I observed this public area near the famous Reading Terminal Market in downtown Philadelphia. The columns appear to take inspiration from Roman architecture. Notice the large sphere in the middle of the area.
City of Philadelphia downtown area is busy and lively during daylight hours. However, after work hours, the area become quickly deserted and if you are a pedestrian, you begin to feel unsafe. You will run into groups of people at street corners, people with unstable gait and you will probably prefer to stay away from them. Traffic is heavy and visitors to the City of Brotherly Love will have to adapt to the local motorists not yielding to pedestrians in the crosswalk. Visitors will also observe several younger and formally dressed men and women smoking. Finding street parking is difficult. Paid parking is not inexpensive. It costs approximately $28/day for valet parking near the Philadelphia Convention Center. Navigating through the downtown area is not difficult, the streets are parallel. Overall, the downtown Philadelphia is impressive.
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have similar features. Philadelphia is located at the confluence of two rivers, Pittsburgh at the confluence of three. Both cities have impressive downtowns.
We decided to visit a friend’s father who was admitted and had been undergoing treatment for several weeks at Cleveland Clinic for a serious illness.
We were driving on the four lane Carnegie Avenue on our way to Cleveland Clinic. We stopped at a traffic signal. There was one more car ahead of us at the traffic signal. A man started started crossing Euclid avenue. After crossing half of the street, he turned back and started walking towards the car in front of my automobile. I noticed the male driver of the car roll up his partially open window glass. He did not want to have anything to do with the approaching man. Now from observing the agitated man and the rolling up of the window glass, I realized that this was a potentially dangerous situation. I locked my automobile and started praying for the traffic signal to turn green. The man walked up to my automobile and repeatedly said, “Can I ask you a question?”. I pretended to be confused and chose not to roll down the window. After an enternity, the light turned green and I was relieved to be out of my nightmare on Carnegie Avenue and on my way Cleveland Clinic in my automobile instead of in an ambulance.
In 2009, there have been numerous media reports of murders within City of Cleveland. I am not going to venture into Cleveland, if I don’t have to.
A location location location criteria for home buyers is that the city should have a stable economy. Five, ten, or even fifteen years from now – when you want to sell your home, you must have a reasonable expectation that your city will continue to be a desirable place to live.
In addition to good schools and desirable residential neighborhoods, there should be a balanced mix of commercial, office and industrial employers. A good mix of businesses is ideal rather than businesses focused on a single industry. If the city has primarily one type of businesses, a down cycle in that primary industry or downsizing at a major employer will have a serious effect on the economic stability of the city. Additionally, the businesses should be tax paying entities. These businesses will not only provide jobs to the city and local residents, but also add an income source that the city can use to upgrade and maintain city services.
In bedroom communities, the bulk of the burden falls on the city’s residents as taxpayers. These communities may perennially struggle to keep afloat and are not ideally desirable for a home purchase. The most conspicuous feature of these communities may be potholed streets that need resurfacing or reconstruction but are left alone because the municipality cannot afford to fix them.
Click on the location map of Munroe Falls Metro Park to enlarge it. Munroe Falls Metro Park in City of Munroe Falls is the best family park in the Greater Cleveland area. The highlight of the park is the gently sloping kid friendly beach. Life guards are on duty. Munroe Falls Metro Park has an artificial lake that is is not large. The lake is in the middle of a valley in the topography and makes up for its small size with its cleanliness and beauty. There is an admission fee to the park, the parking is free. I did not see any dogs in the park and probably they are not permitted. Munroe Falls Metro Park does have cleaner toilets equipped with folding diaper changing platforms. Park rangers are seen patrolling the park on bicycles and they provide a degree of safety to the park visitors. Public barbecue grills are available but I am not sure if they are very clean.
Unfortunately, Munroe Falls Metro Park is one of the few parks in the Greater Cleveland area that is remarkable. The most disappointing parks in the Cleveland area are the Huntingdon Beach Park in Bay Village and Headlands Beach State Park in Mentor.
I am a Civil Engineer from Louisiana State University. I coined the compound word, Americaneer, as an expression of my tribute.
Random Quote
Whoever told you to trust the government? You live in a democracy. I never asked anyone to trust the government. It’s not your mother, your father or your doctor. — Barney Frank, US House of Representative for Massachusetts, Public Meeting in Darmouth in 8/09
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