Enough with the Cleveland bashing! (Columbus, Toledo: foreclosed, unemployment, neighborhoods)

[BelieveInCleve]

Originally Posted by airics

dont forget the occasional blizzard in late april/may.... ugh! but i agree other months are ok, not great, but ok.. lots of rain and cloudiness

Im not sure what you are talking about with late April and May. From what I have seen most years we have our last snowfall in mid-march. The snow that we had last year in early April was pretty rare, I remember everyone was talking about how weird it was, even older people. May...I dont remember it ever snowing in May. Maybe its different on the Eastside, I dont know.

From what I have witnessed it doesnt snow at all from May-October, it rarely snows in April or November. December is a weird month here, sometimes we get nothing other times we get like 8 inches. January-March is where 90% of the snowfall occurs.

[TheProf]

Originally Posted by twange

Sorry to hear that you're so bored, but I totally understand. Cleveland's not that kind of town. The museums, orchestra, and theater district are great but how often can you attend those things? Cleveland is not as vibrant in terms of "ground level" activity. By this I mean, Art openings, live music, festivals, cultural happenings, and general street activity. I don't mean to suggest Cleveland does not have these things - it certainly does, but it's scattered about town and you really need to seek those things out if you want them. You won't just stumble into something as you're walking down the street. Cleveland has some great virtues but vibrancy is not really one of them. Many people there wouldn't see that as a problem. We did. I'm not sure where your interests lie, but I could probably give you some ideas on things to do and assimilation As far as progressive goes, well again, things are a bit scattered. You have to find the "pockets' that resonate for you. For us it was Lakewood, Ohio City, and Tremont. We barely ever went into downtown Cleveland except for special event type stuff.

We just left Cleveland in September for Austin. We were born and raised in Cleveland so I suppose we had a higher tolerance for the place, not to mention a large network of family and friends. In a place like Cleveland, that can make a world of difference. While we miss our network, there's so much vibrancy here, that we don't feel isolated and bored even though we don't know too many people yet. But folks are very active here, so you just start meeting people by default. In Cleveland, especially this time of year, people sort of hole up in their houses and aren't as interactive.

Anyway, as far as churches go, I personally don't attend but I've heard very good things about the Westshore Unitarian Church on Hilliard(it should be very close to you). Might be a good place to meet people.

People kill me with the "I'm bored" -- "how many times [can I do that]" rant. It's so tired. As I've long said: If you're bored in Cleveland, you're a boring person. There's tons of things to do and such diversity. How many times can you:

go to the (world class) orchestra?
Jet ski or sail on Lake Erie?
Fish, Frisbee or simply veg at the beach or park at Edgewater?
attend a Broadway play at Playhouse Sq?
attend local live theatre at, say, Cleve Pub Theatre? Dobama? or East Cleveland? to name a few...
See a Cavs, Indians or Browns game, live?
Attend a free, outdoor or semi-outdoor concert at Cain Park in Cleveland Hts?
Hang out with the yuppies and 60s types in Coventry?
... ditto Shaker Sq? (ride the Rapid there)
... ditto Ohio City? (ride the Rapid there) ... and stop by the unique urban/funky West Side Market, while there, hit the alfresco dining strip on W. 25th then stoll among the historic Victorians before or after...
... ditto (sans 60s types but add some *****s in Edgewater (the neighborhood) or nearby Lakewood?
hike in the Emerald Necklace/Metro Parks?
go to one of the best Zoos in the nation?
... hop a Rapid train to North Coast on a summer day, stroll along the Rock Hall basin (even go in the Rock Hall to one of the many changing exhibits in this world-known museum), and watch the boats, planes, gulls, etc... or
hop a ride along the lake and up the intensely interesting Cuyahoga on the Goodtime III cruise line?
or take a drive in the gorgeous Chagrin Valley and stop along the way at the quaint, rural/suburban New England-like towns of Gates Mills, Chagrin Falls or (farther out) Burton? … or maybe SE to super-quaint, super New England//Western Reserve-inspired Hudson
or lose yourself for an entire day, or more, at University Circle taking in free concerts (Cleve Inst of Music), Art (world class art museum), Natural History (at that Museum), antique cars, planes and many things in between at the Western Reserve Historical Society (Cleveland’s mini version of the Smithsonian)?
Or stroll from U. Circle over to Little Italy, a compact, historic walking district of quaint Italian shops, restaurant and art galleries,
... or stop by Punderson State Park along (Rte 87) the way; stay overnight in a lodge or, maybe, even pitch a tent and do the outdoors thing?
or shop at every imaginable mall, Main Street or antiques district imaginable, including Tower City, downtown, where you can (again arrive via Rapid) and take in a movie at the Movie plex -- maybe attend the Spring Annual Cleveland Film Festival (coincidently, going on this very day)
… or go out to gorgeous Shaker Heights, via car or rapid; stroll among the lakes and mansions or stop in at the Shaker Nature Center or, nearby, Shaker Historical Museum
or take in a national Jazz act at Nighttown at Cedar-Fairmount (yet another lovely, walking neighborhood with quaint shops, coffeehouses and the like which, as hinted at, above, Cleveland/Greater Cleveland has numerous ones?

Or, if you wanna go a little farther, you’ve got a big beach (Mentor Highlands) 30 miles east of downtown, and Cedar Point, around 45 miles west, along the lake, which only happens to be the best rated (ride-wise) amusement park in the nation – one of the best in the world (more roller coasters, for example, anywhere)… and if you like ports, marinas and cruises, you can cruise out to the Lake Erie islands, the area’s version of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard…

… and, and… there’s much, much more… (I’ve barely even scratched the surface, for example, downtown with all the upscale and exciting restaurants, libraries, apartment districts, and the like down there.

So, bottom line, if you’re bored, friend, you simply aren’t looking very hard.

[airics]

we have had snow in May.. don't you remember last April, there was no opening day for the Indians.
YouTube - snow in april cleveland, OH now do you remember.. we had a heavy snow late april into may back in 89...

[BelieveInCleve]

Originally Posted by airics

we have had snow in May.. don't you remember last April, there was no opening day for the Indians.
YouTube - snow in april cleveland, OH now do you remember.. we had a heavy snow late april into may back in 89...

Yes, I mentioned that in my post. But I was saying is thats kind of rare and we hardly ever get snow in April. And May, I dont remember ever getting snow. We might get a very small amount of snow like once every 25 years or something. I even looked it up, the city of Cleveland gets 0.1 inches of snow in May, and most years we dont get any. There is also no snow at all from May-September.

[SoCalClevelander]

One thing good about Cleveland is that you can live in say Westlake, yet go to dinner in Cleveland Heights without much trouble. LA has all the greatest restaurants in the world, but I cant get to them on weeknights. Meeting friends after work is out unless you just happen to live nearby. Everything here is planned by traffic--and avoiding it.

Cleveland has many cool neighborhoods--as does LA--but again, if you can't get to them, it only leaves the weekends (and traffic is bad then, too--just not AS bad).

I left in 1999, and I am sorry to hear some of the awesome things about the town are gone (the Flats, how could the Flats be gone?) but it looks like new things are coming along as well.

To the original poster: it's not fair to compare Cleveland to NYC--NYC is a place of its own, with more to do than probably anywhere in the world. Yeah, Cleveland wont hold up to that. But if you really look for cool things to do, they are there!

And you should already be used to the crappy weather

[cicidoll10]

I enjoy Quicken Loans Arena, Hot Sauce Williams, Tower City, Beachwood, the Cheesecake Factory in Cleveland. Those are really the things about the city that make me smile. I have lived in Boardman all of my life, I don't know what I would have done if we didn't have a major city. I went to OU...it showed me just how much of a city girl I am. Loved Athens, couldn't wait to get back to Boardman and a trip to Cleveland was even sweeter!

[pumpkin819]

i have been a clevelander my whole life. I think that in general, this is a great town. I do have to say this though. If you are from clevleand, move away, and come back, it's like you never left. If you have lived here your whole life, it's very friendly. But I have met a lot of people that have moved here that are not from here, and it is really hard, according to them, to make friends. I think that's because cleveland is a very old school, many generations kind of town. Being new, it's hard to mix into already existing circles of people.

[jh1347s]

Originally Posted by Cle440

I dont know what you mean that Cleveland is midwestern but its right in between the midwest and NE so its gonna have traits of both.

I realize this post may be off-topic for the thread but I feel I must speak up. Cleveland is in fact a Midwestern city--look it up on Wikipedia or Google. (The city was also the topic of a program on local TV a few years ago, which also referred to Cleveland as a midwestern city.) I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland (Wickliffe), lived in another (Cleveland Heights) for three years, then moved to Fairport Harbor which is just outside the metro area (like Mentor, Fairport Harbor is not considered a Cleveland suburb), so I am a lifelong resident of northern Ohio and intend to stay here. I am a Midwesterner every bit as much as anyone else in this state, or in the entire region for that matter. Cleveland and its environs were, are and never will be anything but Midwestern, although the city planners in Cleveland tried to change the city's image (with no real results) in the late 1970s, as I will explain in the next paragraph.

BTW: Don't let that phony "North Coast" jazz coming from Cleveland bother you either. That was started some thirty years ago by Cleveland city planners in an attempt to make this area into another coast, which failed miserably. The Ashtabula area still uses the designation for its region, but that is only because they are 50 miles from Cleveland and can get away with using whatever corny nickname they want. (I listen to an oldies radio station from the Ashtabula area which uses the phrase "North Coast" in its jingles all the time; I cringe every time I hear it, but at the same time I tell myself that the radio station is not in the Cleveland area and could call its area anything it wants.)

Cleveland, however, deserves much better than to be saddled with a nickname that didn't mean much when it was coined and means nothing today. The Cleveland news media realize this, and the city itself must have realized it as well, as now the entire region from Cleveland to Youngstown is referred to collectively on the TV news as "northeast Ohio". This designation is technically and in fact, in my opinion anyway, much more correct than that "North Coast" nonsense that got its start in 1978 or 1979. Cleveland is a Midwestern city, every bit as much as Detroit, Chicago or any other city in the region. (I applaud the poster who referred to Cleveland as a "small Chicago"--this is one of the best things I have ever read about Cleveland in years, after all the bashing the city has taken; thanks again.) Cleveland is also undeniably in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The state of Ohio itself is a Midwestern state, so to say that Cleveland, which is, after all, in the state of Ohio, is not Midwestern is to question geography. Ohio is the easternmost state of the Midwest, according to every map of the U. S. anywhere in the world. I don't see how or if that will ever change; again, the state's location in the U.S. was determined by geography many years ago.

Again, I apologize if this post is off-topic, but after the comment by cle440 that "I don't know what you mean that Cleveland is Midwestern" I felt I had to speak up in defense of an area I have lived in all my life and am darned proud to call home, even though I no longer live in the suburbs.

[Clevelander17]

No one will debate that, based on pure geography, Cleveland and Ohio are technically Midwestern. However the point a lot of people have been making is that Cleveland and its eastern suburbs have a lot of Northeastern character. This does indeed have a lot to do with geography and the fact that this area is like a crossroads, where the Northeast meets the Midwest. Hopefully that clarifies things!

[BelieveInCleve]

I understand what you are saying, but Cleveland has a lot of differences in feel from midwestern cities like Indianapolis, Omaha, Kansas City, Des Moines, St. Louis, Columbus. Cleveland is a lot more similar to cities like Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee, I guess you could call them lake cities. They tend to be more progressive and more dense and have a more diverse population. A lot of people refer to Cleveland as "Lil Chicago" because Cleveland really is just a smaller version of Chicago, we have all the same things they do just on a smaller (except our lake shore is nowhere near Chicago's yet).

Also, a lot of people still refer to Cleveland as "The North Coast". And sometimes that term is used broader for the whole area near the Great Lakes that is near a lake. The North Coast has been one of the nicknames of the area for as long as I can remember and people I know are still using it as much as ever.

I am very aware (and its obvious) that Cleveland is technically in the midwest, I never said it was in the Northeast region. But if you look at a map without knowing the regions, Cleveland is undoubtedly in the Northeast (of the US). Also, I meant that as a compliment I dont understand how you could get offended by that?. I am from Cleveland and love the area, its a great place.