KJP

It's a small area I'm referring to where the homeless congregate. Ditto for the Lakeside Shelter up on Lakeside Avenue, around the East 20s. When one finds the huddles masses, one has license to call it "skid row."

But you do see a "skid row" in the vicinity of the the North Point Inn (1550 Superior) east to the county welfare building at Superior and East 17th. Maybe that's why the reporters at the PD (at Superior and 18th) are so damn negative? They continually see one of the worst parts of downtown!

http://english.people.com.cn/200608/24/eng20060824_296347.html UPDATED: 09:33, August 24, 2006 Droughts threaten world food supply As the United States bakes in one of the hottest summers since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, droughts reaching from the Dakotas to Arizona have sharpened the focus of farmers on their lifeline water. Eighty per cent of all freshwater consumed in the United States is used to produce food. But years of drought, diversion of water to growing urban areas and, most lately, concerns about global warming are feeding worries... Source: China Daily

Interesting that the pictures show up on my computer at home, but not here at work. Damn.

That's not true either. There are numerous roundabouts in Cleveland's eastern suburbs, and one was built in the 1990s on West Road at Forestview Drive in Olmsted Falls as part of a new housing development (Forestview).

If we're going to make a major impact, I suspect the Cleveland Foundation will want to see a budget line item for Viagra, too.

MGD -- it is illegal to ride a fast-moving bicycle on the sidewalk. Speed differential is the key. A father riding bikes with his little child is OK on the sidewalk -- they're riding slowly and doesn't create a speed differential with pedestrians. From the "you've heard it from me before" department: someone get me a sugardaddy with deep pockets and I'll get you some reporters, advertising reps and an editor to work for a web-based core-city news venue that tells what's really going on in the heart of the city -- the bad AND the good! Plus, we'll get some research-based analysis articles so that readers know not only know what's going on, but why. I'm one of those you'll get for such a news venue -- and I'm pretty sure I can get for you the other staff I mentioned. But there has to be a sound, long-term and patient financial commitment so we're not back out on the street after the first months of struggling to get our legs under us.

I found online some pictures and data about Butte, and posted them at: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=10171.msg120143#msg120143

I found some pictures online of Butte, Montana -- or what's left of it. While searching, I found an historical reference to Butte as once having the richest mining slopes anywhere. But when mining creates an environmental mess (I saw that it's one of the biggest brownfield locations in the U.S.) and the natural resources are gone, with little other economic basis for the town to exist, the place ends up looking like a ghost town.... An abandoned pit mine, where drinking the water is VERY hazardous! ... Abandoned strip mines... Abandoned mining rigs are commonplace.... A city that once had 115,000 residents is now down to about 35,000. While cities can be immortal -- if they are able to remake themselves for changing times -- they can also shrivel up and die. Butte sits as quiet testament to the latter...

Good thing we're probably not going after federal construction funds for Greater Cleveland's West Shore Corridor. And I think the lesson for North Carolina is to avoid the federal trough if at all possible. It seems there's little or no reason to take a whiff of the trough anyway.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. — John Hancock New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton ###

I wish my editor was Jenna Jameson! Talk about getting on the blower!

If a development is occurring in sprawling areas of Greater Cleveland, then it does affect Cleveland (and the inner-ring suburbs). The odds are that each new home, each new store, and each new office that gets built is creating a vacancy somewhere else in our metro area. And, more often than not, it's creating a vacancy in the older parts of the city (Cleveland and its inner-ring suburbs). Thus, by all means, keep posting Grasscat. The sooner we realize we're all on the same team in Greater Cleveland, the sooner we'll stop putting some our greatest assets on the bench, or worse, on waivers.

That article should be required reading for everyone here at Urban Ohio, and for everyone who wants to make cities better places to live.

Some interesting video simulations of diesel light rail, electric light rail and busway proposals in Spokane, Wash. ... http://www.spokanelightrail.com/spokanelightrail/sub.aspx?id=2915# And here's an excellent description of the relationship between commuter rail and regional planning.... Commuter rail is most effective when large numbers of people can walk to the stations. The stations provide a natural focal point to existing and new communities, which can evolve from park-and-ride lots into "village centres" offering convenience shopping, daycare, community recreation facilities, townhousing and other compact residential uses within a convenient walking distance. This "transit village" concept can provide a framework for encouraging cost-effective regional growth while recognizing the continued demand for conventional rural estate lots in areas beyond. Transit villages cater to a potentially underserviced sector of the housing market, enabling some residents to choose a lifestyle which does not require multiple car ownership, thus helping to mitigate suburban traffic growth. The availability of more compact development also helps to reduce development pressure on outlying areas with their associated municipal servicing costs. Commuter rail could be seen as a highly visible commitment to ordered regional growth. The above is from ... http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/fuels/light/rail.htm

And (yes, here I go again) link the sides of town with rail transit, uniting the sides in downtown. Throughout world history, the ultimate reason for cities to exist is to be a place of meeting and exchange. Creating or attracting unique retail downtown, along with residential, office, meeting venues, idea-swapping venues and so on, at the heart of a regional rail system, is a recipe for economic potency.

That's not the point of my question though. If you have retail sales made somewhere in Cuyahoga County (including downtown), then Pesht is built, the sales tax TIF district is established for it, and retail sales are diverted to within Pesht, is the loss of that sales tax revenue to the county and RTA worth it? How much might the loss be and for how long?

First phase of the lakefront boulevard is in the requisite planning stages by ODOT.... Reconstruction LAKEFRONT WEST Cleveland: SR 2 from Lake Rd to Main Ave 77330 analyzed CUY US006-12.20 PE ODOT $640,000 2006 PE S/STP $2,560,000 2006 RW ODOT $5,000,000 2007 C ODOT $8,000,000 2008 C S/STP $32,000,000 2008 TOTAL $48,200,000 Look for the elevated portion through downtown to be lowered to street level as part of Pesht. From East 9th to the Inner Belt, I could not find any documentation in NOACA documents of pending or emerging plans for conversion of this roadway into a boulevard. This activity would have to, at least, be placed on NOACA's long-range plan in order to proceed. East of there to MLK, the East Shoreway is in NOACA's Tier III stage of planning, meaning that no construction funds can be allocated to it until the planning is complete. The city of Cleveland and ODOT are listed as project sponsors.

That "Next Stop" sign is a great idea!

True. Housing values are higher in the city. Transportation costs are often lower, particular in cities where land use supports non-automobile transportation and options to the car are plentiful.

Here's a "killer" article... _________________ Simmons: "BP is a pending Enron" Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) Article removed for lack of link

OK, if you've finished drinking your PBR's and eating your PB&J's, I wants to get back to da subject! And, sorry, but what is PBL anyway? Peter B. Lewis? Peter B. Lewis what?

I agree Zaceman, comparing the present to what had existed, as seen in that picture, just makes me sick.... High-density mixed-use buildings. Traffic on the streets. Lots of pedestrians around for an area 55 blocks from Public Square. If you scrolled to the right, you would see the Pennsylvania Railroad's main passenger train station for Cleveland, served by 20 daily trains in 1940. Geez, even the crosstown line on East 55th was running with a two-car streetcar and it looks like at least every seat is filled. If I could wave a magic wand....

I was looking into Cherokee and, just the screenshows on their various project websites are worth a "wow" ... http://www.cherokeedenver.com/ http://www.meadowlandsmiracle.com/ http://www.cherokeeporete.com/ This is Cherokee's home page: http://www.cherokeefund.com/index.html

OK, you want some new information? I called Bob Stark today to see if he could tell me what was happening with his project. He said he's continuing to work the market aspects (ie: financing, leasing, etc). I asked him what impact the sale of the Duane Cameron parking lots near West 9th would have on his project. Stark responded that he would seek a development agreement with the new owner, just as he did with Asher and had tried with Cameron. We discussed the West Shore transit project (see the Cleveland-Lorain commuter rail thread in the transportation section) and asked him about using a TIF on Pesht to help pay for it. Stark said he is trying to develop a political consensus for using a TIF on Pesht to pay for infrastructure work downtown to make Pesht possible. That includes extending the street grid northward to the lake. He didn't say anything about the port island however and, to be honest, I forgot to ask! And the TIF would not only include things like property and income taxes, but county sales taxes, as well. Remember, a TIF is based on additional taxes resulting from a new project. But some of the sales taxes on items purchased in Pesht would likely come at the expense of existing retail outlets elsewhere in Cuyahoga County. So this could be controversial!