Yinz Weekly Cleveburgh Links

I think it's been more than a week but here's a random assortment of links and stories I came across. I know I missed a lot of stuff and need to get back to tweeting. What happened is I had some trouble with my password and havent bothered to fix it. I like Twitter.

Many of these links are worthy of stand alone posts, if I or someone else can get around to it. We need a at least one reporter from Cleveland.

Cleveland

A few blogs comment about the recent Cleveland International Film Festival, an event that seems to becoming one of the most loved city institutions.

Exraordinary Observations on CIFF . Favorites included The Joneses, Youngstown: Still Standing, and The Great Contemporary Art Bubble.

Brewed Fresh Daily offers further suggestions.

"I honestly think the film fest is one of the greatest assets to downtown Cleveland, and I only want to see it improve in the future. For that reason, I offer a few suggestions and other food for thought."

Extraordinary Observations talks about the myth of the electric car as cure for all environmental ills.

"Traffic - if you switched every vehicle on the road today into a pure electric-vehicle, you would have exactly the same amount of traffic that you have now."

Parking: "Replace every car on the road with an EV and you've solved none of the parking issues."

"Mutilated Urbanism - you know all of those suburban subdivisions and strip malls and car-dependent suburbs? Switching to EVs won't reverse any of that. "

Infrastructure (all those costs still exist and they are far higher than most people think)

I added this comment, Depending on the way the electricity is generated, electric cars could actually be a step backwards.

"In case people don't know this, Coal is the primary electric generating fuel (in America) which means that unless there are radical changes, electric cars would actually be burning coal. It just wouldn't be coming out of the tail pipe.Given that the country is both broke and the Saudi Arabia of coal, doesn't bode well for our environmental future."

Cleveland Scene reviews the Fiber Arts Show @ Wall Eye Gallery

Cleveland Scene has a good Video of the North East Ohio band, Case Sensitive Music.

Reason Magazine posts a series of videos on saving Cleveland, hosted by Drew Carey. Freedom is the answer but it ain't gonna happen.

Renovating The Rust Belt muses about development and gentrification.

Cleveland.com reports that a foundation is giving 12 million dollars to renovate a wonderful synagogue into a performing arts center for Case Western. The trick is that it will still be used as a temple part time! Exiting, but they need more $$$$$$$$.

"It is such a win, win, win, win, win," said Rabbi Richard Block, senior rabbi of the temple. "When this thing is finished, it's going to be something that's bigger than any of us could have imagined. There are concentric circles of joy in this project."

The Maltz gift brings the university nearly halfway to its goal of raising $25.6 million for the renovation of the 100,000-square-foot temple complex, at 1855 Ansel Road, just west of East 105th Street in University Circle."

Cleveland Area History blog talks about the (somewhat convenient) loss by fire of a historic church in the shadow of The Cleveland Clinic.

Face it, anyone familiar with the way Cleveland treats it's history and the way it's giant "non profits" treat the city knew it was a goner anyway.

Pittsburgh

The Post Gazette talks about a project in Braddock that could seriously help purify drinking water in developing countries.

"We're going to train people to make [the water filters] in Braddock," he said. "Braddock will be our worldwide training center to make filters to save people who are less fortunate. We're entrepreneurs. We'll get [workers in Braddock] set up, teach them the technology, quality control and marketing. We can build an industry right here."

Dick and Jeff Schwarz, an adjunct professor at Allegheny College, have already turned the basement of the Braddock Carnegie Library into a training center for teenagers and retirees eager to learn how to make the life-saving devices."

Real Clear Politics pegs PA as the most competitive political battlefield in the 2010elections.

An EPA report linked by Null Space shows relative strength in inner city housing markets particularly those supported by mass transit.

"The data show that, compared to the early 1990s, the share of construction in urban neighborhoods was up 28 percent in mid-sized metropolitan regions that have promoted redevelopment of underused sites and development around transit, such as Portland, Ore; Denver, Colo.; and Sacramento, Calif. For example, in 2008 Portland issued 38 percent of all the building permits within its region, compared to an average of 9 percent in the early 1990s; Denver accounted for 32 percent, up from 5 percent; and Sacramento accounted for 27 percent, up from 9 percent.

The latest report shows that an even stronger trend toward urban redevelopment in the largest metropolitan regions continued in 2008. New York City accounted for 63 percent of the building permits issued within its region. By comparison, the city averaged about 15 percent of regional building permits during the early 1990s. Similarly, Chicago now accounts for 45 percent of the building permits within its region, up from just 7 percent in the early 1990s."

Next American City talks about "Pittsburgh's Biking Moment." Also via Null Space

Null Space also clued me in on what looks like a must read on a subject that deserves serious thought.



The new Pitt Magazine published By The University Of Pittsburgh, has a nice article, which barely touches on the long proud and very important history of The Pittsburgh Courier

The August Wilson Center names it's new Director--(kind of old news.)

Suckers Needed : Fast!!

Via Null Space comes the news that the Rivers Casino Debt is now rated by S&P at CCC, a drop of two notches, from B-. For folks who don't know this---there is no F given.

A D rating means currently in Default, which gives one some idea how precarious things are.

From the Post Gazette.

Unless there's a "significant improvement in operating performance from that observed to date" the casino might not be able to generate enough cash to meet fixed charges, which include the arena payment, in excess of $55 million next year, S & P stated.

It said it expected a $56 million interest reserve account set up as part of the casino's financing to be depleted in the first quarter of 2010, putting more pressure on the facility to boost revenue.

No doubt they are watching the same sharp declines in weekly revenues, that Chris at Null Space has charted at the end of his post.

If they fail to make the arena payment, we may get to really see the naked scum on the bottom of this pool.

Still More Jane's Walk Talk

More general buzz and discussion popping up about bringing some kind of Jane Jacobs related events and walks to Pittsburgh and other former Rust Belt cities.

Diana Nelson Jones, who hosts one of the few blogs focusing on Pittsburgh from a pedestrian perspective did this post, which quotes one of my comments on Null Space. She also links to a number of other Jane related sites, articles-- and we can add to this the previous talk on Rust Wire, all of which point to some building support for doing something in the Spring.

Using the inevitable football metaphor, living here is often like watching a terrible coaching staff leaving almost all your best running backs on the bench, refusing to block, refusing to tackle while wasting time and resources on ever more bizarre hail Mary passing plays or relying exclusively on kickoff returns.

Not only do the coaches and owners, not put the best people on the field, we can't even let them practice and even worse, one always has to live in fear of which reasonably good or potentially great players might be traded away or cut next, whose property might be seized, whose street cut off and taxes raised for another "special teams operation".

It's not like Pittsburgh doesn't have some great walkable neighborhoods-- and it's not like they ain't successful-- there's plenty of game tape out there that shows what's working on a social and economic level as well as plenty of red ink, empty streets and failed shells to show us what hasn't worked. Yet almost all major government policies repeat these failed plays over and over. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!

Team is a good word to use, since as Jane pointed out city's are continuous experiments in social interaction.

Just one more thought, Jane always left a cop out for bad coaches looking for excuses when she said "no two cities or streets are alike". Obviously, this is self evident, but one just has to look at Death and Life's chapter titles, listed below to get the idea that she thought some things worked and some things didn't or only look at a few cities closely to see she was mostly right.

The uses of sidewalks: safety
The uses of sidewalks: contact
The uses of neighborhood parks
The uses of city neighborhoods
The need for mixed primary uses
The need for small blocks
The need for aged buildings
The need for concentration
The curse of border vacuums
Gradual money and cataclysmic money
Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles

May not be sexy enough to always make the highlight films.

Yinz Links For September 4th & 5th

More I found trolling around. Some are G20 related; some urban and bike related; some art, comics, media and some weirdness. September is imperial dictator month- all month.

In NY Times

Many green buildings not living up to the label

Small British bookstore blames giant charity, Oxfam for it's demise.

Roberta Smith looks at the health and mood of NY galleries as they face the recession

India & China square off on Tibetan border region

In The Times Online

Gordon Brown's triumphant $trillion dollar rescue falling flat.

On Pittsblog

South Side Ghost Tours

On Urban Places And Spaces

Portland, Oregon puts in real "European Style" separated bike lane downtown.

On City Walkabout

Lawrenceville Accordion Pool Party!!???

On Libertarian Republican

PA Democrat switches to Libertarian Party to run for open state senate seat.

In Pittsburgh Post Gazette

City's pension fantasies might work-- when pigs fly.

Stan Lee still wielding power in the comic book world.

National Unemployment rate now @ 9.7% (don't ask about U6)

In Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Craig Street,Oakland merchants lobby city for help.

Theater project 'Yinzerspielen' merges two schools of acting

Biden to Pittsburgh one week before Obama. Holy crap!!! Motorcade allert. (My guess-- photo-Op @ Primanti's)

On Null Space

Pension fund procrastination and denial.

On Brewed Fresh Daily

Social Media Revolution

A Cold Hard Look At Braddock

I know I have given the town of Braddock a lot of good press, it still has some wonderful buildings, a good location, tons of history and a tiny number of very committed backers. But Null Space did us the favor of posting the cold data on Braddock's home price numbers.

2007: # of sales = 46, median price = $15K
2008: # of sales = 39, median price = $8K

39 sales in 2008 with an average sale price of $8,000 !

He also gives the brutal math on the cost of just maintaining utilities as the area depopulates.

"Why is it so hard to fix Braddock? Even being someone who has looked at the issue for a long time, just the other day I learned something new about how intractable the situation is there. I was talking with someone who lived in Braddock for over 50 years until very recently. Born and raised in Braddock and probably would have lived there longer if they could.. but it just became impossible for them to stay. Why did they have to leave? First their immediate neighbors moved out. They could live with that. Then the plumbing from the neighbors house was stolen, copper being pretty valuable until lately. Still, that wasn't a problem itself, but it turns out that the water was supplied collectively to a group of houses. The water meter being in the house which had it's plumbing mined. No plumbing there meant no water for the group of houses. Still, even that didn't force them to leave, they really were going to stay and pay to have some plastic plumbing put back into the vacant neighboring house. But since the house with the meter was unoccupied, the water company would not restart service to what was essentially a vacant and abandoned house. Makes sense sort of... but it meant that the occupied houses next door couldn't get water. The water company's cost of putting in a new water line and meter was far too exorbitant an investment, probably several orders of magnitude more than the house was worth to begin with so that wasn't an option. No water, you pretty much have to move out. If you can't keep folks like that who very much want to stay, what hope is there of rebuilding population there. In the end the house was sold for a dollar to a 'redeveloper' who mostly stripped out the remaining plumbing and other semi-valuable pieces of the property. Probably had a decent return on the $1. Just unbelievable, and seriously not something that is allowed to happen elsewhere in the developed world."

Obviously, I see some value in the place, perhaps as a highly affordable creative community which is something sorely needed in America. But, one has to admit that as each year passes, there is less and less of Braddock to save.

Rust Belt Blogger's Summit Update

I never got to Erie for the first Rust Belt Bloggers summit so Ive tried to to link to a few people who were there. Hopefuly, this is the first of a number of events aimed at linking together members of the informal and formal, online media accross the Rust Belt.

There is some debate as to the value of networking accross the region which contains many communities with a full plate of local problems. I think it's very, very important. Perhaps, one of the most negative characteristics of most Rust Belt cities is their relative lack of connections to the outside world. Aside from a few obvious college towns, the region has extremely low levels of foreign or internal migration, Insular political structures and highly localized single newspaper and TV monopolies. The result of which is a lack of information and capital flow accross the region and an inability to learn from other places successes and failures.

I'm very happy and grateful to Jim Russell for trying to break this mold.

As near as I can tell, there were probably not many more than 20-25 bloggers present at the two day summit with representatives from Erie, Cleveland, Youngstown, Pittsburgh and other places like Washigton county and Butler.

Dale Hannah, who contributes on Outside Erie has two updates; One, Two.

"The Rust Belt Bloggers’ Summit wrapped up Saturday afternoon with a 4 hour roundtable discussion about our own personal goals and achievements as bloggers. For some of us(me), it was a learning session. Several visitors came in from the Youngstown and Cleveland areas and one from Butler. The guys from Youngstown gave a great shared presentation about the founding and successes of the New Media in their town. A gentleman from Cleveland, a former city planner there, is now working in the same capacity for Youngstown. It was obvious from their stories that they have put together a very workable plan."