all regulations have unintended consequences. Today's planners have lost none of the zeal for planning that brought us urban renewal, public housing (something which many, many progressives and modern architects were in on, btw), highly segregated land uses, streets without sidewalks, etc. The real lesson should be some humility about the limits of our ability to plan. Instead, every new generation of planners goes out and says, "this time for sure".

Actually, Youngstown is the perfect poster child. They are one of the few cities out there that has come to terms with their permanently reduced size and role in the world. Hence their active shrinkage management program that is being studied across America. They may not have had a return to prosperity, but they are facing up to the problems.

Most major new US river bridges these days are cable stayed, just like in the past they were steel truss. It won't be a distinctive design for long.

Regarding ODOT's projects, the time from concept to implementation on major highway or transit projects is very long. You can just say, "Cancel these, build those" easily. What's more, if one administration started re-writing the project list when taking office, this would establish a precedent for doing so, which would lead to chaos. As we speak, ODOT is looking at revising its strategies and policies, so change may be in the offing. It just isn't as fast as some want. By the way, the Columbus inner loop project is desperately needed. That's a heavily congested and high crash area.

It is easy to criticize the article as "inaccurate" or whatever, but it is unmistakable that Ohio is hurting bad. Isn't it reasonable to suggest that some of it might be due to Ohio itself? I don't know how many of you read Richard Longworth's book "Caught in Middle", but if you didn't, I suggest you do. One of his key observations was how in Indiana and Ohio there was a deep state of denial about what is going on. I just look at the conversation on this board. There seems to be a big belief in significant government regulation to force people and businesses to locate and live in accordance with preferred development patterns. Ohio is high tax, and appears to be high regulation and anti-business. There is always some regulation or other being discussed here that targets businesses: pay day loan store laws, strip club laws, etc. What's more, like much of the rest of the Midwest, Ohio has been reflexively opposed to change. Of course, for some people, that's rational. If you are an under-educated factory worker with no hope of participating in the 21st century economy, why not support policies that try to prop up what remains? One of the problems facing Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan especially is that their industries didn't get obliterated. One reason Pittsburgh seems to be hanging in there, for example, is that its industries were destroyed long ago. It faced up to the fact that there was no holding on or going back long ago. Of course Pittsburgh is no economic mecca to be sure, but it seems to be doing better than the Detroits and Clevelands of this world. As for Strickland's popularity, coming after Taft and near the end of the Bush administration certainly helps. He's made some tough but right calls such as blowing the whistle on ODOT's over-commitments, but the jury is still out. It's incredibly difficult to push through change. Indiana governor Mitch Daniels may yet go down to electoral defeat for two reasons: he pushed through daylight savings time and leased the Toll Road to pay for a major highway expansion program. These were both extremely unpopular in certain quarters. It's tough to believe, but you can still make people in Indiana bitter and angry by bringing up daylight savings time.

You all might be interested in this survey: http://www.nea.gov/research/ArtistsInWorkforce.pdf

In fairness, the suburbs of Paris are extremely auto-centric.

It should be possible to run trains at the upper limit of the Midwest High Speed Rail plan (110MPH) without recourse to electrification.

Fares are only part of the equation, as is travel time. You have to figure out ground transport on both ends of the service.

Jeffrey, contrary to popular belief, California contains some of the most dense development in the United States.

thanks

I thought the feds closed the loophole that allowed localities to "donate" old infrastructure to a transit project and count that as a local match. That's what St. Louis did when it contributed a bridge to its light rail project, which is why the terminus was one stop on the far side of the river. My understanding is that the feds look skeptically today at local participation that doesn't involve green money.