Wonder if DCA could take this over. 

Historical tidbit -- Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew decided to make Singapore a model, garden city after watching the steady decline of Lusaka, Zambia in the post-colonial era. 

22 hours ago, gruver said:

Historical tidbit -- Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew decided to make Singapore a model, garden city after watching the steady decline of Lusaka, Zambia in the post-colonial era. 

The attention to detail in Singapore is absolutely incredible. Everywhere you look is beautiful. Just take care of what we have, and do it well, and the city would look wonderful. I was blown away with Singapore. All our city leaders should be “forced” to visit there to see what’s possible by taking care of what you have.

Edited August 10, 20213 yr by marty15

Well, just make sure you abide by their many laws: https://meijiinternships.com/singapores-weird-strange-unique-laws/

Singapore can't be compared to any large city in America. It's predominantly ethnic Chinese while the US is a multicultural country. Its people have a strong sense of cohesion/rule following while the American mentality is all over the map from a belief in a unique American exceptionalism to the toxic freedom most of us abhor. 

 

I agree it would be smart to not only maintain our existing assets but also to construct new ones that benefit the community as a whole. Unfortunately America doesn't work that way. Because of our characteristics we will never all pull in the same direction.

Toxic freedom?

Let's get back on topic.

Just a small change but Betts added awnings to the Schofield Building and they look great! 

Does anyone know if/how the new SHW headquarters project will adhere to downtown’s streetscape design standards (if they exist) and how it will all meld together?

On 8/31/2021 at 9:36 PM, OHinMD said:

Does anyone know if/how the new SHW headquarters project will adhere to downtown’s streetscape design standards (if they exist) and how it will all meld together?

We have standards? That's funny...

Does anyone know if/how the new SHW headquarters project will adhere to downtown’s streetscape design standards (if they exist) and how it will all meld together?

Serious question. What standards?

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So I mostly visit downtown Cleveland on weekends.  It always seems the streets are way over scaled for the little traffic they hold on those visits.  Are they ever bumper to bumper during the week?  

53 minutes ago, OH_Really said:

So I mostly visit downtown Cleveland on weekends.  It always seems the streets are way over scaled for the little traffic they hold on those visits.  Are they ever bumper to bumper during the week?  

 

They were prior to the pandemic. Streets like East 9th were busy during rush hours and Euclid on weekend evenings. 

 

Couldn't find a thread for the Cleveland Tree Coalition/tree canopy/urban heat island, so I thought this PBS story may fit here. 

With a new mayor coming in, I was thinking about putting together that app I was talking about a year or so ago, to take photos of issue spots (trees, lights, etc.), kind of a UO 311 App. 

 

It would be based on the same stuff the city has full access to (Esri) so they could easily rip and replicate if we made enough of a splash.

 

Also, awnings are back up at the old Ragin Cajun/Tilted Kilt/Panini's on Prospect/Ontario

 

 

City of Cleveland Heights has one that i blow up constantly.  App works great - city maintenance... well...

 

19 hours ago, NorthShore647 said:

 

Couldn't find a thread for the Cleveland Tree Coalition/tree canopy/urban heat island, so I thought this PBS story may fit here. 

 

There was an interesting comment I saw on this story that echoed something I've thought for a long time.

 

One problem with tree canopy is that a lot of these old huge oaks, maples, sweet gums, sycamores etc. get replaced by some kind of semi dwarf tree that will never be more than 15 feet tall. I wish the city would focus more on planting big trees, as big trees do a lot more to restore the urban forest feel than small trees do.

on the bright side, the unabated weeds will someday tower over Euclid, Chester and Carnegie.

1 hour ago, LlamaLawyer said:

 

There was an interesting comment I saw on this story that echoed something I've thought for a long time.

 

One problem with tree canopy is that a lot of these old huge oaks, maples, sweet gums, sycamores etc. get replaced by some kind of semi dwarf tree that will never be more than 15 feet tall. I wish the city would focus more on planting big trees, as big trees do a lot more to restore the urban forest feel than small trees do.

Understandable, since 15 foot trees don't usually knock down power lines or do substantial property damage, but I still wish we'd plant bigger trees. Nothing looks better to my eyes than neighborhoods where the houses are all dwarfed by large trees. Or streets where the canopy extends over the whole street. Trees are generally a major part of the reason when older neighborhoods look better than the newer ones. Clear cutting is such a travesty. 

2 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said:

 

There was an interesting comment I saw on this story that echoed something I've thought for a long time.

 

One problem with tree canopy is that a lot of these old huge oaks, maples, sweet gums, sycamores etc. get replaced by some kind of semi dwarf tree that will never be more than 15 feet tall. I wish the city would focus more on planting big trees, as big trees do a lot more to restore the urban forest feel than small trees do.

 

I doubt that will happen.  The power companies want trees that will never get as tall as their power lines.  Thus the dwarf species.

29 minutes ago, X said:

 

I doubt that will happen.  The power companies want trees that will never get as tall as their power lines.  Thus the dwarf species.

In densifying areas, the power companies should bury the lines.  Of course then the roots are a problem, not the top hamper.

Apparently Cleveland is the only city that doesn’t know how to make it work. Or just doesn’t care.  Concrete over everything. 

3 hours ago, Ethan said:

Understandable, since 15 foot trees don't usually knock down power lines or do substantial property damage, but I still wish we'd plant bigger trees. Nothing looks better to my eyes than neighborhoods where the houses are all dwarfed by large trees. Or streets where the canopy extends over the whole street. Trees are generally a major part of the reason when older neighborhoods look better than the newer ones. Clear cutting is such a travesty. 

That's obviously a reason, it's just not a very good reason. Do a Google streetview basically anywhere in Portland and look at the trees they have towering over power lines. They somehow manage it. Look at Lake Avenue in the Edgewater neighborhood. It's apparently a manageable problem there, so why not everywhere else? And there's lots of places we plant dwarf trees that don't realistically threaten power lines. On Chester through midtown there are a bunch of nine foot trees planted in the median even though three lanes of traffic separate the trees from any power lines. You could easily plant a bunch of 50 foot trees in the median and rarely if ever would they fall on a line.

Forget it, guys.  It's FirstEnergy's city, we just live here!

I've got to say the planters look fantastic outside of *The* May.  

 

Those do look nice.  Hopefully more property owners will raise the standard so that others will feel compelled to keep up.  Sadly - too many do the least possible and establish a very low bar. 

 

Second the desire for more big trees. This is my favorite tree canopy in the city. This is the stretch of Larchmere between Moreland and Coventry, and the side of the street that's in Cleveland:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4870284,-81.5886554,3a,75y,94.26h,87.81t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smahLefJLYWvq_KbCXZm_lg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

I wish we were still planting trees like this as street trees. This is how we became the Forest City in the first place.

They're making repairs to Euclid sidewalk in front of PNC. Not sure what happened this year but a decent amount of the sidewalk on the northern side of Euclid is bowing 

 

 

Glad they’ve got around to fixing this. In the 8 years I’ve lived downtown there’s always been a bit of a depression at that spot, but this winter it must’ve hit some kind of tipping point and suddenly cratered quite dramatically. 

A month later and lol no progress

 

 

not only is the job undone - there's no care at all on how it looks in progress.  in better-run cities construction sites are not left looking like this.

Geezus 

I just left a comment on the city's site, I'll update if there's any response. The only thing I can imagine holding this up is maybe waiting on a tree?

And such a really small project too. Seems like a crew could knock it off in a day or two while the movers and shakers are contemplating the big stuff. Come on City government. LITTLE things like this go a long way in ones perception of whether or not a place is welcoming or not. 

 

Do I want to invest here? Do I want to move here? Maybe not.

2 hours ago, cadmen said:

And such a really small project too. Seems like a crew could knock it off in a day or two while the movers and shakers are contemplating the big stuff. Come on City government. LITTLE things like this go a long way in ones perception of whether or not a place is welcoming or not. 

 

Do I want to invest here? Do I want to move here? Maybe not.

I don’t understand how a local government doesn’t understand this. It’s so aggravating. Zero attention to detail. 

Ive been saying for years that someone should have the job description (or At least a part of their job) just looking around town to make sure that things like this aren’t going uncorrected for unreasonable lengths of time. 
 

How hard can it be? And how helpful it could be. 

Edited April 26, 20223 yr by CleveFan

6 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

Ive been saying for years that someone should have the job description (or Sat least as a part of their job) just looking around town to make sure that things like this aren’t going uncorrected for unreasonable lengths of time. 
 

How hard can it be? And how helpful it could be. 

Probably the second most important position. And it doesn’t exist. 

Edited April 26, 20223 yr by marty15

Always starts at the top. What’s acceptable and what’s not. “Good enough” has been tolerated so long it’s the expectation. 

I happened to be driving in Union City, an older, very dense inner ring suburb just outside Manhattan. 

I was noticing how they’ve installed nice retro black street lamps and really nicely painted all the street lanes.  
 

This urban neighborhood really looked much improved - “little things” can make a very big difference in the look of a place. 
 

Not sure where Cleveland is in regard to the street lamps etc - but I hope its been improving 

Edited April 26, 20223 yr by CleveFan

Judging by the Google street view from last summer, I'm guessing that it was an unaddressed irrigation leak that cratered the sidewalk.  Big puddles between the trees while everything else is dry  

Edited April 26, 20223 yr by Husat77

^ Yeah. There’s some busted drainage grids under the surface. I’m gonna be generous to the city and say that they’re waiting on some replacements. 

31 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

I happened to be driving in Union City, an older, very dense inner ring suburb just outside Manhattan.  I was noticing how they’ve installed nice retro black street lamps and really nicely painted all the street lanes.  

Is this what you are referring to:

Looks about right - I was driving at night …

Another interesting thing I've caught lately...replacing the steel grates with gravel and rubber pellets that look like asphalt. 

 

 

 

This is a pilot program from DCA to try permeable pavement. If it proves to be successful hopefully it will be expanded! Grand Rapids, MI has utilized this throughout downtown and it has proven to be a success both for safety/trip hazard issues and for the health of the trees.

Fantastic idea.  Again, it will require maintenance, which we have proven "not so good at"  but the steel grates choke trees

Not to be Debbie downer....but dogs will poop and piss and kick it all over the place. My condo building has trees on the sidewalk with stones around them and the maintenance people have to constantly sweep them back around the trees because of dogs.

6 hours ago, metrocity said:

Not to be Debbie downer....but dogs will poop and piss and kick it all over the place. My condo building has trees on the sidewalk with stones around them and the maintenance people have to constantly sweep them back around the trees because of dogs.

 

And the permeable pavement retains pee and dogs will keep peeing where they smell pee.

7 hours ago, metrocity said:

Not to be Debbie downer....but dogs will poop and piss and kick it all over the place. My condo building has trees on the sidewalk with stones around them and the maintenance people have to constantly sweep them back around the trees because of dogs.

Maybe an artificial grass mat of some sort? Doesn’t have to be green either. They can be pinned down, and are permeable. Probably a lot cheaper too.

Edited April 29, 20223 yr by marty15

9 hours ago, metrocity said:

Not to be Debbie downer....but dogs will poop and piss and kick it all over the place. My condo building has trees on the sidewalk with stones around them and the maintenance people have to constantly sweep them back around the trees because of dogs.

 

Definitely concerned about folks kicking the crap out of the pellets (especially in the Panini's/Clevelander/bar area spots). But whatever I'm open to see how it turns out. I do wish they went for a more slightly color - brown or something, but hey, I'm glad they're doing it and will hold judgement to see how it goes. It's a pilot program for a reason. 

 

Thanks for the explainer though @mrclifton88I love how pretty much any question/observation in Cle's urban environment can be answered on here!