Most Powerful City in the Midwest.....Not named Chicago Detroit or Minneapolis (metro)
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Cleveland has 2 downtowns as well. University Circle, home of the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Institute of Music, Cleveland Orchestra, and 4 different large museums, including nationally renowned CMA, is our second downtown.
Cleveland also has an incredible food scene, with several celebrity chefs, including Michael Symon. We have so many established fine restaurants that there are still ones I haven't eaten at, and new ones are opening all the time. The only 2 cities with an "Urban Farmer"? Portland, OR and Cleveland. E 4th St is lined with fantastic restaurants. I've had people from San Diego comment about how good our food is. We also have the historic West Side Market, which has been serving farm-to-table meat and produce, as well as ethnic specialties for over 100 years, and still going as strong as ever. We have the Great Lakes Brewing Company, one of the best craft breweries in the midwest.
Cleveland is hardly a shell of its former self, and is coming back in a big way. We've seen $6 billion in development in Downtown alone in the past 10 years, and more is on the way. We've had skyscrapers that were vacant for 20+ years converted into high end apartments. We had a vacant bank building converted to a downtown supermarket. We've had office buildings all over downtown converted to apartments, and now a 50+ story mixed use apartment/hotel/retail complex is in the works (nuCLEus |). There's a new convention center, and a 30+ story hotel being built. Cleveland nabbed the RNC despite Cincinnati and Columbus also submitting bids, does that sound like a city that's not the most important in Ohio to you?
The Cleveland Clinic continues to expand its already sprawling campus, adding a cancer center and medical school. Near that, more new apartments are springing up (The Finch Group buys Upper Chester land, starts site work for 177-unit apartment project | cleveland.com), as well as mixed use developments Welcome to Uptown Cleveland. Nearby Little Italy is as bustling as ever, with new high end houses, apartments, and condos being built, and a new rapid-transit station that was just completed. Oh speaking of transit, how many miles of rail transit do Cincinnati, Columbus, or St. Louis have?
St. Louis - 46
Columbus - 0
Cincinnati - 0
Cleveland - 34.3
In terms of neighborhoods, near West Side neighborhoods like Ohio City, Tremont, Detroit Shoreway, and Edgewater have seen a resurgence, with new condos, modern rowhouses, and apartments being built, fantastic new restaurants and shops, etc. Other neighborhoods like Chinatown and North Collinwood are in the early stages of gentrification as well.
So tell me again in what way Cleveland is a "Shell of its former self"?
To me University Circle is much more like the Central West End neighborhood in St. Louis rather than the second downtown/CBD like Clayton is in St. Louis. The CWE is home to the primary medical research district with Barnes Jewish Hospital (+ the others including another children's hospital) which hasn't been mentioned really but with all the people discussing Cleveland Clinic and Mayo it should have been brought up as it was ranked 10th on that Honor Roll list that had Cleveland Clinic ranked 5th. It's not quite in the same league, but it's exceptionally strong and tied to Washington University and their Med. School (which was ranked as high as 2nd in the US a few years ago).
The medical campus is currently undergoing a $1 billion dollar expansion and renovation in addition to all the other expansion/construction in the neighborhood: the Cortex research district, St. Louis College of Pharmacy is adding a few new buildings, numerous new apartment buildings/towers including one with a new Whole Foods on the first level or two adding more than 1,000 new units to the neighborhood, a new light rail stop, a new Ikea, a new Shriner's Hospital, etc. The last time I was in St. Louis there were at least 12 cranes dotting the CWE skyline.
Additional similarities is that it boarders the amazing Forest Park (bigger than Central Park and one of the best "urban' parks in the country) which includes a lot of cultural attractions such as a nationally ranked zoo, art museum, science center, history museum, outdoor theater, greenhouse, stables, golf courses, lakes, etc.
Nashville is in no way, shape or form, more important than St. Louis and Cleveland. It may be more popular and more influential culturally due to its music scene, but it is a blip compared either of the two aforementioned cities.
Nashville is in no way, shape or form, more important than St. Louis and Cleveland. It may be more popular and more influential culturally due to its music scene, but it is a blip compared either of the two aforementioned cities.
I certainly wouldn't say it's a "blip" compared to the other two, but I do agree that Nashville is not more important than STL or Cleveland.
By you I guess, and others who want to amusingly add up 1/4 of Ohio, but not by the methodology used to formulate the already very inflated American MSA population numbers. That being said, those aren't MSA numbers, they are the much more realistic Urban Area populations (did you even read the post you quoted?). The St. Louis MSA population is 2,806,207 for your information, Cleveland's is 2,063,598.
Bottom line is, you are using a figure that doesn't include Akron or Summit County, which is ridiculous. You're arbitrarily lowering Cleveland's population figures to make your weak point.
Bottom line is, you are using a figure that doesn't include Akron or Summit County, which is ridiculous. You're arbitrarily lowering Cleveland's population figures to make your weak point.
This is too great... some of you homers are Cleveland's worst enemies... What is my point? Did you get it?
By switching to urban areas instead of MSA St. Louis lost about 650,000 people while Cleveland only lost about 220,000 people.... hmmm, seems like I'm doing Cleveland a lot of favors but you're too much of a homer to realize that...
Bottom line? Let's go back on facts, you thought my urban area numbers were MSA numbers (btw, since you seem to have trouble with this as well, I don't make these numbers up, there's a set methodology which you are clearly unaware of) due to your horrible reading comprehension skills... which ties into the hilarious idea that was illustrated when you added Akron in and claimed it moved Cleveland to the, "front of the class." Except... it didn't because again, you didn't bother to read my post so you didn't know I wasn't using MSA numbers, which also shows you have no idea how big St. Louis is (hint: St. Louis's MSA is bigger than the combined Cleveland and Akron MSAs...)
To me University Circle is much more like the Central West End neighborhood in St. Louis rather than the second downtown/CBD like Clayton is in St. Louis. The CWE is home to the primary medical research district with Barnes Jewish Hospital (+ the others including another children's hospital) which hasn't been mentioned really but with all the people discussing Cleveland Clinic and Mayo it should have been brought up as it was ranked 10th on that Honor Roll list that had Cleveland Clinic ranked 5th. It's not quite in the same league, but it's exceptionally strong and tied to Washington University and their Med. School (which was ranked as high as 2nd in the US a few years ago).
The medical campus is currently undergoing a $1 billion dollar expansion and renovation in addition to all the other expansion/construction in the neighborhood: the Cortex research district, St. Louis College of Pharmacy is adding a few new buildings, numerous new apartment buildings/towers including one with a new Whole Foods on the first level or two adding more than 1,000 new units to the neighborhood, a new light rail stop, a new Ikea, a new Shriner's Hospital, etc. The last time I was in St. Louis there were at least 12 cranes dotting the CWE skyline.
Additional similarities is that it boarders the amazing Forest Park (bigger than Central Park and one of the best "urban' parks in the country) which includes a lot of cultural attractions such as a nationally ranked zoo, art museum, science center, history museum, outdoor theater, greenhouse, stables, golf courses, lakes, etc.
University Circle is only roughly similar to Central West End. Central West End is more of a neighborhood with a major medical center and an entertainment district largely centered on Maryland Ave around Euclid Street. CWE has a larger residential base than U. Circle with many more substantial apartments and other multi-unit dwellings... U. Circle has a few substantial apt buildings, but not nearly as many; U. Circle has had to play catch up in the residential aspect, in terms of increasing its population, but it's getting there. Small, but very dense Little Italy is the strongest residential area adjacent to U. Circle and, in many ways, is a part of the Circle. Uptown, a new mixed use area in the core of U. Circle, a few blocks from both Little Italy and the museum area, is really turning things around.
But U. Circle is unique in the nation, and perhaps the world, for the size, breadth and diversity of educational, museum and medical facilities in one place. The only urban area I've seen that's even come close is Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, but even it can't match U. Circle's diversity of institutions.
St. Louis' art museum, a very good one from all I've read, is relatively distant, walking wise, in the middle of Forest Park, which true to it's name, is a huge urban park with no residents in it (not to be mistaken with the adjacent neighborhood of the same name). Excellent Washington University (which is similar to Case) is still further distant, in the adjacent suburb of University City... U. Circle is a physically beautiful park area, but is much more compact, with Severance Hall (orchestra's gorgeous home), the art museum, Natural hist museum, the botanical gardens and the Western Reserve Historical society all within a few blocks (walking distance, because there are no real blocks in the core UC area, as all the streets flow around the Wade circle area)... And all these institutions are interspersed with Case Western Reserve U, Cleveland Inst of Music and nearby Cleve Institute of Arts, along with University Hospital... Cleveland Clinic is a bit more distant toward the city, and some people (myself included) really don't count the Clinic as being in University Circle -- I see it more of straddling both the Fairfax and Hough neighborhoods, but people differ in this.
O I know why they do, and their influence certainly does (TV market is def a great example of this), but influence and claiming people as residents, gdp, etc. are pretty different things. On that map you can clearly see where Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown, etc. all are, and if you want to look at it as a region, NE Ohio, that's fine, but the nonsense of people trying to claim that Cleveland has up to 4.5 million people are just being ridiculous.
American MSA numbers, due to the methodology behind them, are incredibly inflated and include so many people that would never be considered in other countries. CSA expands even further with these small % county commuting patterns, and that's fine too if that's all you're using it for but it doesn't at all give you a realistic view of the core city and it's surrounding suburbs/built environment (which is what people on here often try to pass it off as). This is why I prefer Urban Area and its methodology, not perfect, but much more realistic.
I mean at what point does a "city" end? When we're talking up to 60, 70, 80, etc. miles away can we really count those people towards the core city (that they don't even have to ever go to)? Even if there is a solid built environment all the way (and a lot of these, such as Youngstown, there def is not), when you're hitting those distances does it really make sense to count them as residents because they might go to a few football games or something? Are we going to rename the Bos/Wash corridor just "New York" due to how connected the built environments are and NYC is the biggest, QED they're all New Yorkers now?
University Circle is only roughly similar to Central West End. Central West End is more of a neighborhood with a major medical center and an entertainment district largely centered on Maryland Ave around Euclid Street. CWE has a larger residential base than U. Circle with many more substantial apartments and other multi-unit dwellings... U. Circle has a few substantial apt buildings, but not nearly as many; U. Circle has had to play catch up in the residential aspect, in terms of increasing its population, but it's getting there. Small, but very dense Little Italy is the strongest residential area adjacent to U. Circle and, in many ways, is a part of the Circle. Uptown, a new mixed use area in the core of U. Circle, a few blocks from both Little Italy and the museum area, is really turning things around.
But U. Circle is unique in the nation, and perhaps the world, for the size, breadth and diversity of educational, museum and medical facilities in one place. The only urban area I've seen that's even come close is Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, but even it can't match U. Circle's diversity of institutions.
St. Louis' art museum, a very good one from all I've read, is relatively distant, walking wise, in the middle of Forest Park, which true to it's name, is a huge urban park with no residents in it (not to be mistaken with the adjacent neighborhood of the same name). Excellent Washington University (which is similar to Case) is still further distant, in the adjacent suburb of University City... U. Circle is a physically beautiful park area, but is much more compact, with Severance Hall (orchestra's gorgeous home), the art museum, Natural hist museum, the botanical gardens and the Western Reserve Historical society all within a few blocks (walking distance, because there are no real blocks in the core UC area, as all the streets flow around the Wade circle area)... And all these institutions are interspersed with Case Western Reserve U, Cleveland Inst of Music and nearby Cleve Institute of Arts, along with University Hospital... Cleveland Clinic is a bit more distant toward the city, and some people (myself included) really don't count the Clinic as being in University Circle -- I see it more of straddling both the Fairfax and Hough neighborhoods, but people differ in this.
I agree pretty much 100%. While I was writing that post I of course was thinking how the majority of the cultural attractions are not in the CWE, but as we said in the adjacent Forest Park, which due to its size can be a bit of a hike as you mentioned (depending on what, the Metrolink station after the CWE is on the north side of the park). That being said the CWE with the medical campus and cultural attractions close by is the closest thing I think St. Louis has to resemble University Circle. Not the same but hey, they're unique cities, and the CWE is pretty much the crown jewel of St. Louis, and it keeps booming like it's not a part of an otherwise slow growth metro (both it, Clayton, and a few other places keep building way more than downtown... It's not doing bad, there's a lot of rehabs going on, some exciting major projects and very good population growth/high occupancy rates, but I wish downtown St. Louis had the same projects as downtown Cleveland with some of the tower proposals I've seen) The previously mentioned second CBD in Clayton is really nothing like University Circle though, so that's why I made my post.
Legacy maybe, but those are not the places that educated millennials are flocking to. You need to travel to places like Columbus and Louisville to see what I mean. You will FEEL the difference. On the streets, in the food and the way people dress. It gets even more pronounced as you go to Nashville. Legacy, smegacy. Nashville is much more vibrant and important than Cleveland or STL.
Nashville does look like a cool city, but it hardly has Cleveland or St. Louis scope, influence or amenities quite yet. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be better for SOME people to live in, but for my interests, I'd take St. Louis, Cleveland, even Buffalo over it.
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