The Observation Deck

Shawn

What Mainstreet has is a series of guidelines and principals that can be used in formulating your economic devlopment plan.....It isn't a plan per se. And I would tend to agree that the concepts that Main Street espouses could be helpful in actually formulating an economic development plan. Hopefully in year two we will see something beyond the flower pots.

Jeff

True, it doesn't have the specifics of which business will occupy the SW corner of Detroit and Warren. Maybe they'll be working on that on the 8th when the design committee meets.

Phil Florian wrote:As for why we moved to Lakewood (I was joking when we passed in the hallway! ), my wife and I had Lakewood in mind when we lived in Cincinnati in 1999 and were ready to move back to the NE. To be honest, it was due to its old rep from when I grew up in Cleveland...urban, diverse, good schools, nifty Detroit and Madison Rd. store front businesses, and, in many ways, a more liberal stronghold than a lot of Ohio. It was very convenient to I-90, the Shoreway and downtown, which is very important to what we had planned to do job-wise and socially. It was also close to Westlake where my mother lives, which was important to be close to family (but not so far from downtown). In short, it was and continues to be a perfect balance for the lifestyle we want to live. We made it permanent when we went from renting to buying our current home a few years later. Still don't regret it, either!

Phil

Good to hear, glad we have not let you down yet.

So how does the mom reason work for shopping?

The best thing the WestEnd did for people is got them involved. It also put the term "responsible" development into the discussion.

C. Dawson

While I wouldn't mind seeing Crocker Park survive I have to think you could also add Legacy Village to the dying list. People getting out as soon as their leases come up.

At Crocker Park, it would appear to be doing well but the word from workers and owners, "busy streets but no one is buying."

Kills me though, Apple stores have a small enough footprint to fit in many Lakewood locations.


.

Jim,

I actually don't wish ill thoughts on Crocker Park ... I want it to succeed, because I like being able to drive 10 minutes, shop there, and then retreat back to the peace and quiet of Lakewood. I grew up in Mentor, which is WALL to WALL shopping centers, and having lived through that, I don't wish it anymore. I have no trouble driving there to shop, but I wouldn't want to live around it! But I do think it's a flavor of the month; the flashy stores will stay there as long as it is the flavor of the month, and they'll pull out and move on to the Next Big Thing, whatever that is.

I'm quite delighted that Apple is going to put a store there. I've been an Apple believer since I was a kid playing with an Apple II. Sadly, while Lakewood would be a great place for it, they tend to also aim for the biggest, most flashiest locations for their stores. So 10 minutes to get to an Apple valhalla is fine by me, better than driving to Legacy Village.

Now if only we could get an IKEA in Cleveland ... preferably over on the West Side!!

Chris Dawson

Returning to Ken's apt question:

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.â€Â￾

... So the question I would ask is what is the major anxiety in Lakewood leadership must confront?

No Trader Joe’s….? No Appleby’s…..? No Cheesecake Factory...? No plan…..? Not enough money....? No city manager? Not enough police...? Chaos in the park...? Excess supply of deterioratating housing? Race..? Too few public servants living in the Wood? Too many public servants dissing the Wood?

Seriously, what's the major anxiety in Lakewood that leadership must address unequivocally?

What would then be the leader's unequivocal address to that major anxiety?

I'll venture an answer as an opening bid in an exploratory dialogue (I'm sure there's more layers): A major anxiety the feeling of disorientation and the desire for connectedness. Where's the direction? How does this all fit together? Are we "on the right track" as a City? "No" most people would say.

Part of this is literal, part notional.

The literal side: we need balanced, realistic city budgets; a resuscitated capital fund to truly improve the city, not just patch potholes; we need a beautified downtown with improved commerce to really lock in our status as a great bedroom community (our city's "business plan")--so we can attract new residents (who might choose Avon or Medina) and retain current ones (and appreciate their home values). And yes, we need a coherent plan, so the city grows by a coherent design, not scattershot chaos alone.

All this means bold choices (translate, "cuts to your favorite city service"), broken eggs to make the omelettes, and probably controversy equal to the West End debate. Be careful what you wish for, Observers.

Equally important, to return to Ken's challenging question, is the vaguely-focused emotional aspects: our world is confusing, the problems are piling up, my schedule gets more chaotic and I'm just fighting to stay even; I'm not getting any younger, and how does this crazy mixed up world make sense?

For us practical, commercially-oriented Americans, psychological uneasiness is often expressed in terms of money, (business) success, getting ahead, etc. So I think when we talk about the City needing to come into better focus and make coherent progress towards a sensible, coherent, happy goal, it's involving all of these personal feelings too.

The best way to address people's feelings of disconnectedness is to do what we're already doing: engage in old-fashioned honest-to-goodness community--on doorsteps, in the paper, in school gyms, on the Deck.

And yes, the West End controversy resonated for people on both sides so activated people, got them involved, made them feel... *not* asleep, that's for sure.