I am creating this thread because I want to talk about the different neighborhoods that exist in Cleveland, and their overall health.  If there is another thread similar to this, please move it there.  But I guess I am questioning the constant negativity Cleveland seems to get from outsiders who try to paint it as Detroit when it comes to abandonment.  Maybe it's just me, but Cleveland seems to have a pretty good density of housing that exists all over the city outside of areas like Hough, Fairfax and Kinsman (and even though a lot of it is new public housing, Central too).  Yes, there are areas with abandoned houses that line the streets, but it doesn't seem to have gone all urban prairie like large sections of Detroit have or the northside of St. Louis outside of the 3 or 4 neighborhoods I just mentioned.  It seems like there are dense neighborhoods with a consistent batch of houses down almost all streets in places like Lee-Miles, Corlett, Mount Pleasant, Buckeye-Shaker (bascially SE Cleveland) and neighborhoods closer to the lake in NE Cleveland.  This doesn't include much of the westside neighborhoods that have the consistent density down most of their streets.  A lot of these are struggling working class neighborhoods, but with movements popping up with moving back into the city, it seems like Cleveland already has housing stock in place to accommodate newcomers.  What are places like Old Brooklyn, Kamm's Corners, Jefferson and West Boulevard like?  Will Clark-Fulton start to experience a Detroit-Shoreway comeback?

A fairly large contributor to the population decline in cleveland can be attributed to smaller family sizes. My old Brooklyn double was built in 1925, as was just about every house around me. Each floor is 2 bedrooms 1 bath... roughly 1100 sq ft.

 

In 1925 each half likely had a couple with a child or two living there (imagine children having to share bedrooms today... the horror!) But now it's just me in the one side and a couple living downstairs. That's the same house going from 6 or 7 people down to 3. Spread that across the city and you get a pretty big chunk of the population decline.

 

Old Brooklyn on average looks like a slightly cheaper version of Lakewood. Broadview and Pearl have both been rebuilt in the last 5 years with fewer car lanes, more bike lanes and on street parking.

 

To me, the biggest problems lies with the commercial districts that run along the main streets. So many of the older brick buildings have been neglected for so long that it's going to take a s**t-ton of money to rehab many of them to the quality of Ohio City or Gordon Square.  Even worse, so much has been torn down to build Dollar General, Rite Aid, CVS,  and Walgreens with 100 spot parking lots. It really makes it hard to build momentum in a neighborhood commercial strip when there are entire blocks that have zero street presence.

 

 

[Music]They paved paradise, and put up a CVS. [/music]

To me, the biggest problems lies with the commercial districts that run along the main streets. So many of the older brick buildings have been neglected for so long that it's going to take a s**t-ton of money to rehab many of them to the quality of Ohio City or Gordon Square. 

 

North Collinwood (north of the Shoreway) doesn't seem to have a lot of gaps in the housing pattern, but the former commercial district along E. 156th is definitely as you describe.  Lots of vacancies or what I would call "low profile" shops (you can't tell what they are as you pass by) even in the buildings that have second floor apartments.  The area has quite a bit of potential as it lies between Waterloo and Lakeshore both of which are doing reasonably well.  Like my old neighborhood (across from the Hard Rock Casino), Waterloo has one prominent attraction but could really use another to build some synergy.

To me, the biggest problems lies with the commercial districts that run along the main streets. So many of the older brick buildings have been neglected for so long that it's going to take a s**t-ton of money to rehab many of them to the quality of Ohio City or Gordon Square. 

 

North Collinwood (north of the Shoreway) doesn't seem to have a lot of gaps in the housing pattern, but the former commercial district along E. 156th is definitely as you describe.  Lots of vacancies or what I would call "low profile" shops (you can't tell what they are as you pass by) even in the buildings that have second floor apartments.  The area has quite a bit of potential as it lies between Waterloo and Lakeshore both of which are doing reasonably well.  Like my old neighborhood (across from the Hard Rock Casino), Waterloo has one prominent attraction but could really use another to build some synergy.

 

It will be interesting to track the parallel between Waterloo and Gordon Square. While they certainly aren't the same they do share many like qualities. Perhaps Waterloo will be getting ambitious new residential projects sooner than later.

 

Ok, here's an observation I've had, and pardon my ignorance if this isn't more common in other places, but it always struck me as odd that there seems to be not a single "good" Cleveland neighborhood that doesn't significantly border a "bad" one. Whether it's Edgewater, Detroit Shoreway, Waterloo, Tremont, OC, Shaker Square etc they are all seemingly hemmed in by areas largely considered unsafe. At what point will those "unsafe" gaps ever get filled in? And what kind of limitations on progress do they actually pose?

I was actually talking about something similar to this recently, but specifically in the context of "old money" neighborhoods. In Cincinnati and Dayton, Hyde Park and Oakwood have a net "dragging-up" effect where all of the neighborhoods adjacent to them are in nearly-as-good of shape as the most-desirable area, even if those neighborhoods/cities drop off in quality as you move away from the epicenter. The same thing sort of happens in Columbus on the north side, but Bexley touches some rough areas of Columbus on the western edge, but it's also isolated from the city by a river and a rail bridge.

 

 

In Cleveland, there seems to be a net "dragging-down" effect, in that the tony areas of concentrated wealth can't pull up the surrounding areas the way Oakwood does with the cities of Dayton and Kettering. Instead you see the inverse, where the worst parts of Cleveland Heights and Shaker border East Cleveland and Cleveland, respectively. Of course I guess you can safely argue Forest Hills *is* the nicest part of EC, but I'd still say that it ends up making the CH side of the neighborhood overall worse relative to the adjacent nicer ares of CH.

 

 

As for the newer hipster neighborhoods abutting bad neighborhoods, I don't think that's an exclusively Cleveland phenomenon, and is just a side effect of these areas getting repopulated. My neighborhood of Wright-Dunbar in Dayton is one of the safest areas in the city, but we're surrounded on three sides by some of the most dangerous zip codes in Ohio. And of course all of Detroit's "nice" neighborhoods border bombed-out urban prairie.

Great idea for a thread.

 

In my experience, culturally, neighborhoods in the city revolve more so around streets than neighborhood names, per-se.  As an example, it may be Mt. Pleasant, but you'll hear folks say they're from E. 116th, E. 93rd, or E. 131st and Gay, etc. instead of saying, "Mt. Pleasant".  It changes from neighborhood to neighborhood, however, but is pretty much the same throughout the east side primarily African American neighborhoods. You'll hear people from Glenville say they're from "The Clair" (St. Clair), or "112th and St. Clair" as an example more so than saying they're from Glenville.  Slavic Village, Shaker Square, Larchmere, etc. are different stories though they're all east-side neighborhoods.   

 

As far as neighborhood build and what existing bones there are to work with, the quality and supply of current housing and commercial stock has been diminishing in several east side neighborhoods for some time.  You'll hear a lot of the older folks in the neighborhoods say the phrase, "Used to be".  As an example, "Kinsman used to be a great street with every type of shop you would need", or "St. Clair used to have a bar on every corner and a bar in-between" (same as I remember E. 185th being like when I was a kid), or "E. 105th used to be the Gold Coast", before the neighborhoods saw the level of disinvestment that permeates them today.

 

As far as the build of the neighborhoods are concerned, many on the east side have great bones to work with; however, without a re-population of these neighborhoods, they'll only continue to decay as the region spreads farther out and the regional population remains stagnate at best.  As an example, a house that looks like your typical Cleveland Double may actually be a four-suiter which held several families back in the day.  E. 117th and Union has several of these four-suite Cleveland Doubles, but the street itself is virtually abandoned save for a couple of remaining families and tenants.  I could only imagine the street activity which used to characterize the city's main streets way back when. 

On much of Cleveland's east side (and part of the west) the condition of the housing stock is just awful.  And that includes occupied units.  My work these days involves going in and checking them out.  A lot of these tenants are not on leases, they just come and go as best they can, and the landlords maintain accordingly-- meaning they don't maintain at all.  The lower-middle "working" class these neighborhoods were built for has been decimated and replaced by a huge underclass. 

That was my experience as well while working at Sun Newspapers. Shortly before the Great Recession, I covered a program by a couple of the west-side CDCs (Tremont West, Clark Metro, Stockyards -- and ironically sponsored by Countrywide Mortgage!) to provide some basic fix-up services (exterior painting, roof repair, porch repair, etc) to low-income homeowner-occupants. This didn't involve rented homes. The conditions of these homes a decade ago was pretty bad. In some cases, the paint was literally holding the wood together. So many of these houses aren't going to make it much longer, and probably many of them shouldn't since they were designed for lifestyles and furniture types that no longer exist. The neighborhoods that are building new homes are the ones that are going to more viable in the next 10-30 years than those that aren't building new or significantly rebuilding old housing.

 

I read an article a couple of weeks ago during the Great UO Vacation in which someone said that most Greater Clevelanders live in a home that was the first human structure ever built on that spot of land. I had never thought of it that way before. It shows how little effort we put into remaking and renewing our neighborhoods. Instead we replace them somewhere else, usually farther away from the urban core and on virgin land.

 

Here's some interesting housing stock stats (from 2015)...

 

----------------------BUILT BEFORE 1940----BUILT 1940-TO-1989----BUILT AFTER 1989

Cuyahoga County.........30.9 percent................59.5 percent................9.6 percent

Cleveland....................54.4 percent................39.5 percent................6.1 percent

Cleveland Heights ........56.5 percent................40.6 percent................2.9 percent

Euclid..........................16.2 percent................80.4 percent................3.4 percent

Lakewood....................65.2 percent................33.4 percent................1.4 percent

Parma..........................9.8 percent.................84.4 percent................5.8 percent

SOURCE: http://www.thehousingcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Rental-Factbook-Cuyahoga-County-FINAL-DRAFT-2015.pdf

 

Those are just a few communities. The age of housing stock in Euclid and Parma is very typical for most Cuyahoga County post-war baby-boom suburbs like Mayfield Heights, Lyndhurst, Maple Heights, Brook Park, Fairview Park, etc. But the age of housing stock in inner-ring suburbs has to be a concern and a focus for those cities to keep their housing stock in good condition. For Cleveland, given its amount of vacant land, it would be wise to not only try to keep its housing stock in good condition (difficult to do with median household incomes declining countywide, but rising in Cleveland). Perhaps just as important is to replace obsolete housing with new, more competitive housing. Cleveland is doing that better than its inner-ring neighbors, but not good enough on a countywide level. It needs to be higher than the county-wide average when it comes to newer offerings.

 

 

I think this is probably fairly obvious, but a vast amount of Northeast Ohio's housing stock could probably be completely torn down and replaced without causing any heartburn for preservationists. Cleveland's best architecture has always been in its commercial stock, and although some neighborhoods obviously have some standout homes, much of the East Side (not to say anything about other suburbs like Euclid) would probably be better served through teardowns and complete rebuilds. As long as whatever gets built in its stead conforms to existing grids and doesn't constitute a bunch of McMansions with attached garages like some of the garbage that's been built in Hough, I personally wouldn't have too much heartburn with this solution. The problem I see is that it would have to be able to create a critical mass right from the start - you'd probably likely need a whole neighborhood rebuilt by a developer or a team of developers, New-Urbanist style (although conforming to the existing grid) and get a bunch of commercial tenants, and even then you still might have trouble getting over the stigma that this effectively-brand-new neighborhood is in Mount Pleasant and not Avon.

To me, the biggest problems lies with the commercial districts that run along the main streets. So many of the older brick buildings have been neglected for so long that it's going to take a s**t-ton of money to rehab many of them to the quality of Ohio City or Gordon Square. 

 

North Collinwood (north of the Shoreway) doesn't seem to have a lot of gaps in the housing pattern, but the former commercial district along E. 156th is definitely as you describe.  Lots of vacancies or what I would call "low profile" shops (you can't tell what they are as you pass by) even in the buildings that have second floor apartments.  The area has quite a bit of potential as it lies between Waterloo and Lakeshore both of which are doing reasonably well.  Like my old neighborhood (across from the Hard Rock Casino), Waterloo has one prominent attraction but could really use another to build some synergy.

 

It will be interesting to track the parallel between Waterloo and Gordon Square. While they certainly aren't the same they do share many like qualities. Perhaps Waterloo will be getting ambitious new residential projects sooner than later.

 

Ok, here's an observation I've had, and pardon my ignorance if this isn't more common in other places, but it always struck me as odd that there seems to be not a single "good" Cleveland neighborhood that doesn't significantly border a "bad" one. Whether it's Edgewater, Detroit Shoreway, Waterloo, Tremont, OC, Shaker Square etc they are all seemingly hemmed in by areas largely considered unsafe. At what point will those "unsafe" gaps ever get filled in? And what kind of limitations on progress do they actually pose?

 

I'm not so sure the Grovewood area north of Waterloo is actually "unsafe".  It's nothing like the Lakeview projects which certainly create problems for northern W. 25th but for sure haven't been a show stopper.  Or East Cleveland near Murray Hill and UC.  To the south is the Shoreway.  East and west are much like Grovewood.

 

The thing about Waterloo is it's ten blocks long and only about a block wide.  I wasn't there yet, but there was a major construction project that was highly hyped but may have done more harm than good:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2014/10/waterloo_will_celebrate_a_new.html

 

The vacancy rate is definitely higher than 6% now.

 

It has a lot of small attractions such as Cleveland Clothing, Star Pop (which my daughter loves), and Music Saves and some galleries (Naji's is actually somewhat isolated) but the Beachland is the only big one.  Classics Sports Bar by the Slovenian Home  (fka Packy Malley's) doesn't really fit the neighborhood but it's busy and appears trouble free and that means $ and that is a good thing.    It will be interesting to see what happens with the "gold building" on the corner that is supposed to be torn down.  Even parking would help, Callaloo is often busy and went from charging on their lot to reserving it for themselves which means there is demand.  The big concerts definitely demonstrate that.

 

I'm not too familiar with Gordon Park but IIRC they had several prominent things going on, not just one.  And the area between Waterloo and Lakeshore isn't all that bad but it's not all that great and there's a lot of distance between them in terms of neighborhoods.

I think this is probably fairly obvious, but a vast amount of Northeast Ohio's housing stock could probably be completely torn down and replaced without causing any heartburn for preservationists. Cleveland's best architecture has always been in its commercial stock, and although some neighborhoods obviously have some standout homes, much of the East Side (not to say anything about other suburbs like Euclid) would probably be better served through teardowns and complete rebuilds. As long as whatever gets built in its stead conforms to existing grids and doesn't constitute a bunch of McMansions with attached garages like some of the garbage that's been built in Hough, I personally wouldn't have too much heartburn with this solution. The problem I see is that it would have to be able to create a critical mass right from the start - you'd probably likely need a whole neighborhood rebuilt by a developer or a team of developers, New-Urbanist style (although conforming to the existing grid) and get a bunch of commercial tenants, and even then you still might have trouble getting over the stigma that this effectively-brand-new neighborhood is in Mount Pleasant and not Avon.

 

I kind of agree, although many of these older houses have irreplaceable architectural details inside.  The hardwoods used in their construction are not replaceable. 

 

Totally agree that the commercial stock and apartment buildings are the real treasures, but it can be tough to get people on board with preserving them.  Some stand against anything that's recognizably urban, and can't picture these structures without a drug deal happening out front.  Others just classify them as "old" and consider them no less disposable than the housing on the sidestreets.  I think it's imperative to preserve the ones we have left.  The amount we're spending on demo would be better spent on that.

I think this is probably fairly obvious, but a vast amount of Northeast Ohio's housing stock could probably be completely torn down and replaced without causing any heartburn for preservationists. Cleveland's best architecture has always been in its commercial stock, and although some neighborhoods obviously have some standout homes, much of the East Side (not to say anything about other suburbs like Euclid) would probably be better served through teardowns and complete rebuilds. As long as whatever gets built in its stead conforms to existing grids and doesn't constitute a bunch of McMansions with attached garages like some of the garbage that's been built in Hough, I personally wouldn't have too much heartburn with this solution. The problem I see is that it would have to be able to create a critical mass right from the start - you'd probably likely need a whole neighborhood rebuilt by a developer or a team of developers, New-Urbanist style (although conforming to the existing grid) and get a bunch of commercial tenants, and even then you still might have trouble getting over the stigma that this effectively-brand-new neighborhood is in Mount Pleasant and not Avon.

 

I kind of agree, although many of these older houses have irreplaceable architectural details inside.  The hardwoods used in their construction are not replaceable. 

 

 

This is particularly true of the pre-1940 construction, not so true of construction beginning with the post-war boom.

Except for the homes built by industrial employers for low-level workers. Many of these homes were very basic and contained few architectural amenities.

Except for the homes built by industrial employers for low-level workers. Many of these homes were very basic and contained few architectural amenities.

 

Great point. Whoever built my house in eastern Lakewood was either on drugs or just not good with a tape measure. Union carbide??

Great point. Whoever built my house in eastern Lakewood was either on drugs or just not good with a tape measure. Union carbide??

 

Is it near/south of Franklin? If so, probably.

 

By contrast, the beautiful homes on Grace Avenue were built for Union Carbide's executives.

Great point. Whoever built my house in eastern Lakewood was either on drugs or just not good with a tape measure. Union carbide??

 

Is it near/south of Franklin? If so, probably.

 

By contrast, the beautiful homes on Grace Avenue were built for Union Carbide's executives.

 

Yeah. Birdtown.

 

Grace is beautiful. It sort of reminds me of a narrower, straighter version of West Blvd.

Yes, Birdtown was built by Union Carbide in the late 1800s, 20-30 years before other homes just west of Madison Park were built. West 117th was the end of of the Madison streetcar line until the 1910s (the carbarn was where Aldi's is today) when real estate developers convinced the Cleveland Railway Co. to extend the Madison line westward to the Spring Garden wye track as a "promotional line" to promote the development of southern Lakewood. Back then, the land was a mix of woods, vineyards and natural gas wells.

That’s amazing!

I wonder what happened to the natural gas wells? 

@TerryMetterJr

Ever wonder the names of the men who redlined Cleveland?

 

 

More about redlining......

 

This material has been digitized and is available through OSU's Kirwan Institute http://guides.osu.edu/maps-geospatial-data/maps/redlining/ … This is page 4 of the "Type A" area descriptions

 

The University of Richmond's Mapping Inequality project has an interactive map that allows you to click an area to view its description https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/41.4900/-81.6740&opacity=0.8&city=cleveland-oh