Bobby B. writes...
"You need to write something on the blog about how suburban sprawl/construction somehow turns the entire Cleveland metro area into a river every time it rains nowadays."
Bob, of course, is referring to stories like this. And to his point, at the same time I-480 was being closed due to flooding, my wife and I were driving down to Uniontown for a doctor's appointment. And the freeways down that way were fine. Very wet, but not flooded. And don't think it wasn't raining as hard. We had several waves of torrential rain. So were does it end?
I'm hiring an Existential Detective to investigate my coincidences, because we just watched I ♥ Huckabees last night, and one of the many themes is urban sprawl. Somehow methinks Cleveland is not alone in this situation....Thoughts, everyone?
[By the way, when looking up the flooding story, I saw this on the front page of The Plain Dealer. Alright, cleveland.com, but what's the difference, except for price? Anyway, sorry local coke-heads!]
2 comments:
My thoughts are these:
We've all lived in this area for decades. Do you remember people standing on top of their cars on our freeways? How about Macedonia being underwater? It's not like it hasn't rained before.
It's my view that the trends of poor city and infrastructure planning in new development have created an unforseen mess in a few areas...namely, water doesn't drain into concrete. Also, every time you raze the earth, you're displacing existing drainage and/or runoff perhaps for miles around.
So what do you do? Convince developers and corporate entities to invest in existing structures and cities (that's your classic urban renewal). Do we really need new "McMansions" or "mixed-use" development in what are now the 4th/5th-ring suburban areas of Portage/Summit/Medina counties? Are y'all that afraid of people darker than you? Certainly you know that the further you move away, eventually they'll find you anyway because it's inhabitable where they came from.
Each time we move further out, another area closer to "the city" deteriorates...do we want to turn into Los Angeles with a downtown that nobody goes to, while we're all sitting in traffic for two hours trying to get from one suburb to the next...and now we run the risk of drowning in the process?
I'm not talking like a trail mix Birkenstock wearer here, either. The more we spread out, the more the region suffers economically, and the more weird stuff like flooding where you'd never seen it before will happen. On and on.
Next time: How extending the Rapid Transit over three counties will save not only downtown, but the whole state overnight.
Couldn't agree more. My initial thoughts were these....
1) Of course most Americans are afraid of people with slightly more pigmentation in their skin. Otherwise, one of the lead stories on the "news" today wouldn't have been that whites are now the minority in 1 out of 10 big US cities. I say, who gives a crap?!?
2) I cannot explain the trend of building/buying $300,000 Ryan Homes with no land (and no character!), which are poorly constructed (like this sentence), and paid for with a loan you may not be able to afford in 5 years. I almost hope that system crumbles.
3) I almost think that eventually, moving back into the cities will become more of the norm. Public transportation alone is a great argument....And once we move all those 'brown' people in the 'burbs, the cities will be safe again! [Please note sarcasm.]
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