Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't like this notion that a city isn't a real city unless it has X people of Y race. OK, so Cleveland doesn't have Mexicans. So what? Neither does Paris. Cleveland is actually one of the most ETHNICALLY diverse cities in the United States. I believe it has more Hungarian-Americans than any other city. There are sizeable Palestinian, Croatian, Russian, and Ukrainian communities, among others. Yeah, if you look at people as black, white, or brown, you're going to be disappointed, but is that any way to look at people?
tribcavsbrowns, ive come to love all those teams and even root for the indians over the sox, though i like to see them both play well (but im a die hard cubs fan). my point about diversity cannot be appreciated unless you've ever lived in a diverse city like SF, NY, LA, Chi, etc. - that's why i hesitated to even make it, for fear of sounding racist.
i offer one small example: a friend was drving me somewhere on the east side of the city and told me she'd show me chinatown on the way. she said, "there, look!" and i missed it. in chicago, there are first of all several nieghborhoods, that have a certain asian population filled with great, authentic (non-franchise) restuarants and clubs. but when you go into chinatown proper, you definitely know it. it is like you have entered a real asian city: the architecture is asian (pagodas everywhere, dragons, etc.); outdoor markets with live food for sale i'd be afraid to step on; they have their own public library and school, churches, post office, etc.. all the street signs and advertisements are in chinese. it seems like a chinatown.
we turned back around and drove through cleveland chinatown again and it is nothing but abandoned buildings (chinatown appearantly used to be much more substantial like all the rest of the ethnic neighborhoods of cleveland, in the 50-60's, i've come to find out); there was one tiny strip mall with mostly chinese shops.
there are plenty of more examples like this. one more real quick: i lived on the westside of cleveland, next to st. coleman's church, a big, beautiful old irish church, that was bustling with nothing but proud irish just 40 years ago. 2 blocks away is st stephan's, another huge, beautiful german church, that even still has a german mass once a month. about 5 blocks the other way is Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the italian church of one of the 2 italian neighborhoods on the westside (this one still has some italians left, but no restaurants or shops - the other one, associated with St. Rocco's, is long gone). another older irish parish, st. patrick's is just a mile away. there are very few, if any, ethnic irish or germans left in the city, at all (not so in chicago, not so). the westside now is mostly black and poor and crime-ridden (notwithstanding ohio city and some ethnic shops further down Pearl). those ethnic churches communities are a shadow of what they used to be and most are on the verge of closing. my friend wont even take me to so-called slavic village; she says its no where near what it used to be - really not worth seeing and certainly no place to hang out: a couple ethnic meateries and pastry shops and what not still around, but mostly black now and poor and lots of crime (a recurrent theme in the city). please tell me where this "little Hungary" is so i can go get some great food and have a nice time. my guess, though is your exaggerating - Chicago, on the other hand, is known to have more poles in its city limits than Warsaw; and they are mostly in the polish neighborhood on the south side, a beautiful experience im sure, but chicago is full of stuff, that i never even made it there in the 20 years i lived on the north side of the city.
i guess you really dont have to have lived in a diverse city to understand that the cleveland area has comparatively no diversity whatsoever - just be old enough to remember cleveland back in its hayday and what it was becoming until its economy went south.
Last edited by alexmarison; 06-29-2008 at 12:12 PM..
I agree with you 100%. I'm trying to think of a city the size of Cleveland's that is 24-7 and I can't think of any. Austin is pretty lively relative to its size, but they are hardly 24-7 like Chicago, LA, NY, and other top 5 or even top 10 metros. No others come to mind. I do think there is a direct relation between the strength of the downtown core and how lively the city is, so to me, more sprawl = less lively.
I'd say Boston, San Fran and D.C. certainly have Cleveland beat in this regard. You may say their metro areas are bigger, but their roughly in Cleveland's size class generally. And although all 3are have extremely higher density, now, than Cleveland, consider how badly Cleveland's hemorrhaged population in the last half century where, in 1950, we had 12,000/sq. mi (Boston and Chicago-like) and are now around half that.
Seattle bests Cleveland too (downtown, Chinatown, University District, etc) in terms of 24/7 energy.
North of the border, thrown in Toronto - much livelier downtown and neighborhoods.
Miami's an oddball. It's old downtown is scrubby and pretty dead, but Bayside, nearby (a Balto Inner Harbor knockoff, yeah I know, but it hums every day/night). The extremely beautiful Brickell district south of the Miami river with its Manhattan-like forest of elegant high-rise condos is slowly starting to show more signs of urban life although, each building still tends to be an island in itself... Then there's Coconut Grove on the southern fringe of Miami (where, interestingly, City Hall is), which is always a party and upscale... And (neaby urban/suburb) Miami Beach?... fugeddabouditt.
Baltimore's traditional downtown tends to be as dead as Cleveland's (and really, our strong nights trump Balto in this sense). But all bets are off when it comes to the trendy Inner Harbor, which just keeps mushrooming with new housing and hotels, clubs, restaurants, entertainment (ESPN Zone) and lots of stuff to do (that awesome Nat'l Aquarium). And Cleveland has no answer to Balto's quaint, nearby Fells Point and Camden neighborhoods -- they buzz all the time.
Pittsburgh's downtown sucks, but Cleveland has no equivalent to Pitt’s Southside or Oakland - that latter of which we keep trying to emulate in our (in my opinion) more stocked University Circle, but we just can't seem to pull it together, and again, you've got nearby Little Italy, which is a segregated, small pocket, away from UC.
Even little Indianapolis has developed a stronger downtown the Cleveland -- much stronger. Granted, the rest of Indy sucks and Cleveland, by far, is a superior place to live overall; but downtown, Indy's got us beat in terms of sheer energy...
... you may disagree, but... (no apologies needed, btw...)
I'd say Boston, San Fran and D.C. certainly have Cleveland beat in this regard. You may say their metro areas are bigger, but their roughly in Cleveland's size class generally. And although all 3are have extremely higher density, now, than Cleveland, consider how badly Cleveland's hemorrhaged population in the last half century where, in 1950, we had 12,000/sq. mi (Boston and Chicago-like) and are now around half that.
Seattle bests Cleveland too (downtown, Chinatown, University District, etc) in terms of 24/7 energy.
North of the border, thrown in Toronto - much livelier downtown and neighborhoods.
Miami's an oddball. It's old downtown is scrubby and pretty dead, but Bayside, nearby (a Balto Inner Harbor knockoff, yeah I know, but it hums every day/night). The extremely beautiful Brickell district south of the Miami river with its Manhattan-like forest of elegant high-rise condos is slowly starting to show more signs of urban life although, each building still tends to be an island in itself... Then there's Coconut Grove on the southern fringe of Miami (where, interestingly, City Hall is), which is always a party and upscale... And (neaby urban/suburb) Miami Beach?... fugeddabouditt.
Baltimore's traditional downtown tends to be as dead as Cleveland's (and really, our strong nights trump Balto in this sense). But all bets are off when it comes to the trendy Inner Harbor, which just keeps mushrooming with new housing and hotels, clubs, restaurants, entertainment (ESPN Zone) and lots of stuff to do (that awesome Nat'l Aquarium). And Cleveland has no answer to Balto's quaint, nearby Fells Point and Camden neighborhoods -- they buzz all the time.
Pittsburgh's downtown sucks, but Cleveland has no equivalent to Pitt’s Southside or Oakland - that latter of which we keep trying to emulate in our (in my opinion) more stocked University Circle, but we just can't seem to pull it together, and again, you've got nearby Little Italy, which is a segregated, small pocket, away from UC.
Even little Indianapolis has developed a stronger downtown the Cleveland -- much stronger. Granted, the rest of Indy sucks and Cleveland, by far, is a superior place to live overall; but downtown, Indy's got us beat in terms of sheer energy...
... you may disagree, but... (no apologies needed, btw...)
You've got the Kidding me. Indy does not have half the entertainment, restaruants, venues and Cleveland's downtown area. I think you need to come up here a bit and see for your self--and I hope youre not an ex-Clevelander saying this.
I know nothing about Indy's downtown, but to me, the other cities being compared favorably to Cleveland (Chicago, Washington, Seattle, etc.) were not fair comparisons because all are much larger than Cleveland, so of course their downtowns are more vibrant.
But hey, "vibrant downtowns" is subjective anyway so it's not really worth debating. For example, I thought Cincinnati's downtown was terrible compared to Cleveland (granted it has been several years so things may be different now, but it makes sense because it seems like Cincinnati is sprawled out more), but the Cincy fans in here strongly disagree.
Well I think for our size, like you mentioned, Cactus, we have a very well established downtown, and it is growing by leaps and bounds. Look at all the attractions we have, some of them can even compete on a scale with larger cities. Play House Square, University Circle, Warehouse District, Little Italy. There are so many areas across our city, they are not all concentrated in one area, they are spread out, and doing very well.
It's not right to say: don't hold cleveland's relatively small size and population against it when comparing it to other citites, since cleveland has had the jump on most of the citites in the Union and had the advantage of being a railroad hub. In fact until about the half-way mark of the last century (1950-ish) it was still one of the largest and most bustling citites in the US. It is a very relevant fact that cleveland has since died and is only getting worse, whereas every other big city (1 million and over), according to census info, has surpassed it in wealth and good living. I don't care about cleveland's several high class suburbs (other citites have far more and much bigger ones), nor its university circle and little italy (though those are pluses and go into the equation), the fact is cleveland, the city especially, and the greater cleveland area score at the bottom of many, many different categories compared with other big citites.
One may make this distiction, though, among big US citites: those in the bible belt and the others (this isn't an anti-Christian thing, just convenient). Cleveland, since all its diversity either assimulated or left, is like a bible-belt city in my opinion, even though i had expected it to be more like a nothern city like chicago in nature before i came to it. Cinci doesn't fair that much better for that reason, but at least they have their own chili and grater's ice cream parlor. i don't know Indy very well but it probably couldn't be much better either. IMO, get out of this dead zone and go towards one of the coasts, whether the Atlantic or the Pacific (i like texas cities too). Trust me, if you've never been long in another big city (almost any other), you would love it living there.
How in the world is Cleveland a "Bible belt city"???
Also if the city center was decent you could expect the city of Cleveland to have around 750,000 right now easily, with the population of our current metro and CSA. We have just suffered the same thing as Detroit, St. Louis and a lot of other cities. If you look at Columbus, Indianapolis, and a lot of the southwest cities, the majority of the people live in the central city for different reasons. Some have annexed a lot of land and some really are a lot nicer than Clevelands. However when you look at the metro area our central city has a very small population compared to the metro and CSA. So what Im saying is, in reality Cleveland is still a very large city even though some would say different just based on the population of the city of Cleveland. 2.3 million in metro and 3 million in CSA (3.4 counting Canton) is not small.
How in the world is Cleveland a "Bible belt city"???
I was gonna say the same thing. Of the Clevelanders I know that actuallly go to church, most are Catholic or Orthodox, not exactly denominations i've heard of in the "bible belt".
Yes, that Indianapolis downtown being stronger than downtown Cleveland was amusing.
indy's downtown is stronger than cleveland's, though the city of cleveland has much more to offer than indianapolis.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No excuses
