Will Akron ever get the development Cleveland is getting?

[SquareBetterThanAll]

Originally Posted by goofy328

I always considered those to be Cleveland exurbs. To me the Akron suburbs were in Summit County. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter. I wish this spirit of cooperation existed when I lived in Dayton. I told my optometrist I was from Akron and he started talking greasy. I had to laugh; Akron and Dayton are like the same city to me. Both are of equal distance from a larger city. It is like someone from Akron hating on Youngstown. Or the other way around.

I think a healthy competitive spirit is in good fun. It is when people get zealous with theirs that we have issues. I never hated a city, particularly in my home state. Yet this seems to be the norm in America. There is a city out there for everyone; particularly in Ohio.

Macedonia, Hudson, Twinsburg, etc are in Summit County. Streetsboro is in Portage.

Dayton is 2 counties out from Cinci. More like Canton to Cleveland.


I live dead in the middle of Akron - the city - and it is a satellite to Cleveland. The sooner we get over the infighting, accept the dynamic of the metro and work together the better off we all will be. We need to work together when other cities are city-county entities and are in a much better position to work together regionally.

As far as Akron goes, for a Rust Belt city I'm glad for the development that they have been able to pull off. Akron is not going to have the same amenities and development (compared to other similar, standalone cities) because we are a secondary city in the region. Lima has its own TV stations, Akron does not. Why? Because we don't need them. We not need a bunch of weak, duplicative services and amenities. That being said I do like touting how there are multiples of zoos, museums, orchestras, airports, and everything else around here (shhhh!).

[SquareBetterThanAll]

Originally Posted by goofy328

I did start a thread on the Akron board about the Rolling Acres area, and people wanted to see it used to house prisoners. Those are the type of attitudes I am up against on that thread.

If you started a thread asking what to do with Randall Park or Euclid Square I don't think you are going to get much of a different response.

And honestly dead malls don't get a lot of love in serious capacity in general no matter what region you're in (there are some exceptions of course).

[goofy328]

Originally Posted by SquareBetterThanAll

Macedonia, Hudson, Twinsburg, etc are in Summit County. Streetsboro is in Portage.

Dayton is 2 counties out from Cinci. More like Canton to Cleveland.


I live dead in the middle of Akron - the city - and it is a satellite to Cleveland. The sooner we get over the infighting, accept the dynamic of the metro and work together the better off we all will be. We need to work together when other cities are city-county entities and are in a much better position to work together regionally.

As far as Akron goes, for a Rust Belt city I'm glad for the development that they have been able to pull off. Akron is not going to have the same amenities and development (compared to other similar, standalone cities) because we are a secondary city in the region. Lima has its own TV stations, Akron does not. Why? Because we don't need them. We not need a bunch of weak, duplicative services and amenities. That being said I do like touting how there are multiples of zoos, museums, orchestras, airports, and everything else around here (shhhh!).

Good point about Dayton. I think my initial issue is that the term "satellite city" invoked a feeling that you are not your own city, and that your city is merely living off of the fat of the land, and the crumbs of the major city it supports. But perhaps if I think of it in auxiliary terms I can get over myself.

That much aside Akron does have some of its own. There is the zoo, a performing arts theater. A performing arts theater at the University of Akron that can stand on it's own. Finally, after who knows how many decades, a convention center. Took us forever to get our own Value City, but we did, R.I.P. So perhaps things aren't so bad after all.

Perhaps the future is not what Akron can do that Cleveland has already done but what Akron can do that is unique to the culture and fabric of the city. How it can differentiate itself from Cleveland, because I may have been going about this thing the wrong way.

[SquareBetterThanAll]

I that's a better way to look at it. Indians to Rubber Ducks, CLE to CAK, Playhouse Square to the Civic/EJ Thomas. There is room for complementary amenities while not necessarily overlapping directly. Yeah, an Akron tv station is great but we really don't need stations every 20 miles.

Like it or not Cle+ is a real thing, might as well make the best of it.

[MasseyBrown]

Cleveland's 'boom' didn't happen overnight. It began the day Kucinich left office and had a couple of false starts and setbacks along the way. It's only in the last couple of years that everything is coming together at once and progress is so obvious.

Akron started later. Success will come; it will just take a while longer. Speaking of which, I wish the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic RR were a real train line - downtown to downtown. It's sooooo close.