“…cleveland, o’ Cleveland… where art thou neighborhoods, Cleveland?”

- unknown early 20th century rail worker

 

Ok. I lied right off the bat and I admit it.  Some unknown railroader didn’t say that quote last century.  It was me.  Right now.  Or, technically, about 20 minutes ago.  And I really didn’t say “o” or “art” or “thou.”  But I did have a question about Cleveland’s neighborhoods.

 

Maybe some background would help.  I grew up in Cincinnati.  If there’s one thing we know about, it’s neighborhoods.  (well, that and chili, and baseball, and a long tradition of very questionable urban planning decisions… but I digress…)  I’ve always been a big fan of the character of the neighborhoods  - the scale, the “walkability”, the public amenities etc... especially compared to what I though of as suburbs: the Montgomerys, Masons, Kenwoods of the world.

 

I’m displaced from the ‘nati now (not sure I want to reveal my current location for fear of being blackballed from the forum – just think suburban sprawl hell… only hotter).  I don’t know much about Cleveland, but I’m trying to learn as much as I can in the attempt to convince my wife it would be a great place for our family to move (relocation will hopefully happen in the next year or so).

 

I have been checking out the Cleveland photo threads on UO, as well as doing some other research on the city and one thing in particular has me puzzled: are Cleveland’s “neighborhoods” different from what we consider a neighborhood in Cincy?  And I’m less interested about the dictionary definitions here – I can easily enough look at a map and see the political boundaries of Cleveland proper etc – but more interested in the character of the areas.

 

For example, what I had always thought of as being some of Cleveland’s neighborhoods -  Shaker Heights & University Heights -  are technically suburbs?  Hmmmmmmmm.. ok, so they are outside of Cleveland Proper & have their own governing bodies etc…  But do they really feel like suburbs?  Suburbs??  I mean, I had always assumed they were more like Clifton & Hyde Park (neighborhoods) rather than Kenwood & Montgomery (suburbs)?  Am I comparing apples to apples here or apples to oranges?  Or – worst of all – up there in NE Ohio is this neighborhood/suburb relationship some kind of mixed-up apple/orange/banana fruit smoothie that my “Cincinnati narrow-mindedness” (c’mon – we’ve all been accused of that before, right?) can’t even comprehend???  Help…

 

My suspicion is that some of those inner-lying suburbs may technically be suburbs; but might feel more like neighborhoods?  Am I on the right track?  This would also help to explain why Cleveland seems to have so few real neighborhoods for a city its size (I mean, what is it?  Low-30s?  You can roll out of bed in the ‘nati and hit 30 neighborhoods on your way to grab the morning paper… if you still read that rag…)

 

Any insight would be appreciated - thanks in advance!  I'm fairly new to the forum and have really been enjoying it.

 

Cheers!

Think of it like this (as one that is very familiar with both):

 

Inner-ring suburbs surrounding Cleveland are like Mariemont, or Hyde Park, or Mansion Hill in Newport (though architecturally different).  The neighborhoods inside Cleveland city are a bit more uniform than Cincinnati's (which is an older city built in a different time period), so you'll find the Great Lakes-style of housing (doubles; grand apartments; linear commercial strips; etc).  Buckeye-Shaker is perhaps Cleveland's most "unique" neighborhood for the city, though Ohio City, Tremont, and Little Italy all have their own "thing" going on.  It is a bit different than Cincinnati (as it is less-defined) but perhaps is more cohesive in regards to knowing you are in "Cleveland" rather than knowing you are in "Mt. Adams" or "Price Hill."

 

But back to the "burbs," inner-ring Cleveland's suburbs are mere, more affluent extensions of the actual city itself (okay, so East Cleveland and Brooklyn aren't exactly "affluent...").

^That's about as good an answer you can give. I'll add that the inner ring is filled with Urban-suburbs meaning you have lots of house, driveway, house type housing that is composed of two-family doubles, as well as single family housing. There are also large apartments as well as duplex style homes. When your in the Cleveland burbs and somewhere asks where you are you identify the name of the suburb. When you are in Cleveland usually people give answers like Hough, Glenville, Collinwood, Mt Pleasant. Ohio City, Tremont, Lee-Harvard etc.... 

Three generations of my family called Cudell home, but we always called it the West Side. I was born in Ohio City, but again, back in the old days, we just called it the West Side. An elderly cousin who recently passed away lived 80 years on W. 81st St,, and never realized she lived in Detroit-Edgewater, she like the rest of my ignorant family, thought she lived on the West Side.

Think of it like this (as one that is very familiar with both):

 

Inner-ring suburbs surrounding Cleveland are like Mariemont, or Hyde Park, or Mansion Hill in Newport (though architecturally different).  The neighborhoods inside Cleveland city are a bit more uniform than Cincinnati's (which is an older city built in a different time period), so you'll find the Great Lakes-style of housing (doubles; grand apartments; linear commercial strips; etc).  Buckeye-Shaker is perhaps Cleveland's most "unique" neighborhood for the city, though Ohio City, Tremont, and Little Italy all have their own "thing" going on.  It is a bit different than Cincinnati (as it is less-defined) but perhaps is more cohesive in regards to knowing you are in "Cleveland" rather than knowing you are in "Mt. Adams" or "Price Hill."

 

But back to the "burbs," inner-ring Cleveland's suburbs are mere, more affluent extensions of the actual city itself (okay, so East Cleveland and Brooklyn aren't exactly "affluent...").

 

i would only correct that cinci is a mere ten years older than cleveland so it can hardly be thought of as the older city, they are contemporaries. of course, more importantly, since the last century cleveland has lost half its population and also half of it's structures. so over time cinci is certainly much more intact and stable (despite their own losses) and thus looks and feels older. cleveland's in any way comparable period architecture to cinci's is long gone. much of the loss is fairly recent too, the cleveland today is not even the cleveland of many of our childhoods on this forum (gone are the busy downtown, smoky factories, people, etc).

 

as for the burbs you are looking at, shaker hts and university hts are true burbs. however, shaker square is a cleveland city nabe. this is a perfect example of some of the inner-ring burbs being mere extensions of the city, as noted above.

 

i am always amazed at the number of nabes in the sw ohio cities, for example it seems like dayton has signs for it's nabes every couple blocks. that feels ok in cinci due to the hilly geography, but seems like a silly marketing / urban-renewal ploy in dayton. but hey, whatev works is fine.

 

if anything, clev's tangle of teeny old inner-ring "burb extensions" is truly what does not work anymore -- the redundancy in gov services drags down ne ohio. geez louise, there is one trash collection service for 8+ million peeps here in nyc, why can't ne ohio get together and streamline some of this stuff? ugh. btw -- this is where and why ne ohio gets so jealous of central ohio.

 

Suburbs are a seperate municipality, but they can have neighborhoods as well.  Cleveland Heights has the Overlook/Coventry area, Cedar-Lee, Cedar Fairmount, and other neighborhoods, Lakewood has the Gold Coast, Birdtown, the West End, etc.

 

I would say that suburbs and cities are a question of political lines, and neighborhoods are a question of human geography and culture.

Cincinnnati is 12 years older than Cleveland, but it became a major city much earlier, Cleveland did not take off until much later. I would agree with Coldayman on the age issue. And like Dayton, many Cleveland neighborhood boundaries are much more arbitrary, because of the lack of natural boundaries (i.e west side of W. 85th = Cudell, east side = Detroit/Edgewater)

Yeah, Cincinnati boomed before Cleveland so it has older-style architecture. It also uses much more brick than Cleveland, which is primarily a wood-frame town, so the housing stock has aged better.

 

Still, there are many vital inner-city neighborhoods with lots of character. Ohio City, Tremont, Edgewater, Shaker, Little Italy to name the more prominent. The predominant pattern in Cleveland is dense commercial arteries with residential side streets, reflecting its boom during the streetcar era.

 

In Cleveland, most inner-city neighborhoods have gone through a period of decline. This is true of every neighborhood except those on the fringes of the city, like Edgewater, Shaker Square and West Park. Unlike in Cincinnati, there aren't really any neighborhoods that appeal to high-income residents, although downtown is beginning to change that. Cleveland neighborhoods that are becoming hip -- Ohio City, Tremont, St. Clair-Superior, Detroit-Shoreway -- are still rough around the edges, and petty crime persists. Hence, they appeal mostly to the young and childless. They also must therefore struggle with the issue of gentrification, which I perceive not to be an issue in Cincy neighborhoods like Mount Adams, which has always been well-to-do.

 

On the flip side, this gives Cleveland more dynamism and a greater sense of the city being "rediscovered" than I perceive to exist in most Ohio cities.

 

Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights and Lakewood are the more urban suburbs. All were built around the streetcar, and Shaker Heights still has two light-rail lines running through it. Housing densities in the Heights are a little lighter than in the city proper. Lakewood, however, is denser than many city neighborhoods as they exist today, mostly because of its proliferation of apartment buildings.

I meant Detroit/Shoreway ...

These names are all new to me ...

mleroy,

 

To give you an idea of what our "suburbs" are like, Lakewood is the most densely-populated city between NYC and Chicago

Of course, it must be pointed out that Lakewood is an anomaly, and not representative of Cleveland suburbs in general. We also have plenty of places like Gates Mills and Brecksville, where cul-de-sacs are the order of business.

but we don't need to go there...mr. leroy is going to move to Cleveland proper!

 

by the way, well done folks. I can't really think of anything to add to what's already been said!

wow - you all - thanks for all the insight; it's very appreciated.  All my research (if that's what you can call all the hours I've spent on UO the past few weeks!) gave me a pretty good idea the situation, but I was having a heck of a time trying to wrap my head around that whole neighborhood vs. suburb issue.  For instance.. I couldn't believe that University & Shaker Heights had been left off the main Cleveland "neighborhoods" page - then, to stumble on them listed as "suburbs..." well, you can see where everything started to snowball.

 

We hope to make it up to NE Ohio sometime this summer, and I'm excited to do some real exploring.  Not sure what your guys' situation w/ kids is; but we have a daughter who will be starting elementary school in a few years; so school districts are a huge concern.  For those of us who are very anti-suburb; this presents quite a challenge... but that's a conversation for a different day.

 

 

Again - thanks for all your insight.

for example it seems like dayton has signs for it's nabes every couple blocks. that feels ok in cinci due to the hilly geography, but seems like a silly marketing / urban-renewal ploy in dayton. but hey, whatev works is fine.

 

Good observation about Dayton "neigborhoods".  A number of those names are, I think, made up. And valid neighborhoods, like Ohmer Park, are not really "officially" recognized by the city.  The Oregon is a real historic neighborhood name, though.  As are South Park & Westwood.

 

Also, toponymy in Dayton is somewhat unstable.  Neighborhood names shift, change, or disappear, too, over time.  For example, Edgemont used to be Browntown, but started out as Patterson. And historic neighborhood names go out of usage, but then are revived, like Newcom Plain.

 

@@@@@@

 

And yes this aside was off-topic.  As for suburbs having neighborhoods I think there is one in Lakewood like that..the "Birdland" area?

 

The east part of Cleveland, Cleveland Heights reminds me a bit of the Hyde Park/Observatory/Mount Lookout area in Cincinnati...except I think there are more apartments in Cleveland Heights.  Also, those close-in Cleveland suburbs remind me a bit of Oak Park, Cicero and Evanston,  next to Chicago.

 

we have a daughter who will be starting elementary school in a few years; so school districts are a huge concern.  For those of us who are very anti-suburb; this presents quite a challenge...

 

Aside from the obvious solution of sending your daughter to a private school, some parts of the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood in Cleveland are in the Shaker Heights school district. In that one neighborhood, it is possible to live in the city but send your child to a suburban public school.

 

The listings on the Realty One Web site will tell you specifically which houses this applies to.

And yes this aside was off-topic.   As for suburbs having neighborhoods I think there is one in Lakewood like that..the "Birdland" area?

 

Birdtown. The other neighborhoods in Lakewood are Madison Village, Clifton Park, West End, Gold Coast and Downtown. I like Birdtown due to its density, diversity, good shopping choices, recreation (Madison Park) and walking distance to the Rapid station.

And yes this aside was off-topic.   As for suburbs having neighborhoods I think there is one in Lakewood like that..the "Birdland" area?

 

Birdtown. The other neighborhoods in Lakewood are Madison Village, Clifton Park, West End, Gold Coast and Downtown. I like Birdtown due to its density, diversity, good shopping choices, recreation (Madison Park) and walking distance to the Rapid station.

 

 

Where at in Lakewood is Birdtown? I have heard of it but never knew what or where it even is.

 

-Curious on the east side

It's just south of Madison Avenue, north of the Red Line, east of Madison Park, and west of West 117th Street (or, more specificially, west of the old Union Carbide plant that's right at the Madison/West 117th intersection).

 

There's only about eight streets in Birdtown, three of which are called Robin, Quail and Lark -- hence the neighborhood's name.