I survived Cleveland!!! (schools, housing, budget)

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by jam40jeff

Suburb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the first sentence. The only point I will give you is that technically Columbus did not annex its suburbs, it annexed rural areas which became suburban. However, it is analagous to Cleveland having annexed what eventually became Westlake, Euclid, Beachwood, and North Olmsted, let alone Fairview Park, Lakewood, Rocky River, Parma, Cuyahoga Heights, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Unviersity Heights, South Euclid, Lyndhurst, etc. This is how Columbus has quadrupled in land area since 1950. Yes, there are a small few municipalities surrounding Columbus, but nothing like the 100+ around Cleveland.

They need to find a better way to compare ACTUAL safety in these cities and metro areas, but Forbes and their ilk are not interested in that. They are interested in big headlines lacking any substance that can grab people's attention when MSN slaps them on their home page.

I have to agree with your statement (bold above) about the way comparisons are done and publicized.

Being familiar with both Cleveland and Columbus though, I'd have to say that overall Columbus has a smaller "footprint" of unsafe areas as a portion of their overall city limit. As stated though, Columbus has significantly expanded into unincorporated areas, while Cleveland has not.

[ctownplayer]

this thread is just one big huge joke. okay, this is coming from a kid who lived on st. clair st. most of his life. i am curious, how many of you have lived in a rough area before??? i don't live in eastside cleveland anymore, i live in north hartford, which also sucks and is decayed beyond belief. i hate living in the ghetto and am still stuck in one, but i am saving my money and will be getting out soon. i'm only 22 so i dont make a lot of money so i am kinda stuck here for now so i guess i'll just have to make the best of it even though everyone loves to dump garbage on my semi-grassless yard everyday. just because my house looks like a dump doesn't mean it is one. sorry, but i needed to vent a little bit.

[Chef Boyardee]

Originally Posted by jam40jeff

I disagree. If you look at the statistics in a simple-minded way, yes, it seems much worse. But when youj realize that "core Columbus" has similar statistics to Cleveland, it sheds a whole new light on the sittuation. Columbus has annexed its suburbs. To compare the crime rates is like comparing Cuyahoga County to Columbus, or the old boundaries of Columbus before annexation to the city of Cleveland. In fact, all of the "dangerous" cities are in the same boat. They are older cities which have not annexed, like Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Baltimore. The only cities not on the list which also have not annexed are the wealthiest cities like New York and Chicago. But there are plenty of cities across the country with inner cities very similar to Cleveland's (Miami, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Baltimore, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc.).

So, annexation is a clever way to hide the problem, for awhile

[LewLew]

Originally Posted by ctownplayer

this thread is just one big huge joke. okay, this is coming from a kid who lived on st. clair st. most of his life. i am curious, how many of you have lived in a rough area before??? i don't live in eastside cleveland anymore, i live in north hartford, which also sucks and is decayed beyond belief. i hate living in the ghetto and am still stuck in one, but i am saving my money and will be getting out soon. i'm only 22 so i dont make a lot of money so i am kinda stuck here for now so i guess i'll just have to make the best of it even though everyone loves to dump garbage on my semi-grassless yard everyday. just because my house looks like a dump doesn't mean it is one. sorry, but i needed to vent a little bit.

ctownplayer, no one is stating that you are wrong in your perceptions either. I even stated that I didn't want to argue with anyone who did have to live in the very rough areas, as I am sure they can be very bad. However, what we are referring to is that "Cleveland" as a whole is not unsafe. There are certain parts of the city of Cleveland that are very tough, rough and unsafe, but if you are taking the entire metro area, it is not as rough a place as some have stated. You say you are now in Hartford...(CT?) There are areas near Hartford that are burbs, and aren't as rough as the city...you'll admit that right?
Maybe we should clarify that parts of Cleveland are very unsafe, and probably rank up there with some of the unsafest, but ALL of Cleveland is not that way.
Good luck getting out of where you are.

[Chef Boyardee]

Look, nobody in Cleveland, who is anybody, is facing up to the problem. So, it is going to get worse and no one, who is anybody, cares.

Of course, Cleveland isn't unique and the abusiveness of our elites is a matter of degrees. Nevertheless...

[ctownplayer]

Originally Posted by LewLew

ctownplayer, no one is stating that you are wrong in your perceptions either. I even stated that I didn't want to argue with anyone who did have to live in the very rough areas, as I am sure they can be very bad. However, what we are referring to is that "Cleveland" as a whole is not unsafe. There are certain parts of the city of Cleveland that are very tough, rough and unsafe, but if you are taking the entire metro area, it is not as rough a place as some have stated. You say you are now in Hartford...(CT?) There are areas near Hartford that are burbs, and aren't as rough as the city...you'll admit that right?
Maybe we should clarify that parts of Cleveland are very unsafe, and probably rank up there with some of the unsafest, but ALL of Cleveland is not that way.
Good luck getting out of where you are.

i understand your reply thoroughly, but if you haven't noticed in my posts that i always mention eastside cleveland not cleveland as a whole. i do that to avoid misunderstandings or confusion. to be honest when i lived on st. clair, i barely ventured out the area because i was young and afraid of the surrounding areas. cleveland as a whole is a great city and i love it. now getting to hartford, ct; hartford is actually an incredible city and i am never bored here. downtown has a great nightlife and very good restuartants. hartford has incredible subarbs and great schools, the only bad area of hartford is the northend where i am, it's a large area though.
back to cleveland; i know that not all of cleveland is bad, but if you split cleveland east and west, the differance would be like night and day. the eastside is extremely decayed and if it was its own city it would probably have the highest violent crime rate in america. it would be like a 10x larger version of east cleveland which is an insane little town.

[ColumbusNEWb]

Originally Posted by jam40jeff

Suburb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the first sentence. The only point I will give you is that technically Columbus did not annex its suburbs, it annexed rural areas which became suburban. However, it is analagous to Cleveland having annexed what eventually became Westlake, Euclid, Beachwood, and North Olmsted, let alone Fairview Park, Lakewood, Rocky River, Parma, Cuyahoga Heights, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Unviersity Heights, South Euclid, Lyndhurst, etc. This is how Columbus has quadrupled in land area since 1950. Yes, there are a small few municipalities surrounding Columbus, but nothing like the 100+ around Cleveland.

They need to find a better way to compare ACTUAL safety in these cities and metro areas, but Forbes and their ilk are not interested in that. They are interested in big headlines lacking any substance that can grab people's attention when MSN slaps them on their home page.

They do need to find a new way to compare crime stats. I have constantly thoughout the years heard from Clevelanders that the only reason Columbus is the largest city is annexation of it's suburbs which is never the case but as you stated the annexation of rural land that became "suburban". If Columbus didn't annex out it would be ringed by suburbs who then in turn drain the tax base out of the inner city and it would have the same low population numbers as Cincinnati and Cleveland.
I this smart growth... absolutely not! Columbus Corporation limits already are sprawling across three counties Franklin, Licking and Delaware.... but at least it prevents from tax revenue from being taken from the city by the competing suburbs and honestly I don't care if Columbus has to annex all the way to Marion in the north to Chillicothe in the south... as long as they keep the revenue rolling in and not letting suburbs choke the city of Columbus I say keep annexing....

On topic with Cleveland. This is just MY opinion and it's formed on my intereaction with Cleveland metro residents......I feel like Cleveland suburbs are working against the City proper of Cleveland.

As I have stated in a previous post I know a lot of people in Cleveland metro and almost all of them could care less if Cleveland rots to the ground as long as they are happy in their respective outer suburb. I don't understand this mentality but I do know what has formed their opinions.

Which leads me to this. I'm going to post a thread on Cleveland city/county merger to discuss the pros and cons if this were to ever happen which most of us know would NOT.

[jam40jeff]

Originally Posted by ctownplayer

this thread is just one big huge joke. okay, this is coming from a kid who lived on st. clair st. most of his life. i am curious, how many of you have lived in a rough area before??? i don't live in eastside cleveland anymore, i live in north hartford, which also sucks and is decayed beyond belief. i hate living in the ghetto and am still stuck in one, but i am saving my money and will be getting out soon. i'm only 22 so i dont make a lot of money so i am kinda stuck here for now so i guess i'll just have to make the best of it even though everyone loves to dump garbage on my semi-grassless yard everyday. just because my house looks like a dump doesn't mean it is one. sorry, but i needed to vent a little bit.

I am not saying there aren't many very tough parts of Cleveland. What I am saying is that many other cities have parts just as bad, but may have a better crime rate overall because their suburban areas are includied as part of the crime stats of the city. It is doing harm to Cleveland to be constantly painted as some city that's so much worse than almost every other city out there, when in reality it's not too different from most other large cities.

[LewLew]

Originally Posted by ctownplayer

i understand your reply thoroughly, but if you haven't noticed in my posts that i always mention eastside cleveland not cleveland as a whole. i do that to avoid misunderstandings or confusion. to be honest when i lived on st. clair, i barely ventured out the area because i was young and afraid of the surrounding areas. cleveland as a whole is a great city and i love it. now getting to hartford, ct; hartford is actually an incredible city and i am never bored here. downtown has a great nightlife and very good restuartants. hartford has incredible subarbs and great schools, the only bad area of hartford is the northend where i am, it's a large area though.
back to cleveland; i know that not all of cleveland is bad, but if you split cleveland east and west, the differance would be like night and day. the eastside is extremely decayed and if it was its own city it would probably have the highest violent crime rate in america. it would be like a 10x larger version of east cleveland which is an insane little town.

I will give you that. Eastside of downtown Cleveland proper (that whole area) is not good. Eastside suburbs, on the whole, are doing better than westend burbs though.

[ctownplayer]

Originally Posted by LewLew

I will give you that. Eastside of downtown Cleveland proper (that whole area) is not good. Eastside suburbs, on the whole, are doing better than westend burbs though.

i did not know that.