I wanted to start a thread showing a side of Cleveland not seen much on this site but is a reality for many families living in the neighborhoods hardest hit by foreclosure.  Most of these pics are from the southeast neighborhoods of the city, with a few from other neighborhoods mixed in. 

 

This city's vacant property issue has to be addressed- the city's rejuvenation though occurring is not happening evenly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some neighborhoods have hope for renewal in the short term- others have a long ways to go.  Here's hoping that the city will be able to continue to draw new residents in, and work to keep existing residents from leaving. 

 

 

 

Depressing but good idea for a thread.

 

Along these same lines, but rendered in brick apartment buildings, is Chapman Avenue in East Cleveland, which may be the most terrifying street in the region, maybe all of Ohio.  Here's a link to Google maps streetview: http://bit.ly/207c8hB

Fascinating idea for a thread.  Reason being, I don't think there are many folks around Cleveland that often drive down Miles, Harvard, 131st etc.  This offers a glimpse.  The interesting thing about the SE side of Cleveland (South of Buckeye) is there is a lot of great mixed with the above.  East Cleveland is pretty beat up all around, but other than a few select streets like Holton, Higbee, Rawlings, there is a lot of nice, well kept homes on the SE side.  I wouldn't call it very urban, but somewhat Parma"ish" if you will. 

Great thread, and quite depressing in the Rust Belt sort of way.

 

No doubt this was once a nice third-ring Great Lakes residential neighborhood, and right now, these are the areas toughest to redevelop in Rust Belt cities. There is a lot of solid single-family and duplex housing from the early 20th century in these neighborhoods, but household sizes have shrunk so much with the sharp rise in singles (the majority of Americans now), demand beyond 2-bd units is shrinking in most cities. It's quite likely this housing is mostly 3-bd and 4-bd units. It's not targeted to single 20-somethings and 30-somethings. It was built for families.

 

The reason so much demand is in the downtowns of Rust Belt cities and the oldest nearby residential neighborhoods is at least partly because of the rise of singles, which has accelerated dramatically with Gen Y. Gen Y has the lowest marriage rate and lowest birth rate in American history. It's going to be really tough to get people back into family-oriented slum neighborhoods like this unless there are good mass transit connections to downtown. Are there any light rail or heavy rail stations in this neighborhood? Or at least something within a mile?

It almost reaches a point where it might be better to discuss better uses for the land that don't hinge on hoping for people to move back in.

Depressing but good idea for a thread.

 

Along these same lines, but rendered in brick apartment buildings, is Chapman Avenue in East Cleveland, which may be the most terrifying street in the region, maybe all of Ohio.  Here's a link to Google maps streetview: http://bit.ly/207c8hB

 

Wow, I've been through EC a few times and have never seen Chapman Avenue before. Reminds me a lot of the old Glencoe Place apartments in Cincinnati that were unfortunately demolished a few years ago.

 

Very interesting thread, it really is sobering how much of our cities have just been left to abandonment.

I always envision in my mind what these neighborhoods looked like when they were under construction, and folks were talking about moving out here.  Seeing retail along commercial corridors getting built, kids playing in the yards, guys out washing their cars and moms walking the kids down the street tin strollers.  And really, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago.  My dad lived on Lamontier in these neighborhoods until the early to mid 60s, and talks about how great it was.  He was about 16 when they moved to the west side off Rocky River Drive.  It really is hard to picture the energy and prosperity that he speaks of.  I'm never to hard n folks his age that complain about Cleveland because if you had to watch your neighborhood go from that, to this, it must be hard to fall in love with the city all over again.

Depressing but good idea for a thread.

 

Along these same lines, but rendered in brick apartment buildings, is Chapman Avenue in East Cleveland, which may be the most terrifying street in the region, maybe all of Ohio.  Here's a link to Google maps streetview: http://bit.ly/207c8hB

 

I'm familiar with Chapman Avenue and posted streetviews of it in the Red Line extension thread (I think!). It's truly horrific.

 

So many of these houses are obsolete. How many of these can you get a decent sofa into? or a modern refrigerator? Or a big-screen TV -- and not sit more than three feet away from it? Or get a computer hutch into a second floor? Or a king-size box mattress? Or have space for a home office AND a bedroom? These are homes that were built when people had little or no recreational free time. People worked long hours at the factory, came home, showered in a basement rain closet to wash off the soot and grime, then came upstairs to eat a late dinner and then went straight to bed on a narrow, hard mattress. The tub would be used by the wife and kids, and on Sunday mornings by the husband before church. If they spent any time out of the house (other than for work or church), the wife would ride the streetcar to the market or head downtown to go clothes shopping. As a husband and wife, they might go out on Saturday nights to the Polish-American Club or the Italian-American Club, or maybe go bowling or dancing.

 

Sadly, far too many of these houses served another America. And the cost of gutting and opening up their wooden interiors likely exceeds the cost of building a new structure on the same property -- assuming the foundation is still any good. Sorry to say, but many of these houses aren't going to make it. The sooner these neighborhoods can be restocked with modern, high-quality, affordable housing, the sooner they can recover and actually offer a more competitive housing product than many of the post-war bungalows in Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs.

Houses across America are renovated everyday.  And yes, even in Cleveland.  Take Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway for example.  The fact that these house aren't set up for today's standard furnishings and living is not why they are abandon.  Nobody wants to live there, or they can't live there because of either crime, or the loss of income from job loss.  Every large city has these neighborhoods, Clevelands is just very large for a city its size.  Latest reports show that there are currently 22,000 abandon homes in Cuyahoga County.  That number blows my mind!

I certainly agree with demolition efforts to improve neighborhoods in the face of a massive glut of housing, but I really appreciate gotribe's point that "obsolescence" is a function of context, not inherent to the structure.The abandonment of these houses has as much to do with of Cleveland's crap regional economy, frictionless commuting, and endless flat, developable hinterland, as it does with the number of bathrooms and room dimensions. In most cases, that's probably a distinction without a difference, though. Neighborhoods only have so much influence over their context.

I would second the "crap regional economy" point, but beyond that I think this mess has more to do with the policy and investment choices of local leadership.  We have an obvious glut of houses and yet our main redevelopment incentive demands yet more houses.  Meanwhile the commercial corridors that once made these older neighborhoods liveable have been ignored, while car-oriented plazas continue to expand.  Downtown is being converted from a retail center for everyone to a work-live-play area for the lucky few.  IMO the solution is not to make commuting more difficult, but to identify what makes urban neighborhoods work and bring those elements back.

^What makes urban neighborhoods work, IMHO, is proximity to jobs.  That's why I have been in favor of the Opportunity Corridor since inception of the idea.  Sure, it's not the most urban designed road that we could come up with.  However, what it has done is developed the Land Bank surrounding it opening up once unknown Brownfield sites for redevelopment.  The road is designed to transport heavy freight and truck traffic when needed to support industry.  They are clearing houses along this stretch at rapid pace to continue to open up more land.  If we get single story warehouses, and small office parks, so be it.  Lets face it, no one is going to buy a house on 116th and Harvard because they want to start a trend, and repopulate a neighborhood as similar to Ohio City or Tremont.  But business owners may swoop in because of roadway access, location etc.  In turn, that could lead to commercial development such as new gas stations, fast food, pharmacies which eventually may lead into larger scale commercial.  This activity may then spur people into investing in housing. 

 

We always need to remember why people populated cities in the first place, because of opportunity to make money, legally.  Jobs come first, then the people. 

^I think it's an open question whether or not job creation along the OC will really have significant spill-over affects on the nearby residential neighborhoods, though. Commuting is cheap and easy in this region compared to most. There just isn't much of a premium to vanilla proximity anymore. Just take a look at Fairfax and Glenville, which are adjacent to one of the fastest growing job centers in the state (including lots of working class jobs). Maybe some progress in Glenville (maybe), but tons of abandonment in both.

Plus, there are tons of jobs in Beachwood that have awful ghettos within a mile.  I think job proximity is necessary but not sufficient.  To me it comes down to whether a resident can plausibly have a decent lifestyle car-free or car-lite.  It's about what you can accomplish by walking out your front door.  Urban living is a different animal and it requires destinations that are walkable or transit-reachable.  Not just for work, not just for dining, but for more or less all day to day needs. 

 

These houses in these pictures can not and will not thrive in a vacuum.  They need to be part of a fully functional city, with the transit network and the downtown and everything else.  We can't just focus on certain elements to the detriment of others, and we can't abandon the original urban layout to replace it with a suburban one.

Houses across America are renovated everyday.  And yes, even in Cleveland.  Take Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway for example.  The fact that these house aren't set up for today's standard furnishings and living is not why they are abandon.  Nobody wants to live there, or they can't live there because of either crime, or the loss of income from job loss.  Every large city has these neighborhoods, Clevelands is just very large for a city its size.  Latest reports show that there are currently 22,000 abandon homes in Cuyahoga County.  That number blows my mind!

I certainly agree with demolition efforts to improve neighborhoods in the face of a massive glut of housing, but I really appreciate gotribe's point that "obsolescence" is a function of context, not inherent to the structure.The abandonment of these houses has as much to do with of Cleveland's crap regional economy, frictionless commuting, and endless flat, developable hinterland, as it does with the number of bathrooms and room dimensions. In most cases, that's probably a distinction without a difference, though. Neighborhoods only have so much influence over their context.

 

The combination of aging/obsolete housing that hasn't been well maintained combined with the lack of a vibrant economy makes it difficult to justify spending big money on substantially renovating tens of thousands of homes. What percentage of pre-war housing stock economically justifies being renovated because of the condition of the house, the neighborhood, and the region's economy? Ohio City has a lot of larger homes, especially on Franklin which was once called the Millionaire's Row of the west side. There are also some larger homes on other streets which have the space to meet modern-day needs. Fact is, today's homes are much larger than those of yesteryear. Some of the medium-sized homes in Cleveland Heights, for example, have servant-call buttons in them for the servant's quarters in the attic apartment. Yet today there are middle-class families, single young professionals or empty-nesters living in these houses. To get an appreciation of the working-class houses where families with four, five, six or more kids lived, take the video tour (or better yet, the in-person tour) of the Christmas Story house in Tremont. The rooms are truly tiny.

 

Yes, it's all true that more houses would be renovated in Cleveland if the economy was better now and in decades past. But these houses haven't been maintained, and even if they have, the economy doesn't produce enough wealth to justify renovating more of the best-maintained houses to meet modern living standards and offer modern amenities. Not saying this as a blanket statement, because not everyone spends a lot of time at home so they don't need a big home. And maybe they have enough money to justify renovating the best-maintained older houses -- believe me, I've toured plenty of them during the Ohio City home tours a decade ago. I still have the photos! But I'm afraid that in grand scheme, these renovations are the exception, not the rule. Perhaps if more of Cleveland's housing stock was made of brick or higher quality wood, more could be saved and their interiors altered (removing walls, etc) to serve modern living requirements.

^I think it's an open question whether or not job creation along the OC will really have significant spill-over affects on the nearby residential neighborhoods, though. Commuting is cheap and easy in this region compared to most. There just isn't much of a premium to vanilla proximity anymore. Just take a look at Fairfax and Glenville, which are adjacent to one of the fastest growing job centers in the state (including lots of working class jobs). Maybe some progress in Glenville (maybe), but tons of abandonment in both.

A lot of those jobs are high paying jobs drawing people with greater than bachelor degree education.  Like most places, these folks move out to exurbia and buy large homes with big yards.  I'm not asking doctors to move to Mt. Pleasant.  Jobs to be developed along the OC are more so high school degree/GED type jobs that pay somewhat well, and offer benefits to employees.  This is exactly what Cleveland needs.  These are the kind of jobs the city was built off of, and that lost so much of in the past 30 years which left working middle class neighborhoods to rot.  It's great that the Clinic, UH, Case and white collar jobs downtown helped pick up some of the slack, but not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, researcher etc.  These are the jobs where one family member gets a job, then gets their brother and their cousin in also.  They learn a skill, they earn money and inherently feel better about themselves. 

Considering the amount of population loss from our peak - 22,000 doesn't seem all that bad.

^^Right, but a lot of those jobs at UC aren't high paying, and don't require college degrees. I wasn't talking about doctors and professors, but rather orderlies, food prep workers, maintenance, cleaning, etc. I suspect there's been more low-skilled labor created at UC in recent years than we can ever hope for along the OC over the next decade. Even relatively low-payed people can drive to the OC from inner ring suburbs now, or take the rapid there from better neighborhoods on the west side. Proximity just doesn't mean as much now as it did when these neighborhoods were first built near industry and commerce.

 

KJP, like I said, I agree with the prescription. I just think it's a mistake to focus on the structural obsolescence. The issue is the market demand for these houses, which you clearly agree with, but the room dimensions and other fixed, structural aspects are just one of many factors that weigh on that. They are no more important than location and condition. Like gotribe said, people in better neighborhoods have no problems moving couches and big TVs into 100+ year old houses that are architecturally indistinguishable from the photos above (Tremont, for example is most definitely not made up of Franklin Ave mansions).

 

When you say "today's homes" are bigger, you mean new or recent construction, but even if that's what people prefer, the ability to buy bigger is heavily constrained in vibrant housing markets by housing (and land) costs and commuting times. People in Manhattan would also prefer bigger homes. Theres also Cleveland's toxic racial history, social disfunction, and hyper segregation, that probably mean Cleveland households are less willing to indulge other tastes, like historic architecture, than counterparts in other regions. That a vast majority of households with any money actually move away and get these bigger homes in Cleveland is a function of the local context.

 

Anyway, like I keep saying, I'm not arguing there's hope for these houses. I'm all aboard the demo train, with great sadness. I just worry that focusing on architectural "obsolescence" could lead to some bad decisions on the margins, when that's not really the heart of the problem, IMHO.

America (sigh). 

 

Who owns these houses?  What are the owners going to do with them? 

 

There has to be away to give these properties to someone for $1, with a contract that says they have to renovate or build new for "x" number of them. 

^I'm guessing several are bank walk-aways, meaning foreclosure proceedings started, but the bank said "no thanks" part way through. Which means the defaulting borrower/homeowner still owns them, technically. Which means they pretty much have toxic title until the county can complete tax foreclosure and the land bank takes possession.  These houses have negative value. Given the back taxes and violations, these properties are liabilities, not assets. They aren't worth a dollar. And as KJP noted, even if the city cleared the violations, it makes no financial sense to invest $60K for something that will be worth only $40K when you're finished.

There are abandoned homes in far better shape, in far better neighborhoods, that don't merit the investment to make them nice again.  Most of these pictured were nearing the end of their useful life regardless of neglect; they're just low-end wood frame shacks from 100 years ago, which now have zero commercial activity nearby.  My hope is that we can find a way to build better housing stock the second time around, but also that we can solve our zoning and planning issues before we even try. 

There was a blog written recently by Jason Segedy of Akron's metropolitan planning organization AMATS, who argued that the demolition and replacement (with a net increase of new) of many of these homes is actually necessary in order for older, industrial, built-out cities like Cleveland to grow again....

 

http://thestile1972.tumblr.com/post/101874810155/whats-in-a-number-confronting-urban-population

 

The salient part is this:

 

In the United States today, there are 620 cities that contain at least 25,000 housing units.

 

Of these, 140 can be considered “older cities” with at least 50% of their housing stock built before 1960.

 

The vast majority of these older cities are located in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, and on the West Coast.  Very few of them are located in the South or the Intermountain West.

 

The 10 Fastest Shrinking Cities in the U.S.

 

1. St. Louis, MO (63% decline, 77% built pre-1960)

2. Detroit, MI (61% decline, 81% built pre-1960)

3. Youngstown, OH (61% decline, 77% built pre-1960)

4. Cleveland, OH (57% decline, 79% built pre-1960)         

5. Gary, IN (55% decline, 63% built pre-1960)

6. Buffalo, NY (55% decline, 84% built pre-1960)

7. Pittsburgh, PA (55% decline, 75% built pre-1960)

8. Niagara Falls, NY (51% decline, 84% built pre-1960)

9. Flint, MI (48% decline, 70% built pre-1960)

10. Scranton, PA (47% decline, 76% built pre-1960)

 

I found a strong correlation (0.533) between the age of the housing (% of total units built prior to 1960) and the percentage of population lost since the city’s peak.

 

This finding is not particularly shocking, and to be sure, the correlation likely runs both ways.

 

That is, cities with a lot of old housing are often shrinking cities, because the old housing is not as marketable.

 

Conversely, shrinking cities often have a lot of old housing, because they are losing population and therefore don’t have lot of demand for new housing.

 

Regardless of the overall strength or direction of the correlation, this fact remains:

 

In the 21st Century, given today’s demographic trends, it is near-mathematically impossible for shrinking cities to ever grow again, without building new housing.

 

These cities have an over-supply of housing that people do not want, and an under-supply of housing that people do want.

 

Much of the older housing is blighted, vacant, or abandoned, and it is being torn down at a much faster rate than new housing is being built. 

 

These cities will continue to lose population unless they figure out how to do more than simply tear houses down.  They need to learn how to rebuild their neighborhoods from the ground up. 

 

It all boils down to simple arithmetic: less occupied housing units + less people per household = less households, and less people.

 

No matter how great these cities are, no matter how many casinos or stadiums they build, no matter how safe they are, no matter how low their taxes are, no matter how much else they “do right”, they will inexorably continue to lose population if they don’t learn how to build lots of marketable new housing – and at a much faster rate than they are tearing houses down.

 

MORE AT THE LINK ABOVE

 

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While I generally agree, especially in neighborhoods that were built cheap to begin with, I would note that these same housing types remain marketable in places like Lakewood (to say nothing of Minneapolis or Toronto).  Few of those who live in Lakewood work there, in fact many work on the east side or in some outer ring burb.  They still choose to spend their off time in Lakewood though, which suggests there is some inherent marketability to intact urban living situations, even where the housing stock is less than ideal.

 

No matter how great these cities are, no matter how many casinos or stadiums they build, no matter how safe they are, no matter how low their taxes are, no matter how much else they “do right”, they will inexorably continue to lose population if they don’t learn how to build lots of marketable new housing – and at a much faster rate than they are tearing houses down.

 

 

Build better housing for who?  We have 22,000 vacant homes in Cuyahoga County, and it's not like people are lining up to get the next, nice, habitable home that hits the market.  Demand is fairly low, housing is fairly cheap based on other markets.  We just need jobs, and a lot more of them.  Too many people, not even documented, in this region are out of work.  Too many people have given up on looking.  We need to come up with an innovative way to attract companies to our region.  The Manitowoc plant closing yesterday was terrible news.  That's 224 more jobs gone.  It's not like we're creating 224 jobs a day around here. 

 

And we can't use "they".  Who is "they"?  Developers?  The city sure is heck isn't in the business of building nice new homes.  Developers have just started infill in trendy neighborhoods around Cleveland.  They're not looking to go into Mt. Pleasant or Corlett any time soon.   

 

No matter how great these cities are, no matter how many casinos or stadiums they build, no matter how safe they are, no matter how low their taxes are, no matter how much else they “do right”, they will inexorably continue to lose population if they don’t learn how to build lots of marketable new housing – and at a much faster rate than they are tearing houses down.

 

 

Build better housing for who?  We have 22,000 vacant homes in Cuyahoga County, and it's not like people are lining up to get the next, nice, habitable home that hits the market.  Demand is fairly low, housing is fairly cheap based on other markets.  We just need jobs, and a lot more of them.  Too many people, not even documented, in this region are out of work.  Too many people have given up on looking.  We need to come up with an innovative way to attract companies to our region.  The Manitowoc plant closing yesterday was terrible news.  That's 224 more jobs gone.  It's not like we're creating 224 jobs a day around here. 

 

The more I read on the awful statistics of it, the more I am hoping for a dramatic shift in immigration policy to remedy this level of urban decay. Perhaps something on the level of the old Civilian Conservation Corps to kick things off.

 

The banks are "too big to fail" but evidently our our urban heritage is not?

I think a missing piece of this is the increased mobility that Americans both expect and need relative to before WWII. It was not uncommon for a family to have one car then, and people had to live in closer proximity in order to access services and shopping. If you look at places like Toronto, Chicago, New York, the kinds of urban neighborhoods mentioned here, they have maintained those prewar, urban environments because of high immigration, sustained high housing prices, and the difficulty of and lack of need for a personal automobile for every trip out of the house. The overbuilding of Cleveland's interstate network, like in Detroit, means that you don't have to live close to your job - it's pretty easy to commute, at least on your side of town, to a job that may not be there in five years anyway. The economic and transportation infrastructure in most cities, and in the US, means it would be difficult to rebuild these areas in any way close to the way they existed before, IMHO.

I certainly agree with demolition efforts to improve neighborhoods in the face of a massive glut of housing, but I really appreciate gotribe's point that "obsolescence" is a function of context, not inherent to the structure.The abandonment of these houses has as much to do with of Cleveland's crap regional economy, frictionless commuting, and endless flat, developable hinterland, as it does with the number of bathrooms and room dimensions. In most cases, that's probably a distinction without a difference, though. Neighborhoods only have so much influence over their context.

 

Great Lakes housing units are gigantic by SF standards. What was built for three Clevelanders would easily hold six San Franciscans. It's Cleveland's economy that led to this. Any one of these properties would be 500k in the ugliest, most ruthless of Oakland's ghettos or millions of dollars in any other San Francisco or Oakland neighborhood.

 

Ohio's housing is not obsolete. If anything, it's too big...and tearing out a wall to make a 2-bd out of a 3-bd duplex unit is not that expensive or difficult. In cities with healthy economies, people do it all the time. Historically, bedroom sizes were smaller and some rooms might be lacking closets, but it's not hard to fix. The issue is how far gone a lot of these properties have gotten. Copper has likely been stripped in a lot of these units too. If there was a huge economic boom in Cleveland, people would buy these and bring them up to modern standards. That's the only difference between Cleveland and an even more crime-ridden (albeit extremely wealthy) city like Oakland.

 

This housing does need renovation to be more modern, but it happens all the time in other Great Lakes cities like Toronto and Chicago. The entire city of Toronto is booming and aged Great Lakes housing is continually updated there. The North Side of Chicago is booming and there are constant improvements to its aged housing. I agree the issue is sadly Cleveland's economy. :| Poverty is still extremely high in that city and the next generation is in really bad shape. The child poverty stats do not look good...

 

The young professional market is limited in Cleveland, and most Midwestern cities outside Chicago and Minneapolis. When I look at what states like Texas have been able to pull off, I realize that business poaching is just the way America works. I don't think Ohio cities are aggressive enough at doing this...

There are abandoned homes in far better shape, in far better neighborhoods, that don't merit the investment to make them nice again.  Most of these pictured were nearing the end of their useful life regardless of neglect; they're just low-end wood frame shacks from 100 years ago, which now have zero commercial activity nearby.  My hope is that we can find a way to build better housing stock the second time around, but also that we can solve our zoning and planning issues before we even try. 

 

These exact same dumps can go for millions of dollars in equally violent and lifeless neighborhoods in Oakland. It's the location, not the housing...one man's low-end wood frame shack is another man's million dollar dream home and an outstanding investment opportunity. With good jobs in proximity (whether by foot or by transit), any urban neighborhood can boom, no matter how violent or ugly. The demand for urban living is that high now. Millennials will live in third world conditions if they can land fun, high-paying jobs that don't require them to drive to work.

 

Cleveland's labor force shrunk so much, it led to this mass abandonment. The economy needs to boom for any of these neighborhoods to have a chance...I second the opinion that the economy needs to come back before anything significant can happen. With that said, transit and the ability to live car-free is huge for Gen Y, so Cleveland needs to build up more transit too. The importance of good mass transit increases the further you get from downtown. Geographic distance does hurt the outer neighborhoods in all cities.

 

Cleveland is prime to start poaching companies from overpriced places like Brooklyn and Oakland...that's what needs to happen. It's time to reverse the business migration. Cleveland lost a ton of good jobs to automation and outsourcing, but also to corporate relocations. Nowadays, the city is no doubt a better business environment. It's sellable as an alternative to much more expensive cities.

 

*Are real estate REIT's focusing on Gen Y rentals big in Cleveland yet? People are making serious bank on those investments these days. I truly believe the Great Lakes cities (all of them) are America's next hot spots due to the simple fresh water issue. Neighborhoods like this are insanely cheap, and at some point with the right leadership, there likely will be some recovery. First, Cleveland poaches companies from dry, thirsty cities in the middle of nowhere like Phoenix and also from expensive saltwater cities. After that, hundreds of thousands of people will move to Cleveland, and they'll stay there because of fresh water, which places like Arizona won't have in the future. Fresh water is such a pressing global issue. The Colorado River basin is screwed...and sadly, the great state of California could be screwed too without large-scale snowfall in the Sierra Nevada...

 

Water could transform Rust Belt into Blue Belt

After exporting residents to the sunny Southwest for decades, the Great Lakes states see water as their new calling card.

 

http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/10/27/southwest-water-midwest-drought/74696826/

Build better housing for who? 

 

Are you kidding? New housing in Cleveland doesn't stay on the market for long. I'll bet it stays on the market for less time than stuff in the suburbs. My family has two houses for sale in the suburbs -- the Middleburg Hts house has been on the market for two years and the Brecksville has been on the market for four years. I follow real estate sales of new homes in the city and they're moving a lot faster than that! In the city, it's the old, unmarketable crap that's not selling, is staying vacant and should be torn down.

 

Did you read the blog or just the part I posted? In an anti-urban state like Ohio, no one is going to establish an urban growth boundary to stop the spread of the outer ring of development (which drags the blight several rings behind it and outward with it). So the only way we're going to stop sprawl is to continue to subsidize a counter-force of development in the city that over-saturates the market, diffuses demand and soaks up credit and other financial resources so they can't be used to foster sprawl. There is a tug of war emerging between the city and suburbs for these resources to add new housing, and the new housing start numbers show the city is winning. Sadly, that also means bulldozing the most decayed/obsolete neighborhoods we haven't bulldozed yet and starting them over with a fresh beginning. The new houses are going to get built no matter what. The only question is where -- in the city or in the suburbs. If it's in the suburbs, than I'm certain the number of vacant houses, demolitions and vacant land in the city would be far greater and the worst neighborhoods would now be out in West Park, Lakewood, Parma, Bedford, Cleveland Heights, Richmond Heights and Euclid.

 

Water could transform Rust Belt into Blue Belt

After exporting residents to the sunny Southwest for decades, the Great Lakes states see water as their new calling card.

 

http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/10/27/southwest-water-midwest-drought/74696826/

 

No offense, but I've been hearing that for decades as well. I heard my dad say that in the 1970s when he worked for a consultant to the old Greater Cleveland Growth Association. They're called desalinization plants.

  IMO the solution is not to make commuting more difficult, but to identify what makes urban neighborhoods work and bring those elements back.

 

True, especially the first part.  The idea that you are going to help the city by intentionally making commuting more difficult is such a non-starter than it only makes ones other views less relevant.

And we can't use "they".  Who is "they"?  Developers?  The city sure is heck isn't in the business of building nice new homes.  Developers have just started infill in trendy neighborhoods around Cleveland.  They're not looking to go into Mt. Pleasant or Corlett any time soon.   

 

Thanks for reminding me to change my sig.

^I'm guessing several are bank walk-aways, meaning foreclosure proceedings started, but the bank said "no thanks" part way through. Which means the defaulting borrower/homeowner still owns them, technically. Which means they pretty much have toxic title until the county can complete tax foreclosure and the land bank takes possession.  These houses have negative value. Given the back taxes and violations, these properties are liabilities, not assets. They aren't worth a dollar. And as KJP noted, even if the city cleared the violations, it makes no financial sense to invest $60K for something that will be worth only $40K when you're finished.

 

a way out of that is a massive investment in them something like the old tier program that basically saved abandoned old ny brownstone shells in harlem, bed-sty, etc. -- basically the city came in and claimed the properties, stabilized the structural stuff, redid the wiring and plumbing blocks at a time and sold them off via a lottery system. that took a lot of $, work and coordination and i am not sure if these are worth the expense and efforts, but i would like to hope a few stretches of these structures are. of course it wouldn't have worked out well if the economy didn't improve along with it. there are no easy decisions here, that is for sure.

 

^The Cuyahoga county land bank does stabilize (or even rehab) and resell some abandoned properties, so even now it's not all demo, fortunately: http://www.cuyahogalandbank.org/propertiesByImage.php?where=fs

 

  IMO the solution is not to make commuting more difficult, but to identify what makes urban neighborhoods work and bring those elements back.

 

True, especially the first part.  The idea that you are going to help the city by intentionally making commuting more difficult is such a non-starter than it only makes ones other views less relevant.

 

Just to nip this in the bud, no one above suggested intentionally making commuting more difficult.

^I'm guessing several are bank walk-aways, meaning foreclosure proceedings started, but the bank said "no thanks" part way through. Which means the defaulting borrower/homeowner still owns them, technically. Which means they pretty much have toxic title until the county can complete tax foreclosure and the land bank takes possession.  These houses have negative value. Given the back taxes and violations, these properties are liabilities, not assets. They aren't worth a dollar. And as KJP noted, even if the city cleared the violations, it makes no financial sense to invest $60K for something that will be worth only $40K when you're finished.

 

a way out of that is a massive investment in them something like the old tier program that basically saved abandoned old ny brownstone shells in harlem, bed-sty, etc. -- basically the city came in and claimed the properties, stabilized the structural stuff, redid the wiring and plumbing blocks at a time and sold them off via a lottery system. that took a lot of $, work and coordination and i am not sure if these are worth the expense and efforts, but i would like to hope a few stretches of these structures are. of course it wouldn't have worked out well if the economy didn't improve along with it. there are no easy decisions here, that is for sure.

 

 

 

 

Regarding bank owned properties, many properties owned by banks are FHA insured.  In order for the banks to get paid back for the failed mortgage by the FHA, the bank must bring the property into total compliance before the property can be conveyed.  Properties in distressed areas are often broken into the day after the bank does the needed repairs.  There's a house on Bartlett and E. 138th which has been held by US Bank for over three years- simply because every time the bank does work inside the house, someone comes in and strips it. 

 

The problem is that banks don't usually have a break-even point when it comes to installing needed mechanicals.  How often will a bank be willing to install a furnace or hot water tank before the cost of those features exceeds the total of the loan?  Most times the banks will continue to try to get paid back before even considering tearing the house down, street be damned.  Meanwhile, neighbors live next door to a house which is constantly being broken into.  It's the bank's responsibility to make sure properties titled to them are clean and secure; but even with billions of dollars in assets, many banks have problems doing so in hard-hit areas of the city.

^The Cuyahoga county land bank does stabilize (or even rehab) and resell some abandoned properties, so even now it's not all demo, fortunately: http://www.cuyahogalandbank.org/propertiesByImage.php?where=fs

 

  IMO the solution is not to make commuting more difficult, but to identify what makes urban neighborhoods work and bring those elements back.

 

True, especially the first part.  The idea that you are going to help the city by intentionally making commuting more difficult is such a non-starter than it only makes ones other views less relevant.

 

Just to nip this in the bud, no one above suggested intentionally making commuting more difficult.

 

OK but public dollars are being spent to do just that on the West Shoreway as we speak.  It seems to me that roads and freeways absorb more than their share of blame for urban blight here.  Chicago and Minneapolis have done just fine with wide roads and substantial freeway networks.  Union Avenue is quite cozy compared to some major streets in Cleveland, it's relatively isolated from freeways, there's still quite a bit of active industry in the area, and yet Union is the most blighted street in town.  Focus on the city itself.

 

I believe it's time we started addressing that blight in a more direct fashion.  Start with fixing up the remaining storefronts along Union and getting businesses in them.  Cleveland is spending millions tearing up and replacing every road and park in the city.  Instead, we should be focusing on the city itself.

OK but public dollars are being spent to do just that on the West Shoreway as we speak.  It seems to me that roads and freeways absorb more than their share of blame for urban blight here.  Chicago and Minneapolis have done just fine with wide roads and substantial freeway networks.  Union Avenue is quite cozy compared to some major streets in Cleveland, it's relatively isolated from freeways, there's still quite a bit of active industry in the area, and yet Union is the most blighted street in town.  Focus on the city itself.

 

I believe it's time we started addressing that blight in a more direct fashion.  Start with fixing up the remaining storefronts along Union and getting businesses in them.  Cleveland is spending millions tearing up and replacing every road and park in the city.  Instead, we should be focusing on the city itself.

 

Let's please not bog this thread down with more shoreway discussion or a broader discussion of highways.  But putting the Shoreway completely aside, if you're really interested in "what makes urban neighborhoods work and bring those elements back," it might in some cases include things like adding curbside parking and mid-block cross-walks to commercial districts. Those things slow down cars.  Supporting those things is not the same as purposefully trying to inconvenience drivers for the sole purpose of inconveniencing them.

 

[EDITED to copy 327's previous message to this page of the thread]

BTW, funny that 327 mentions Chicago and Minneapolis which are undertaking projects to slow traffic down by eliminating lanes of traffic and converting them for use by bikes or buses (or both). BTW, north Lake Shore Drive (aka LSD) is targeted for a speed reduction to 35 mph. These are part of growing efforts to substantially reduce the number of cars in these and other cities.

Several posts in this thread had already mentioned highways and easy commutes as a problem, if not the problem, for this neighborhood.

 

Do we really believe the width or speed of Union/Miles/Harvard is the main issue here?  Is that something we need to invest in, on streets where there's not a store open for miles?  Given that the other cities mentioned aren't dealing with this kind of abandonment, I'm not sure it matters if they are slowing down some roads.  There's hardly any traffic at all in this part of Cleveland.  People have all day to cross the street, but why bother?  Nothing's there. 

 

If Minneapolis had been a wreck, and then spent a bunch of money on road narrowing, and then experienced blight reduction... ok maybe.  But that correlation hasn't been established.  Minneapolis has the same type of roads as Cleveland, tons of freeways, similar built environment, similar sprawl, similar landscape... minus half the city collapsing.  We don't need to get rid of lanes or highways, we need to fix up properties.  Renovated properties generate new tax dollars, which can help to renovate additional properties.  This is especially true of commercial properties, which also help attract people to neighborhoods.

At the risk of spinning this further of topic, I don't think it's fair to compare Minneapolis to Cleveland.  Minneapolis has seen far less racial segregation, in part because there wasn't as many blacks migrating there as there were in midwestern cities during the industrial booms.  It also has more Fortune 500 companies, as well as the nations largest private company (Cargill).    In addition, its economy is propped up by it's twin city St Paul with it's government jobs and major university. 

 

Cleveland needs to worry about amenities like roads and bikeways to appeal to a younger, more affluent population, but ultimately it needs jobs, jobs, jobs to get them to move here.  That is something Minneapolis has always excelled at....

Several posts in this thread had already mentioned highways and easy commutes as a problem, if not the problem, for this neighborhood.

 

This is just silly semantics I think. And inferring a suggested policy prescription that was never offered anywhere in this thread. You are welcome to think that traffic congestion and commute times have no bearing on people's residential location decision, but there are mountains of evidence that contradict that view.

 

EDIT: this response was unnecessary combative of me. I just don't want this thread do get swamped by transportation policy discussion. I offered commuting ease as one of several factors in the region's development pattern and property value gradient, but I meant it purely descriptively. It wasn't a critique.

^The Cuyahoga county land bank does stabilize (or even rehab) and resell some abandoned properties, so even now it's not all demo, fortunately: http://www.cuyahogalandbank.org/propertiesByImage.php?where=fs

 

 

this is great to see the process in place. i notice its rather willy nilly all over the county. perhaps a connected strip of this blighted housing stock could be rehabbed at once in combination with filling them with something like cleveland's share of syrian or other refugees. they might be more comfortable closer together initially rather than spread out given what is available. something transformative like that might be worth a try.

Several posts in this thread had already mentioned highways and easy commutes as a problem, if not the problem, for this neighborhood.

 

Do we really believe the width or speed of Union/Miles/Harvard is the main issue here?  Is that something we need to invest in, on streets where there's not a store open for miles?  Given that the other cities mentioned aren't dealing with this kind of abandonment, I'm not sure it matters if they are slowing down some roads.  There's hardly any traffic at all in this part of Cleveland.  People have all day to cross the street, but why bother?  Nothing's there. 

 

If Minneapolis had been a wreck, and then spent a bunch of money on road narrowing, and then experienced blight reduction... ok maybe.  But that correlation hasn't been established.  Minneapolis has the same type of roads as Cleveland, tons of freeways, similar built environment, similar sprawl, similar landscape... minus half the city collapsing.  We don't need to get rid of lanes or highways, we need to fix up properties.  Renovated properties generate new tax dollars, which can help to renovate additional properties.  This is especially true of commercial properties, which also help attract people to neighborhoods.

 

Second the focus on commercial properties being critical. Far too often, these are the buildings that are lost first. You can lose half your houses, but when a neighborhood doesn't have a walkable, urban retail and entertainment district, recovery is unlikely. :|

^If that holds true, many of Cleveland's east-side cooridors are lost.  Large sections of St. Clair's streetwall in the residential neighborhoods have been demolished.  Same with Kinsman, E. 93rd, Quincy, and others.

Several posts in this thread had already mentioned highways and easy commutes as a problem, if not the problem, for this neighborhood.

 

This is just silly semantics I think. And inferring a suggested policy prescription that was never offered anywhere in this thread. You are welcome to think that traffic congestion and commute times have no bearing on people's residential location decision, but there are mountains of evidence that contradict that view.

 

I'm trying to focus on solutions for the neighborhood depicted here.  To me these traffic issues seem pretty far afield, but that's just my individual view.  I don't disagree with your view, I guess I just have the issues ranked differently in terms of priority.  I think it's safe to say, based on photos such as these, that we have a serious blight problem in our community.  And it seems to be getting worse in a hurry, which suggests that current policies intended to help may not be working.

 

Sure, some of the blame can be deflected to larger trends and uncontrollable abstractions.  But is it productive to do that with all the blame?  I don't believe so, and that's why I see value in discussing alternative solutions that are within local control.  Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing!

^I agree. Like I added to my previous post, I wasn't trying to "blame" or even propose policy changes. Just sketching out the relevant context that makes these properties so valueless that owners literally abandon them.

^If that holds true, many of Cleveland's east-side cooridors are lost.  Large sections of St. Clair's streetwall in the residential neighborhoods have been demolished.  Same with Kinsman, E. 93rd, Quincy, and others.

 

Not irrevocably!  If we commit to their importance, and funnel available resources into to bringing them back, those neighborhoods all have a shot.  What we can't do is allow the vacant gaps to get filled in with surface parking, private single-use facilities, tract housing behind fences, or anything else that's antithetical to a pedestrian's interests.  And if we could avoid future demo of our remaining historic mixed-use building stock, that would be super helpful.

^The Cuyahoga county land bank does stabilize (or even rehab) and resell some abandoned properties, so even now it's not all demo, fortunately: http://www.cuyahogalandbank.org/propertiesByImage.php?where=fs

 

 

this is great to see the process in place. i notice its rather willy nilly all over the county. perhaps a connected strip of this blighted housing stock could be rehabbed at once in combination with filling them with something like cleveland's share of syrian or other refugees. they might be more comfortable closer together initially rather than spread out given what is available. something transformative like that might be worth a try.

 

This approach has been adopted by the Cincinnati Port Authority for use in the Evanston neighborhood that looks, in parts, fairly similar to some of the shots in this thread.  While continuously hampered by budget limitations due to a lack of a substantial funding stream, the Port Authority has launched a program to buy and rehab 30+ abandoned homes that are currently owned by the Hamilton County Land Bank.  They are targeting homes closest to the heart of the business district, and marketing them to home buyers as affordable, high quality housing with very close proximity to Xavier University, and with easy access to Uptown and Downtown.  I don't know any specifics related to the success of the sales effort so far, but on a recent drive through the area, I couldn't believe how much better the neighborhood looked even with just a handful (~7-10) of the homes renovated.  The Port has said that they would like to expand the program if it is successful, either within Evanston or to other communities with similar problems and potential. 

 

Update: Found an article that better explains the program: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/blog/2015/01/port-uthority-hopes-evanston-rehab-shows-it-can.html

Unfortunately I'm starting to hear from guys who are into rehabbing old housing that there's some unscrupulous real estate businessfolk starting to corrupt the landbank process. The complaint is that some undue influence is being used to acquire landbank properties near revitalizing neighborhoods and then try to sell them at inflated prices. So they just sit there vacant when developers wanting to return them to productive use were locked out of the process.

^I'm not sure I understand the specific complaint. Are these guys saying they are submitting the highest bids for these properties but the Land Bank sells them to someone else anyway? Or are they just complaining that speculators are willing to pay more because they have unrealistic re-sale expectations? Would be fairly straightforward for a reporter to investigate what happens to former Land Bank properties. Sometimes I miss having a fully staffed daily paper in town.

I wasn't following it too closely either because I wasn't going to write anything about it. The person who told me thought I was still a reporter or could help me find one for him. Unfortunately I don't know if there's any journalists left in this town.