More on Public Square

Roldo Bartimole writes about the Public Square proposal here.

Roldo hates the plan--but it has to do with public financing and the evils of business self-interests and Dick Jacobs. Yawn. Different subject, same old playbook. No new ideas. Just regurgitating the same pseudo-populist diatribes.

While BOTC despises the proposed design, we do endorse the idea of rejuvenating Public Square. We do not like what Paul Volpe and Ann Zoller created, but we applaud their interest in reviving Public Square.

To paraphrase Daniel Burnham, we need plans to stir men's souls. The collective soul will be stirred by progressive design speculation concerned with how spaces like Public Square, the Mall, and the Lakefront will subsist through the 21st century.

These spaces are each proverbial canaries in the Greater Cleveland mineshaft. If they fail, or continue to fail and deteriorate as they are presently constituted, Roldo will really have something to write about. But he will be happy since Dick Jacobs will be losing money.