It was inevitable. Once again the sale of the historic Cleveland school administration building is front and center.

Why? There’s big money to be made.

The historic public building sits strategically centered now. The building and open land sits in the prime location for a hotel with the construction of the $400-million medical mart/convention center at its doorstep. Right across the street in fact. With more than adequate parking facilities adjacent.

Perfect for exploitation. And exploitation is a going business in Cleveland, even with Jimmy in jail.

What makes it even more attractive to some developer is that the schools are controlled by the mayor of Cleveland.

My wife and I moved from Toledo to Northeast Ohio almost eight years ago. Today we certainly consider Lakewood to be our home. But if you ask either one of us where we are from, we will proudly proclaim Toledo. It is the place that provided both of us with fantastic memories and shaped our identities. Not coincidentally then, it is source of intense pride in the Sattler household, so much so that a few years ago when a friend jokingly derided Toledo during a party in our home, we immediately discontinued his drinking privileges – a minor punishment for a major infraction. To this day, we still take great pride in Toledo and believe it to be a great place to call home. For us, it just so happened that our careers led us 100 miles east, but it has not done anything to diminish our appreciation for the city and its residents.

I started series on the “psychology of the suburbs” unsure if crack, big box sprawl, the amygdala, “Don’t Tread on Me,” and innovation–stunting conformity had a legitimate connection. I ended it confident they do.

Let’s begin with crack. It’s got immediate perks for sure. But there are the long-term consequences that render the short-term gains mute. This lesson of crack is also the lesson of big box economics, i.e., initial tax revenue hit succumbs to long-term cost of sprawl. But we got no rehab for cities, or any value-driven consensus to stop the self-destructing instant gratification for that matter.

There has not been a new, enclosed mall to open in the United States, the land of malls and honey, since 2006. This might not seem to be too significant, but given our country’s obsession with shopping, the comfort of remaining in a climate-controlled environment for as long as humanly possible, eating at mediocre chain restaurants, and our fetishization of a suburban-style utopia that just wont go away; trust me, it’s a very big deal.

Indoor shopping malls, for the purposes of retail, are dying and it is a good thing. It is good because it is creating the opportunities to re-think what these massive properties can mean for a neighborhood, and how, through their abandonment, help point toward what is truly important and valuable to a community.

Speak with any preservationist who has considered LEED certification for a project and they will be quick to point out that the act of saving an existing structure is given the same weight as installing bike racks in the LEED scoring system – that is to say, not much.

Those immortal song lyrics come from Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee and fellow Hoosier John Mellencamp’s classic rock tune entitled “Pink Houses.” On my return trip to Michigan from Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon, I decided to follow the road less traveled and was fortunate enough to visit one very proud small town for an hour or so and take in some of the local history and culture.
Most small towns cannot claim a legendary icon as their native son or daughter. Charming Fairmount, Indiana, set amid a patchwork quilt of rural farms and with an population of approximately …

Check out this video tribute to Cleveland’s Randall Park Mall, recently listed on the Huffington Post’s America’s Most Abandoned Places.

I especially dig the Edward DeBartolo intro, where he claims prophetically that downtown will decline and the suburbs will rise. What is the next frontier for Cleveland? Will it continue to be farther out into farmlands? Will a return to the city really take hold in greater Cleveland like it has in more prosperous metros? Who is the Edward DeBartolo (Youngstown) of today? What would he say? Would he even bother …

This post was originally published on panethos.wordpress.com.
Kudos to Carmel. No…I am not talking about Carmel, California, which is indeed a gorgeous town overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In this case I am complimenting  Carmel, Indiana, a large suburb of approximately 80,000 residents located just north of Indianapolis. When I was growing up in Indy (way back when), Carmel was largely nondescript,  with sprawling subdivisions across cornfields. It was best known for powerhouse football and basketball teams and the Carmel movie theater (sadly no longer there). The downtown area at the time was very small …

Thirty years ago, I took a trip with my dad and brother to downtown Cleveland to watch two old buildings get blown up. The event was billed as a momentous milestone, but to me it seemed more like a natural disaster. A tsunami of dust swept towards us and, within seconds, I lost them in the crowd.

Check out the work being done by the folks at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which they highlighted in this video.
Learn more about their history and their work downtown, which has gotten some recent publicity.
-KG
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