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| *Travel Tips>>>Cleveland Travel Tips |
What are the pros and cons of living in Cleveland, OH? |
Travel Info What are the pros and cons of living in Cleveland, OH? Travel Tips The best part about Cleveland is that his everything "major" cities have. Great parks, diverse restaurants, unique neighborhoods, a lot of cultural institutions like museums and theaters, parks, trails, beaches, hospitals, public transportation (rail and bus) librearies festivals year-round, concerts, deccent shopping, professional sports teams. Cleveland's cultural instiutions and hospitals are among the top in the country by the way. Cleveland is just old enough and just large enough to offer all these great things. The problem with Cleveland is really the attitude. Even though the metropolitan area has everything someone could be looking for, just because it isn't Chicago or New York, people are really down on the city. For instance in Cleveland you have this great Belgian beer bar, but there is only one in Cleveland. In New York and Chicago there are probably 10-20 Belgian beer bars. I think to myself how many Belgian beer bars do you really need? But it is these types of things, like not having 10+ Belgian beer bars, that make them think the city must be so lame. Even though Cleveland doesn't have seamless city blocks upon blocks of entertainment and gentrification, it has excellent pockets/districts/strips of activity. You just have to know where to look. It isn't hard to find out where these pockets of activity or areas of interest are located, but a lot of people (who complain) never find them. I think everyone who knows the city (which doesn't take long to get to know) absolutely loves it here. You can do anything here that you could in other major cities, and at half the price. Parking in the city should never cost you more than $5 a day, dinner for two at a very nice restaurant doesn't have to cost more than $60, beers should't cost more than $3, a nice one bedroom apartment doesn't have to cost more than $550 a month, and a very nice house can be bought in the suburbs or a new condo downtown can be bought for 200K. AND no one ever hardly drives more than 30 minutes to get where they need to go. Traffic is light and everything is convenient. The very sensible, confident and sophisticated person will love Cleveland. The people who don't are either not sensible/confident/sophisticat... or they are so status-concsious that they have to live somewhere like New York, LA, Chicago, or Boston. *EDIT: I just wanted to comment about remarks made about the "city" specifically. First of all the city is very small compared to the "metro area". There are a lot of suburbs in Cleveland. Some of the suburbanization is due to urban sprawl, but a big reason is simply that the city of Cleveland doesn't encompass much land and there is a lot of political fragmentation. Even though "Greater Cleveland" is mostly/technically suburban, people insist on using any statistics about Cleveland schools or poverty as an indicator to the quality of life in Cleveland. It is true that hardly any middle class people (with families) live within the city limits. They live in all these inner-ring suburbs that share more than one boarder with Cleveland like Lakewood, Cleveland Heights, Fairview Park, Brookpark, Parma, Lakewood, or Shaker Heights which have much better school systems compared to Cleveland proper. In any other metro area these places would have been annexed by the central city long ago and played into the quality of the school system and median income. "Cleveland" is the 30th largest city in the country, and suppposedly one of the top ten poorest, but Cuyahoga County is the most wealthy county in the state of Ohio, and I think the 30th most wealthy county in the country. Greater Cleveland is the 15th largest metro-area in the country. Any "stats" on "Cleveland" tend to not give it proper justice. Downtown Cleveland though is seeing a rebirth. It has one of the top ten most fastest growing downtown populations in the country. There is a lot of new construction specifically downtown. There is always a new restaurant openning up on W.6th and E.4th Street. Developers and the federal government are poaring billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements and mixed-use developments. Just sixth months ago the city enacted a business improvement district ordinance for downtown that employs a team of people to clean up trash and litter, and who clean public spaces throughout the day. They also patrol and watch for suspicious behavior. Downtown is safer and Cleaner now than it probably has ever been. All of this development downtown is very new. Someone not aquainted with downtown Cleveland in several years wouldn't know about all this. Downtown Cleveland, Ohio City, Tremont, and University Circle are urban neighborhoods within the city of Cleveland that are seeing a huge transformation in terms of housing and development. Cleveland is very much an up and coming city. In the next ten years it will probably be very much like downtown Boston or more recently Philidelphia. Others i grew up in the cleveland ohio area; cleveland has great museums, a wonderful metro-park system, great theaters, the lake front, sports teams, everything else you would find in a major city. the only negatives people complain about are the winter snow ( i actually like the snow) and if you actually live in the city limits the school system has got a bad rap; overall cleveland is still sometimes the butt of jokes because of it's poor reputation as a dirty industrial city in the 60's and 70's, but that has changed quite a bit. Pros: Good Location - Driving distance to other major cities within a few hours Pro sports teams (however, this could be a con also) Lake Erie boating Cost of living Good suburbs Cons: Weather Economy Traffic & Road Construction Diminishing downtown nightlife Poorly run by city officials & government I spent most of my adult years in "Cleveland." (If you live anywhere within 50 to 60 miles of the actual city limits, people will often say they live in "Cleveland" when they actually live in a suburb -- as I did. To parallel how others have answered it: Pro: Great museums, orchestra, first class medical facilities Lake Erie Reasonably priced housing stock Good park system (although needs improvement) Great suburbs within driving distance of downtown Con: Weather (it is NOT just the snow -- it is the interminable grey days -- VERY different from New England where I was as a child). Poor schools in Cleveland with lack of consistent leadership Blighted neighborhoods that just don't seem to get better Highest povery rate in nation and one of most segregated communities EVEN THOUGH the greater Cleveland area is home to many ethnic communities! That said, I will probably return to the greater Cleveland area, but this is more due to my husband's lifelong commitment to his employer than any real desire to live in thar particular part of the US. http://www.teamneo.org/content/qualityof... http://www.travelcleveland.com/about_cle... http://www.cleveland.com/census/index.ss... Well, I grew up in Cleveland & went to Cleveland Public Schools. I grew up on the west side & went to school on the east side. Wen I turned 21, I moved out of Ohio just to have a change. Since I have moved, I notice the things I missed since I left 4 years ao. Pros: The Metro Parks. I loved walking all 12 miles of the Rocky River Park. I use to sneak to Edgewater park at night when I was a kid to meet my friends (I would NOT recommend doing this! The lights in those tunnels didn't work until I was a teenager!) The Zoo is really great! I live in FL now, & if you want an ok zoo, you have to pay $$$ to go to Disney! The little local zoos suck here! The city itself is very diverised. You can feel like your in China one min, the India, then go to the Slavic Village! Public Transpertation is GREAT in Cleveland! I remember the car always breaking down & we would get on the RTA. You are close to many other cities. It may only take a few hours to get anywhere. The Airport has the busiest air traffic! I only know this because I worked at Hopkins. It's cheap to live inside of Cleveland. Cons: It was getting dirty downtown. Last time I was there, I don't know how I stayed on Prospect every morning to go to school, but I didn't want to do it again! Ha ha ha... Cleveland Public Schools SUCK! I know I graduated from South High, but in 9th grade, there were like 2,500 9th graders & only 250 of us graduated! Wha the F***? They screwed up kids schedules so they couldn't graduate on time & charge kids for "Vandalizing the school" which they never did! When I was in 9th grade, one day, a bunch of files were outside all over the lawn! Those were some kids personal info! I have TONS of stories to share, but later... It may be cheap to live inside of Cleveland, but you look at some streets & see why! (old unkept homes, lots of drugs, etc) I was born & raised in Cleveland |
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