shs96

Yeah, clearly that is what I am saying. Since poor people spend the same amount of money on goods and services as the wealthy, it will absolutely shift the tax burden to the poor and attract rich people to the state where they can hoard their money in shoe boxes under their mattress inside their $20,000 house in Slavic Village. :roll:

I'm certainly not miserable and I love living in Cleveland, but let's face it, Ohio has a high tax rate, the county corruption probe isn't going to do perception any favors, and the economy isn't exactly thriving. Ohio should reconsider how it generates income. Eliminate income tax; increase sales tax. In the end, if done right, the money would be the same but the perception would be enhanced. Oh? No state income tax in Ohio? Hmmm...maybe it's worth considering!

This is a ridiculous statement. For what purposes would the vast majority of people go outside of their neighborhoods (or even homes) between the hours of about midnight and 5am? Why is it ridiculous? A neighborhood's safety is not limited to only certain hours of the day. Your contention was you work in that area and that during your time there (which I assume is ~9-5), it has been safe. My contention is that yeah, it's safe if you're there in the middle of the day when more people are around (and more people aren't high/drunk). But if you were to live there, would you also feel safe? Are you suggesting it is simply a run down, poor section of town with low crime? The Black Swan theory at it's finest. EDIT: click on each of the icons in the crime report you posted and see when most of the crimes occurred.

This is your PERCEPTION. The Kinsman and Central area is where I've spent probably the second most time in next to my home neighborhood over the last five years. I haven't had a single issue, nor has anyone with whom I work. I think it'd be good to distinguish fact vs perception here (maybe even add "perceived" to the thread title unless cold, hard facts/data are to be posted. Well, I don't really feel unsafe anywhere from 9am -5pm. Talk to me when you're there from 9pm - 5am.

My family runs a business. As a part of that business, we hire unskilled workers - grounds crew basically. Anyone can learn to cut grass, shovel snow, etc. But you also need to show up on time, show up sober, actually cut the grass while you are there, etc. If you have no education and no real aspirations to get an education, this is the ideal job for you. Pays a decent living wage and provides health care benefits. Plus, if you show promise, there's opportunity to move up. Yet you would be shocked at how hard it is to find someone who is willing to cut grass, shovel snow, etc who is also capable of showing up on time, showing up sober, and willing to take a reasonable amount of pride in their work. I took a year and 6 different people to fill the last open spot before we found someone reliable. (And - as I've mentioned in another thread, one guy recently quit and chose to do nothing. He decided he'd rather live off WIC, food stamps, etc than actually go to work each day. Ironically, his kids are home schooled). So I actually don't believe jobs are the problem. It's having a population of workers who show traits that qualify them to get a job. Should this population exist in the inner city, yet not enough jobs were available, these people would still be capable of raising their kids to be a functional members of society. But that's not the case.

You're right that many parents in Cleveland work long hours to support their children, but it only takes about 2 minutes to return a phone call from a teacher. My wife has been teaching in urban schools for 4 years and I could give dozens of stories about parents who flat out don't care. The kids who succeed have parents who take an interest in their child's education. Right. My wife also has taught in inner city school districts and I think you would be appaled at the attitude of some parents (and volume of parents who share it). Not to mention that there are significantly higher volumes of single parent households. There's a chapter in the book "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell that discusses how to fix inner city schools. There was a story on 60 minutes about it as well. A charter school in Harlem has found a way to turn around inner city schools. In short, don't allow the kids to go home. The problem is not the school. The problem is what happens to the kids when they leave school - especially for the summer. They enter an environment where they aren't learning anymore...or at least aren't learning about the right things. It's about culture. This is what is expected of you, this is how you behave. It needs to be applied consistently and repeatedly. And the amount of time a child spends in school is not enough to outweigh the impact of what the culture and enviornment is like when the child is outside of school.

I agree. I'm a huge rail advocate and anytime I bring this up to any of my friends, universally they say "why the F would I take the train to columbus when I can drive there in less time?" Informing them why they should take the train, even if it is slower, is pointless. You need to give people an alternative that provides them some level of increased convienence over the current choice. Things people will look at is TIME and COST. Time - this train set up increases travel time. Cost - people will compare it to a tank of gas and say "equal, if not more...plus I have to pay for transit once I get there". Again - right or wrong, that's the way it is and don't think you're going to change the culture of transportation throughout the state by any other means aside from addressing these 2 points. "Selling" the public that their trip to Columbus costs more than the gas involved in in order to get them to ride the train is a complete waste of time, at least in the short term. Improve TIME and IMMEDIATE OUT OF POCKET COST and you'll get tons of supporters. Until then, people will keep driving. If the state of Ohio changed its transportation spending to flip around what it currently pays for roads to trains the public wouldn't know a change was even made. They would just see it costs less to take the train now and they would start doing that without knowing why.

This proves my point. How does that prove your point? They asked for $500 million to include Cincinnati but were only given $400 million. It's not like anyone set out to exclude the city...they are just making sacrifices based on what is available at the moment.

I rolled the dice with LeBron re-signing and renewed my season tickets early for next year...I was able to upgrade to better seats in a similar section and get them for this year's playoffs (and next year's season). Lebron is definately worth the price of admission! And if all else fails, I can at least say I had decent seats for the 2010 playoff run!

I understand that there are merits to Cleveland, but those merits aren't that much greater than Cincinnati's. Cincinnati is right in between Washington D.C. and Chicago. Cincinnati is also the Midwest gateway to the Southeast. And Cincinnati's MSA is basically identical to Cleveland's...and according to recent estimates actually larger. I'm with you though 327, it just doesn't make sense to turn this into the 2-CS Corridor and miss out on one of the state's biggest markets. I think the problem is you're stuck thinking the options are - given the $400 million budget - (1) have the rail line end "close" to downtown Cincinnati and end in downtown Cleveland or (2) have the rail line end in downtown Cincinnati or "close" to downtown Cleveland. Those aren't the choices. The choices are (1) have the rail line end "close" to downtown Cincinnati and end in downtown Cleveland or (2) have the rail line end in downtown Cincinnati and somewhere near Columbus leaving all of Northern Ohio out. The cost of extending to Cincinnati is the issue - not a choice between the two cities.

Yes...it's odd b/c I love Cleveland and love urban living, yet generally disagree with most opinions on the site...

Some of this is sort of right-ish, but should be directed towards the GSE affordability targets, not the CRA. Yes, independent mortgage banks would not have originated subprime loans if there weren't a secondary market to buy them, and that secondary market included Fannie and Freddie. Why people think that implicates the CRA is a mystery to me. Fannie and Freddie are not banks. They aren't regulated by the CRA in any relevant way. The CRA did not cause Fannie and Freddie to buy loans from mortgage banks (like Countrywide). And more significantly, the CRA certainly has nothing to do with private label securitization of subprime loans originated by non-depository institutions, which was more prevalent than GSE investments in subprime. Incidentally, there is a lot of evidence that GSEs jumped into subprime for the same reasons private investors did- because it was incredibly lucrative (until everything fell apart), not because of any government mandates. Saying that the affordability targets (which again, are not part of the CRA) forced the GSEs to get involved with subprime loans seems to me like saying people drive fast on highways because there's a minimum speed limit. For the most comprehensive research on the CRA, I recommend this series put together by the SF Fed: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/community/cra/index.html I read the first few articles in this reasearch...it doesn't change my opinion. I've been saying all along the CRA incented lending to low income people and punished you didn't. Even the author of the 3rd article uses this in his opening sequence laying out the back ground: The CRA encourages financial institutions not only to extend mortgage, small business, and other types of credit to lower-income neighborhoods and households, but also to provide investments and services to lower-income areas and people as part of an overall effort to build the capacity necessary for these places to thrive. Fannie and Freddie not being covered by the CRA is true, but there needs to be some context. The CRA did not cause Fannie and Freddie to buy these loans, no. But who do you think was running Fannie and Freddie at the time these loans were being bought? Franklin Raines and Jamie Garelick, formerly of the Clinton Administration. So yeah, the GSE's are to blame b/c they bought the loans...but the loans were created by companies who were incented to make them due to the CRA, the CRA was created (enhanced) by the Clinton Administration, then the Clinton Administration appointed their own people to run the GSE's to make sure the legislation they wrote "worked". The quthor writing the opening preface of that FED reasearch states "There is no empirical evidence to support the claim that the CRA is responsible for the crisis" and goes on to site that it didn't change traditional safe and sound lending practices and other "unrelated" factors that shield the blame from the CRA. I mean, you have to be kidding me. It seems rather obvious to me that the CRA created a culture that attempted to change lending practices and then influential people were strategically placed throughout the financial industry to ensure the intent behind the CRA was carried out. Raines and Garelick received like $75 million each in bonuses for having the goals of the CRA met. From 1999-2007, the top 4 recepients of Fannie political contirbutions were Christopher Dodd, Chairman of Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Barack Obama, Federal Financial Management Committee. Chuck Schumer, Chairman of Finance Committee. Barney Frank, Chairman House Financial Services Committee. So the CRA didn't cover the GSE's...but the heads of the GSE's were given bonuses if the goals of the CRA were met...so how is it they aren't linked? The 1992 Federal Housing Enterprise Financial Safety and Soundness Act require Freddie and Fannie to devote portions of underwriting to support affordable housing...then along comes the CRA and WOW! Amazing! It incents people to lend to low income areas just after Fannie and Freddie were required to underwrite "affordable housing"! But the CRA doesn't cover Fannie and Freddie so they aren't realted....right... And then of course everyone blames Bush since he was President. Which is weird since he wasn't really involved in any of it. BTW, people started to see signs of this problem coming. In 2003, a Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act was presented, sponsored by Charles Hagel. It was designed specifically to regulate the secondary mortgage market where these sub-prime loans were being bought/sold...basically where all the money was being made. What happened to that legislation that might have prevented all of this? It was shot down in Committee review. What committee? Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Christopher Dodd, Chairman. WEIRD! So yeah, it's not as simple as "the CRA ruined everything". It's pretty complex. But once you start getting into it, it becomes pretty obvious what was going on. A group of politicians all got together and had a vision of what they wanted to have happen. Then they executed it - with the CRA being a critical piece of legislation - and made sure they were all in places where they could influence it along...and oh by the way, make a boat load of money from it in the process. And once sh!t really started hitting the fan, the AIG, Lehman Brother's and the like started getting crushed by the media and the public. Meanwhile, Raines and other executives at Fannie/Freddie got to keep their bonuses, pay some civil fines, and somehow more or less avoid media criticism. So I guess blaming it exclusively on the CRA is not accurrate. There was legislation leading up to that, other things going on (changes in accounting rules from WorldCom, Enron, etc)...but in the end it was the CRA that pushed it all over the top, and then having the people who put together the CRA distributed around the financial/political landscape to ensure it stayed on target.

The CRA updates in 1995 specifically: • Allowed CRA governed institutions to hold only 2.5% of their capital to back investments as opposed to 10% for non-CRA institutions. • Provided CRA institutions extraordinary leverage, allowing them to borrow at lower rates than banks. • Performance standards were clarified, establishing specific metrics to be measured against, including “percentage of subprime securities held”. • Office of the Comptroller of the Currency allowed lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize a low or moderate income community. The CRA point blank incented financial institutions to lend money to people who otherwise would not have been lent money. There are mountains of eveidence directly linking the CRA to the change in lending proactices. No "unregulated" mortage originator is going to be making these loans if there isn't anyone (RE: Fannie Mae) buying these loans on the secondary market. And since financial institutions (re: Fannie Mae) were not only incented to buy these sub-prime loans, but also punished if they didn't explicitly in the CRA, what did you expect to happen? And minorities were "targeted" over whites not having anything to do with income or race; there were clauses specifically in the CRA targeting urban areas. So lending to all the poor white people in Appalachia did not get the same credit rating bump you would get if you lent to a poor black person in the inner city. It was part of Clinton's National Homeownership Strategy...but Clionton knew the Republican Congress wouldn't go for it, so he had the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs make the regulatory changes instead of Congress...thus Fannie and Freddie became directly involved with Subprime mortgages (and why the biggest buyers of COuntrywide's subprime mortgage securities was Fannie Mae).

In an effort to put this to bed, I emailed Michelle and she told me it would be a park with beach volleyball courts, picnic areas, etc, with a boardwalk between it and the river. So this is good. But that isn't a beach. Words have definitions for a reason. So unless you don't want to communicate with people, adhere to the definition (and if you read the comments on page 93 that led up to this discussion, there were clearly several people interpreting this as a beach).

If this is advertised and marketed at a non swimming beach or park, how would anyone THINK that they would be coming to swim?? Give people the benefit of doubt! I don't understand why there such a negative reaction to something that could be executed properly, could be a huge hit. Temporary, but a huge hit. Can't you look for or see anything positive about this? What, based on past performance, gives you the impression it will be executed properly? Like I said earlier, you don't market a marina as a "parking lot" since parking lot implies cars and marina implies boats. Call it what it is: Park with sand volleyball courts, picnic areas, shops, etc. I'm not saying that wouldn't be great - that would be really cool. I'm not being critical of the type of use that you are suggesting...I'm saying that's not the impression I get from the article, nor am I going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are describing the same thing you are when they say "Riverfront Beach" in the article.

Key words, "But that's not what I think of when I think "beach". First of all who says it has to be a traditional beach?? Can you for once think outside the box? The "beaches" in NYC were packed with people who just wanted to go to a "beach" but not travel to one. The "beach" in Queens was packed. The floating beach 145 was a huge success. The "beach" on Gov. Island was a massive hit. There was all sorts of programming for people of all ages. DJ's, specific parties, etc. For someone who lives on the Eastbank, it would be nice just to sit out and watch boats go buy. Right now, south of the Shoreway there is still a retail infrastructure. Now that this a go, you can best believe that those place have a bullet on for development or investment. Those business and residents gain a tangleable unique item in their neighborhood, making the beach itself a destination within a destination! Umm, it's not about thinking outside the box there jerky. I'm not going to say "let's build some parking spaces on the river for our vehicles" if I am referring to somewhere that you can tie up your boat. I'm going to call it something using jargon that is common in the English language so that people know what I am talking about. Building a "Park with Beach activities" is different than building a "Beach".

speak for yourself. I had to talk some people out of seeing if they could swim across the river from Settler's Landing to Nautica after the opening Browns game this year...so I guess if that was you, then OK.

If you're suggesting re-creating Whiskey Island in the Flats (which has sand volleyball courts) and are calling that a "beach" then OK. But that's not what I think of when I think "beach"...that's a park with sand volleyball courts - which is what I mentioned above that would be good thing...so stop getting your panties in a wad about me "complaining".

No one is going to swim in the River...so sand is really pointless. You're better off just making it grass or putting in dock slips. People already lay out on that grassy area by Settler's Landing. But let's be 100% clear...NO ONE is going to go to a "beach" on the Industrial Cuyahoga River...certainly not any woman, which means no guys will be ther either. Sit out by the water in a park/bar/restaurant? Absolutely. Beach? No.

I don't know...it doesn't look all that bad (there are worse in Cleveland now) and based on the level of activity I've seen going on in the flats the past 2 years, I think we're a long way from the final product.

I root for the team whose win will benefit the team I root for. Otherwise I root for who I have money on or picked in my pool or some comeptitive gain from a fantasy/gambling standpoint.

Behavioral/cultural change has to be wanted first; you can't force it on people. Individuals need to take accountability for their own actions first.

genuine anger Exactly. A friend of mine from some years ago in college was from Kenya. He lived in East Cleveland and I remember him being shocked when he would tell people with emotion "you can't believe the anger, you don't make eye contact with people". To me it's unbelievable that people (like shs96, not to pick on you b/c I don't think you're a bad person, I just think you don't have a very good understanding of the complexity of racial problems) think that hundreds of years of racism, a cycle of poverty, and the disillusionment of an entire culture can just be wiped out in no time. It's easy to come up with solutions for others when you don't have to live their problems every day of your life. Well, maybe I'm not communicating well...maybe you're stereotyping me b/c of where I'm from without really knowing, well, anything about me. I'm not saying it should or will be just wiped out...but obviously a large portion of the AA community does not adhere to this "inner city culture"...they managed to live within their own culture but as a part of a civil society. I mean, to be blunt, people have choices. They can get over it and move on or they can stew and continue to be part of the problem - even if they weren't the root of the problem to begin with.

Solutions have to come from within the community. Those who are outside the community can offer help and guidence...maybe outsiders can do more than they currently do, I don't know...but ultimately each individual within the culture has to subscribe to want to change it. It's just like any other behavioral change...has to start with that person first.

Do not confuse "African-American culture" and "Inner-City Culture." In African-American culture, you are taught to respect everyone and extend kindness to anyone (goes along with the whole Christianity thing). Inner-City culture just happens to have many African-Americans, Latinos, and yes, even poor Whites. And this is the root of the problem. "Inner City Culture" is not condusive to allowing any other culture to co-exist within it. That culture needs to end...I bet racism drops significantly if it does.