Re: Lakewood? Keeping Up With Da Joneses?
Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2013 2:04 pm
Jim O'Bryan wrote:The fact that we have 285 place to get food might be making some a little edgey on moving here.
1restaurant for every 71 homes/apartments
Interesting statistic. That's why I remain skeptical of the bar/restaurant based economy. It only works to the extent the restaurant attracts people from outside of Lakewood and to the extent it keeps Lakewood dollars in Lakewood. In a declining region like ours all such development is a zero sum game.
When Cuyahoga County spends millions to subsidize downtown office buildings it empties an office building down the street or across town in Lakewood. When Cuyahoga County subsidizes downtown apartments it empties the Gold Coast. When Cleveland Clinic opens a new medical campus and hospital in Avon it doesn't create business it simply moves it around.
Our County government and County institutions are spending millions to subsidize parasitic growth when what we need is organic growth. It seems such an obvious fact that is beyond the ken of our current leadership. One more recent example is the Counties determination to build a $300 million taxpayer financed hotel:
http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga-count ... hotel.html
If the convention center is going to be such a big draw why aren't private investors lining up to build hotels using their own money?
If hotels in downtown are going out of business because they have no business why are the taxpayers building a new hotel?
When Lakewood City council allocated money to do a hotel study I said they were wasting their time because a hotel in Lakewood would not be able to compete with a taxpayer subsidized Downtown hotel. That applies to taxpayers subsidized restaurants as well.
Lakewood has survived the hostility of our Cuyahoga County government and institutions for a long time but a City can only take so much.