Reason saves Clevelend… With Drew Carey?

[Jason T. Radice]

Reason.tv and Drew Carey have a very interesting series of videos examining the best-practices from around the nation with regards to Urban improvement. The series examines Cleveland’s continued downhill slide, and delve into what got Cleveland into the shape it is in currently. They also expore unorthodox and “outside of the box” thinking that has worked elsewhere, and if it is applicable to Cleveland. They also explore the myth of government initiated revitalization through major public projects like convention centers and stadiums.

 

Keep in mind, Reason is a libertarian-oriented website. Politics aside, it may open your eyes to what may have once been accepted practice, but no longer works in todays environment. I know I learned a few things.

 

Take a look (the whole thing is about 45 minutes long) and let me know what you think…

 

http://reason.tv/video/show/reason-saves-cleveland-6

 

 

 

 

[Trace One]

Since you asked, and in my humble opinion, for us LA’s this is dealing on governmental concept levels, having more to do with taxes than design.
But of course I am not bereft of opinions at that level..Personally I don’t like Nick Gillespie, have seen him speak fairly often – generally to me Libertarian ideas seem half-baked..There is not a real thorough analysis of problems, just general complaining, disatisfaction with ‘government’ and the repition that privatization is the answer..I disagree. I believe that good government is necessary and possible, that we as Americans don’t pay enough taxes, and things like charter schools are a way to dumb down the problem, without solving it – just a way to spend less money..Las Vegas wanted to allocate $3,000 a year per student – for charter schools..New York city pays $7-8,000 per student – and in my opinion, that is not enough.
As for public -private for development, nothing new there..The Central Park Conservancy was born in the seventies…
I see Libertarianism as a way to dumb our society down further, by allocating less money to the masses, thus enabling the big players to skim more for themselves, without contibuting anything to the society that allowed them to thrive..This is not a long-term plan. It is a short-term plan that benefits the rich.
We have responsibilities as a society..We need our food inspected, our potholes fixed, our national parks and environment protected..It is a society, and we do all live in the same house, ultimately..Ya gotta spend money on the house that we all live in..
We need more government, more public schools that are designed better – I am sure you have heard of the ‘small schools’ as well as the ‘walk to schools” efforts – Bloomberg in NYC has been working on these concepts..

Cincinatti needs the new homeland security department to locate there (for example) to provide long-term stable jobs (since we were able to defeat Bush’s effort to not allow the new departments to unionize. Yay!). The IRS located to Fresno in the sixties, and this god-forsaken desert suddenly has a base. Private business cannot do it, for the many – the jobs are not secure, even though they may pay more..I am in favor of a whole new department at the federal level whose job it is to clean up plastic from the oceans..We could locate that in Cincinatti.(??just talking..).But only if cincinatti is an appropriate place environmentally to be a sustainable place – maybe the downsized city is better size for the water resources? whatever..

my 2c.

[Trace One]

sorry, I MEANT Cleveland., knew I should have double-checked…Flyover land to me, unfortunately..Might as well be Iraq….

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