Lakewood's Abandoned Houses

[john crino]

Thanks for the info.
I spoke to one person who works for Lakewood and he said they have torn down 15 houses and there are 3 more going down soon. More than in the last 30 years combined.
Interesting % on the # of quads empty.

[marklingm]

I maintain, running a city is not that tough. Look at the people that have done it over the decades. Not just here, but elsewhere. A city's goal should be to provide services, and those services should make the city safe and clean. When a city fails to perform those simple tasks, it has failed. When a city takes it eyes off the housing ball for so long you have to set up fire walls of empty homes. It has failed. When a city cares more about the 14% it could attract instead of the 86% there now, it has failed. When a city concentrates on cutting services instead of looking at new out of the box ways to fund a city, it has failed. When a city switches to managing decline, it has failed.

From what I have always seen, this city has everything it needs to be where it was without
a complete overhaul. But ALL civic leaders need a different mindset.

Maybe they don't think at all. Maybe they just want to be seen as doing something.

And this is when simple stupid mistakes are made, that compound and create nightmares.

What if the money that went to "5 Guys," remember how the city and LakewoodAlive
saved Lakewood by attracting 5 Guys' cooperate offices? It is our Jacob's Field, Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, Browns Stadium, Medical Mart, Of course later we find out it
was all the landlord desperately looking for a tenant that approached 5 Guys. But why
rain on that week of rewarding each other multiple awards for our 125th burger place.
But what if that money had been used in housing? Would we now be tearing down 30
homes instead of 60? What if instead of putting hundreds of banners throughout the year
at a cost of over $100 each, we invested in neighborhoods? What if instead of pouring
millions into "DowntowN" we had put it into police, housing, etc?*

No Lakewood took their eye off the ball for some shiny object in the bushes that has
turned out to be tin foil from a fast food burger.

IF
population is declining
AND
you offer subsidies for new housing
the occupants of that new housing
LEAVE
a house
in an exsiting neighborhood
which leaves a lot of
VACANT
apartments
houses
cities

The End

Unless you can offer more, like a safe, clean, fun area with good schools, parks, fishing,
golf, horseback riding, boating, in an area of like minded people that love to get together
and create fun.

Because let's be honest, our real battle is not attracting new residents. NO, our real fight
is to stop the 86% from fleeing.

Does the city understand that?

NO.

There is so much in this quote that I just had to bump it.

Carry on.

[Bill Call]

Todays Plain Dealer contained yet another editorial lauding all the progress and momentum in Clevelands economy.

Forget the loss of hundreds of thousands of residents,
forget the tens of thousands of abandoned homes,
forget the increase in poverty in America's poorest City,
forget the loss of virtually all of the Fortune 500 companies that once had their headquarters in Cleveland.

According to the Plain Dealer "big opportunities are in reach" because the County's decision to locate its new headquarters near the critical intersection of East Ninth and Euclid can help ignite an underperfroming stretch of downtown". GOOD GREIF!!!

Is this the same Eucid Avenue that received a nearly $500 million facelift?

The same Euclid Avenue that is home to Playhouse Square that cannot survive without millions in subisidies?

The same Euclid Avenue that is a stones throw from the 100,000 gateway jobs?

The same Euclid Avenue that received tens of millions in subsidies for now foreclosed Hotels?

The same Euclid Avenue that is near the $500 million dollar taxpayer subsidized convention center?

I'm going out on a limb and say this county is run by a bunch of lunatics.

[Scott Meeson]

Todays Plain Dealer contained yet another editorial lauding all the progress and momentum in Clevelands economy.

Forget the loss of hundreds of thousands of residents,
forget the tens of thousands of abandoned homes,
forget the increase in poverty in America's poorest City,
forget the loss of virtually all of the Fortune 500 companies that once had their headquarters in Cleveland.

According to the Plain Dealer "big opportunities are in reach" because the County's decision to locate its new headquarters near the critical intersection of East Ninth and Euclid can help ignite an underperfroming stretch of downtown". GOOD GREIF!!!

Is this the same Eucid Avenue that received a nearly $500 million facelift?

The same Euclid Avenue that is home to Playhouse Square that cannot survive without millions in subisidies?

The same Euclid Avenue that is a stones throw from the 100,000 gateway jobs?

The same Euclid Avenue that received tens of millions in subsidies for now foreclosed Hotels?

The same Euclid Avenue that is near the $500 million dollar taxpayer subsidized convention center?

I'm going out on a limb and say this county is run by a bunch of lunatics.

Bill,

I hear you but:

[Jim O'Bryan]

I'm going out on a limb and say this county is run by a bunch of lunatics.

[/quote]

Scott

It is being run not by the county, but The Cleveland Foundation. Cleveland runs on grant
money, no longer are we the city of the giants of industry. Rockefeller, Brush, etc. Now
we have been reduced to a series of gentrification projects to make us feel good.

The communities that have bragged so much over their accomplishments, Tremont,
Detroit Shoreway, Collinwood, etc. are a series of movie sets paid for by the Cleveland
Foundation that have beautiful fronts but very little depth.

The Euclid Corridor which took one of the great avenues in the country back in the 1920s
is now the home of endless non-profits, that do not pay taxes, but help keep the grant
funding flowing. So instead of products and services, we have an abundance of grant
writers and users in an ever growing tower of cards nearly always ready to tumble.

This is one of the reasons why Lakewood was so strong. Outside of the Beck Center the
city of Lakewood was real, very real, and grew in relationship to what the residents
needed, in other words a healthy balanced sustainable community that was real. That
came a small group of people that wanted desperately us to be like Tremont, Westlake,
Crocker Park, Legacy Village, and they looked far and wide for funding to make the very
real and very sustainable Lakewood Ohio into their dream city where every project is
special and every projects moves us closer to the faux city of Crocker Park. At every turn
we were told economic development is far more important that community sustainability.
We went from a mayor that did not believe in tifs, to a city that gave them away like the
air we breathe. I mean what is the harm on giving 5 Guys a bunch of cash to move here,
after all they will be here long past the taxless years. Well nope they are gone.

It is a blackhole nearly impossible to escape from once you hit the event horizon.

Lakewood needs to get back to doing what it does best, being Lakewood.

[Bill Call]

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Francis Bacon

It's getting pretty late in the day.

[Roy Pitchford]

I'm going out on a limb and say this county is run by a bunch of lunatics.

To paraphrase Obi-wan Kenobi:
"Who's the more loony? The lunatic or the lunatic that votes for him?"

[marklingm]

I'm going out on a limb and say this county is run by a bunch of lunatics.

To paraphrase Obi-wan Kenobi:
"Who's the more loony? The lunatic or the lunatic that votes for him?"

To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi:

"These aren't the lunatics you are voting for."

[Scott Meeson]

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Francis Bacon

It's getting pretty late in the day.

Francis sounds a little sour.

And speaking of late in the day, I'm reminded of Detroit: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-26/in-detroit-urban-flight-in-reverse