Proving Once Again That People Are Dumb...

No higher meaning or over-arching theme here. Just a story from this morning that makes you wonder about people:

My wife and I were driving southbound on Belle between Franklin and Madison. There is a 15-20 yard stretch that is being redone on the southbound lane. With only one car several hundred yards off, we decide to veer around it without much thought. Well, that car several hundred yards off was doing approximately 45 MPH on what is a residential street. So, we slow down not sure of this person's intentions. Now, at this point, we are halfway into the patch under construction as this woman continues to accelerate and decides to block the rest of the lane. She finally slows down to avoid a collision, but refuses to back up at all so we can both continue on our way. She expected us to back up all the way to let her go.

I (and my wife) am not one who suffers fools very well. So, we throw it in park and wait and wait. A couple minutes pass and she still doesn't move. I get out of the car and tell her she needs to back up. She clearly cut us off intentionally while doing almost twice the speed limit. She wouldn't put her window down so I only heard muddled responses but her face said it all. So, at this point traffic is starting to back up behind us going both ways. People are turning around and finding an alternative route. Finally, after five minutes of blocking the street, she throws into into reverse and backs up the 5-10 feet we needed to get past.

Obviously, I didn't need to turn this into a confrontation (I was reasonably behaved, although I made by displeasure of her actions and my general opinion of her intelligence clearly known), but at some point I'm not going to give inconsiderate, lazy, ignorant, etc. people a free pass for their actions. They are the ones who need to conform the standards of behavior and courtesy of the mainstream, not the other way around.

So, to the middle-aged woman in the tan sedan from this morning on Belle: I hope you come across this blog somehow (and I wish I had come up with your license plate number as well). Congratulations. You win the award for most self-absorbed, ignorant, uncivilized person of the day!

Eagles and Rangers

As my son begins high school at St. Edward High School after four plus years in Lakewood City Schools, I felt it was useful to look back on the last year-plus that resulted in him being an Eagle on Detroit instead of a Ranger on Bunts.

First off, it became very clear to us that the minute we even began to talk about sending our son to St. Edward a few years back people began to act differently towards us. There are a variety of stories and incidents that I don't care to rehash here, but it was obvious that our son quickly became an outsider in his own school during his eighth grade year. Pressure was put on him by district employees to stay and go to Lakewood High School, St. Edward was slandered repeatedly, etc. A lot of unprofessional behavior by a lot of adults who should know better.

It seems odd to me that Lakewood residents seem to accept people who move out of Lakewood and take all of their spending power and tax revenue with them in pursuit of "better" schools. But when somebody is trying to make a commitment to the City of Lakewood and remaining a resident and sending their son to a Lakewood institution instead of Lakewood public, then people seem to think that's an unforgiveable sin.

A lot of the "St. Edward complex" from Lakewood Schools comes out of the athletic department. While somewhat natural for Lakewood to have a chip on their shoulder considering the success of the St. Edward programs, it doesn't hold up to reality. Very few kids from Lakewood actually go to St. Edward anymore. My son may be the only one from the public middle schools out of his class and a handful more from Lakewood Catholic Academy. Most of them are coming from River or Bay or Westlake, etc. The funny thing is that 20 plus years ago you did see a lot more Lakewood kids at St. Edward. Yet somehow, througout much of the late 1980s and 1990s Lakewood more than held their own against St. Edward. I remember my high school played St. Edward in football during the regular season and scrimmaged Lakewood in a preview just before the season started. Both were big, deep, talented Division I schools. Something has obviously gone wrong for the Rangers since then. As it stands now, you're unlikely to ever see the two tennants of Lakewood Stadium facing off against each other.

This post isn't meant as an indictment of Lakewood High School or an attempt to figure out what is wrong with the Ranger sports program. My point is that St. Edward High School is an institution that brings a lot of publicity (and tax revenue since it is a large employer) to the city. Instead of hoping for it to fail (as many Lakewood officials and parents seem to work towards), the city should hope for its continued success and growth.

Giving Credit

The city has a lot challenges, as we all know, and it is important to recognize the good work the city is doing inspite of these many challenges:

http://blog.cleveland.com/lakewoodsunpost/2009/06/lakewood_receives_economic_dev.html

Hopefully, they can get this up and running before the end of the summer.

Welcome

I'm not sure where this blog will take us. As a Lakewood resident, I'm having a hard time "drinking the koolaid" lately. There are a lot of policy issues not being addressed. We are on the clock. Budget crisis or not, we are looking at our last best chance to make significant and drastic changes concerning the direction our city is headed.

This blog is not meant to be a platform for hate language and ignorance. There is already too much of that. We all know, or we may be, people that use the example of Section 8, increasing minority populations, increased crime, high taxes, etc. as a crutch to keep us from really looking at what needs to be done.

This blog is meant as a sort of therapy for myself. I walk or drive the streets and neighborhoods of Lakewood and a lot of thoughts run through my head. I wonder what happened to make some streets so appealling and well kept and others so barren and foreboding. I try to imagine a time when all of Lakewood's doubles and apartment buildings were well-kept, in-demand and respectable.

That time is well past, and...it is not coming back. Ever. Period.

Let's all count to 10, take a deep breath and get ready for what is next.

We have all seen what has happened to Cleveland by simply trying to hold on to what they once had. You end up holding your breath that the Ohio Supreme Court doesn't cut your last livable neighborhoods off at the knees.

If we are not moving forward, we are moving backward. The status quo of throwing some new paint on a crumbling double or rigging a bathroom in the basement so we can list our house as 1.5 bathrooms is over.

The bottomline is that there are large, fundamental problems with the housing infrastructure of this city. As it is currently comprised, Lakewood can't be a preferred city of residence. That is the conclusion I have come to over the last five plus years of living here and years of academic and professional work in the areas of ecnomic and community development.

All of the city's problems (crime, schools, lower tax revenue, relatively high tax rates, etc.) are a result of housing. If your housing isn't at a level to attract and retain middle and upper-middle income families, you will decline. I don't want Lakewood to go completely in the direction of gentrification, but the pendulum in the housing arena has swung for too much in the direction of lower and lower-middle income housing.

I don't have the easy answers, but I do know this is likely our last best chance. There are, and will continue to be, large amounts of resources available in the coming years for cities and counties to invest in themselves and plot a new course. (BTW, speaking of a new course can somebody tell me how Lorain County was able to get wind turbines up and running on the lake before a Lakewood or Cleveland. I mean, Lorain? Really?)

The question and discussion I've heard bantied about in the few years I've been has been "how do we fix Lakewood" or even "how do we save Lakewood from going downhill." Well, I've got news for you: it's time for a total paradigm shift. There is no fixing or saving Lakewood as we once knew it.

It is time to throw out everything we think we know and go big and bold. Small painting and home improvement programs work for post-WWII neighborhoods. They aren't gonig to do a thing for 100 plus year old neighborhoods with far too many doubles. Everything needs to be put on the table and a lot of uncomfortable conversations need to be had (sorry Birdtown, your Bohemian, historic, folksy, whatever you wanna call it charm aren't doing us any favors). That includes putting eminent domain back on the table.

Like I said, we'll see where this takes us. If you have comments or suggestions, please leave your thoughts. All the cards need to be on the table. It's time to go all in.