Thanks for the interest, now get out of the way

This week's Crain's Cleveland Business publishes a letter to the editor concerning the potential changes with Cleveland's Public Sqaure (subscription needed). The authors--Mayor Debbie Sutherland (Bay Village), Martin Sweeney (Cleveland City Council), Andrew Roth (Notre Dame College)--all members of the Leadership Cleveland Class of 2004, take credit for the original design visions for Public Square.

BOTC applauds their recognition of the restoration of Public Square as a transformative agent. However, while they advocate for more unified green space and the re-routing of Ontario and Superior, they botched everything else.

These potential decision and policy makers need to engage in an all encompassing design process that can flesh-out all possible solutions. A progressive vision can be quickly snuffed by mediocre design.

Blog on the City, Design Rag, and Improvised Schema are all searching for better ideas and will be posting notions periodically. See BOTC's recent ideas and parameters here and here.