Pop City Posts on Lack of Flights, Cleveland & Columbus Hope For European Service, Why Can't the Greater Region Support A Major International Airport?

Another year and the same old story as individual airports around the greater region bemoan the inability to attract better national and international air service. More plans for tax subsidies to bribe carriers into providing service.

From Pop City

Want to turn Pittsburgh into a power player? Make flying to and from easier

"In 2013, Pittsburgh International had air service to just 36 destinations; many were connecting airports where passengers get on another plane to get where they really want to go. And that’s what drives Spitz Cohan crazy. She said her guests might not have the best experience when visiting Pittsburgh if they’ve missed a connection or suffer jet lag from trips prolonged by layovers."

New service is planned to Toronto but there is a decent chance it may not last.

An official for the Allegheny Conference, Ken Zapinsky answers with a sad, bunch of excuses and rationalizations.

“If there was a direct correlation between level of air service and economic success, Newark would be doing a heck of a lot better,” 

Newark International Airport is right across the Hudson from NYC, which doing pretty well.

An official from Vist Pittsburgh says"

“We compete with Louisville, Cleveland, Columbus, all of which are two stops away,” Davis said. “Of similar cities, only Charlotte and Baltimore have better air service than Pittsburgh.”

Isn't that the problem? We are competing with other similar sized regional metros instead of combining to compete against coastal mega-metros. 

Zapinsky at least admits the negative impact the lack of better service likely has.

"At issue is the potential for things to happen, according to Zapinski. Maybe a local company decides against expansion because it’s too difficult to get to the West Coast. Maybe a German company looking to grow never considers Pittsburgh because there are no direct flights. “What you can’t measure is how much better Pittsburgh would be if we had more air service,” Zapinksi said. “The real impact is in the lost opportunity for a Pittsburgh company that could have had a client fly nonstop from San Francisco or Los Angeles and cut a big deal that leads to revenue of $5 million.”

Pittsburgh isn't alone. One can find countless stories about the same need in Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Louisville.

From Cleveland.Com

Cleveland to Europe: Airport director says push is on for transatlantic flight

The hope is they can land a non-stop to London.
But it's too early to rush out and apply for a passport.
Any effort to land international service will likely take at least two years – perhaps longer – from now until takeoff.

And many important questions remain unanswered:

* What airline and what European destination?

* Will the community pony up the cash necessary to convince an airline to take a risk on Cleveland?

Others see beefing up domestic flights as a higher priority:

 Joe Roman, president of the group, (Greater Cleveland Partnership) said members are telling him their No. 1 travel-related priority remains restoring domestic service eliminated by the closure of United Airlines' Cleveland hub last year.

Cleveland Hopkins Airport director, Ricky Smith says:

Smith said he is convinced Cleveland can support a nonstop flight to Europe, despite Continental's assertion that the routes weren't profitable in 2008 and 2009.

"There was a perception that the local market couldn't support those routes," said Smith. 

"That simply wasn't true."

The flights were unsuccessful, in part, Smith believes, because the schedules were inconvenient for some business travelers and the planes were smaller and less comfortable than larger jets flying out of bigger cities.

Meaning that the current Cleveland airport market can't fill larger, more comfortable planes and frequent flights.

Of course if you bribe airlines with cash or a guarantee, you can get service

"Communities the size of Cleveland aren't getting international service without that kind of financial assistance in place," said Smith. 

It's too early to say what those economic packages might include, said Smith. "The offers would differ based upon the destination, frequency of service and even the type of aircraft," he said. Ideally, they would include a mix of private and public money. 

Thomas, with the Greater Cleveland Partnership, said he didn't know whether the business community would be willing to subsidize a flight. "We haven't asked," he said."

Same issues in Columbus.

Nonstop Port Columbus flight to London? It may happen

"Whitaker believes Columbus has a chance because “We are the fastest-growing city in the Midwest," and the support of Columbus 2020 and the business community it represents adds “a lot of value to our presentation.” 

Other cities in the mix are Indianapolis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cleveland, Whitaker said, adding, “I’d be surprised if they selected more than one.”

Indianapolis? Seriously, an airport located around Dayton would serve the total Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati urban triangle.

My comments on Pop City:

"Sad and ironic that Cleveland and Columbus have the same issue. 

Poor air service, reflects the insular mentality of regional cities, each trying to have their own "international airport".Logically Cleveland and Pittsburgh should share a major airport located around Youngstown. Likewise, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis would be better served by a major airport around Dayton." 

My following comment looking at some of the numbers.

 "A search shows that all the regional cities have marginal international and national service and almost all are subsidizing what they have. Detroit, is the only significant "Rust Belt" airport outside of Chicago. How is a huge, densely populated area not able to support more service? 

The Cleveland/Akron/Pittsburgh metros have a combined 5,863,000 residents. Adding the Youngstown/Warren/Boardman/Sharon CSA brings one close to 6.8 million people. Add Erie and it goes up again. Even if I added wrong, the numbers should be more than adequate to support much better air service.  

Columbus, Dayton and Indy's greater metros combined create an even stronger case for sharing a major airport."

 Smaller local airports can pick up some the shorter distance flights but in the long run most transit between cities under 500 miles would be best served by a strong rail system.

I may be back with follow up posts on the hope that someone is listening.

10/22/14- 10/28/14 Arts and Urbanism Roundup

Pittsburgh 

Pitt Football brings back classic script helmet design (Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Heinz Field facing growing no-show problem (CBS Pittsburgh)

Video series: The scariest haunted houses in the Pittsburgh area (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Fire at Flight 93 Memorial raises questions about the National Park Service's ability to protect historic artifacts (Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Natural History Museum reaches out to over 21 crowd  (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Google thanks Polio vaccine developer, Jonas Salk with a Google Doodle (Washington Post)

Pioneering Penn Ave alternative arts venue, Garfield Art Works closing in December (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

Greensburg 

Restored Greensburg Civil War statue may move out of courthouse soon

Cleveland 

Top Cleveland dive and neighborhood bars: Photo Gallery (Cleveland.com)

Why is Baldwin Wallace University ashamed to say it's near Cleveland? (Diggingpitt)

Devo releases recording of 1977 Cleveland show as a live album (Consequence of Sound)

Cleveland theater company adopts Night of the Living Dead for the stage (Cleveland Scene)

Making beautiful music in a Cleveland retirement community (CBS Evening News)

Akron

Akron musicians break in new downtown jazz club (Akron Beacon Journal)


Ohio

Spotify study shows Ohio State students listen to the most classical music (The Lantern)

Chicago

95 problems: A walk down the South Side's most notorious "stroad" (Streetsblog Chicago)

Detroit

Renovation work starts on Detroit's huge, historic Packard plant complex

Other Urbanism News

How asset foreiture allows cops to steal from citizens  (Reason)

The most expensive housing markets in the U.S. are also the most Liberal (The Washington Post)

Is 21 days enough for Ebola quarantine?  (Five Thirty Eight Science)

World Series is on and everybody's watching...football (New York Times)

Redfin buys Walk Score (Wired)

Real Estate network sues Zillow, claims the company stole trade secrets (Puget Sound Business Journal)

California community suffers as wells dry up in drought (Yahoo News)

New urbanisim hits the suburbs, as pricey condos multiply on Long Island  (Wall Street Journal)

The death of the suburban corporate campus (Better Cities and Towns)

Florida's Department of Transportation doesn't seem to know its own rules (Streetsblog)

Why cities need localists (The American Conservative)

Why Conservatives must engage urbanism (The American Conservative)

Is America finally saying no to junk food? (CBS Moneywatch)

Other Arts and Architecture News

You can legally busk in New York's subways but a cop might arrest you anyway. (Reason)

Frieze Art Fair: where great refinement meets harrowing vulgarity (The Spectator)

Frank Gehry, gives critics the finger- literally  (Arch Daily)

11 at risk American art landscapes (Art Net)

What to do with Uruguay's massive shipwrecked Nazi bronze? (Art Net)

Subtle street art: 27 easy to overlook urban enhancements (Web Urbanist)

Affordable housing plan threatens Parisian street art haven (Hyperallergic)

750-year old city founded by Genghis Khan's grandson is unearthed (Hyperallergic)

Rockin' Akron's Highland Square

Devo. Howard Hewett. Chrissie Hynde. James Ingram. The Black Keys. Akron, probably best known these days as the birthplace and home of NBA superstar LeBron James, also happens to be a wellspring of much musical talent and creativity. This weekend pays homage to these local and other performing legends, both established and aspiring, during the city's third annual Porch Rokr Music and Art Festival, hosted by its Highland Square community on September 20. More than 70 acts will be featured from dawn through dusk at points--many of them literally porches--throughout Highland Square.

On the eve of Porch Rokr Saturday, Friday, September 19, David Giffels, author of The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt will lead a film and panel discussion of new documentary It's Everything and Then It's Gone: History of Akron Rock. Film screening and panel session with crew and producers Phil Hoffman, Harvey Gold, Ralph Carney, Bob Ethington, Kurt Reed and Steve Felix will run from 8pm to 9:30pm at Akron's downtown Main Library. Tickets are available same day at the Main Library from 5:30pm to 6pm.

New Regional Art Site, Art Hopper seeks writers

This comment was left on my post about Art Hopper by one of the site founders.

Thank your for highlighting the new site. Arthopper launched on January 1, 2012. The similarity to Glasstire is not an accident. I went to graduate school in San Antonio, love Glasstire, and wanted to recreate the experience here.

Any any all suggestions, comments and criticisms are welcome and encouraged. We want the site to work for all and to be a real community asset.

Buffalo is on the list of cities to add but we cannot do it all at once. If you know writers who are interested in submitting content please have them contact me. We are a volunteer effort now but will me moving toward a paid "society of correspondents."

Rick, I enjoy your work in Pittsburgh and hope we are able to collaborate.

John, we would welcome opinion pieces from you as well as important arts issues pieces.

Jimmy Kuehnle
Founder
Arthopper.org

Contact here if interested.

FYI, folks in and around Buffalo, that includes you!

Cool Cleveland Seeking Northeast Ohio Musicians For Videos

No, this is not exactly gonna be a high paying gig, but they do mention a small stipend and "big exposure". You know how this works, if your music stikes the right cord, you could be a viral star.

Wanted: Northeast Ohio Area Musicians

Cool Cleveland is putting together short videos on each of the cool neighborhoods in the region, from C-Town to Y-town, from the Football Hall of Fame to the Rock Hall, from Oberlin College to Lake Erie Wine Country, from Highland Square to the Erie Islands.

If you’re a musician or a band from Northeast Ohio and would like to have your music featured in one of our cool videos, we’re looking for you to help make these mini-movies relevant, energetic and enjoyable. All styles will be considered, especially uptempo. We’re not sure there’s a “Cleveland sound,” but we’re looking for it.

More details here.

Leveraging Akron's Soap Box Derby: The Akron DYI Festival

Trailer for the Film 25 Hill
The above trailer is really pretty over the top (I guess I'm old) and hard to get through, still it's about something that's I think somehow valuable and worth saving.

I guess everyone has their own opinion of brands that are over or undervalued. To lots of folks, the name Soap Box Derby is forgotten, even though for several generations it represented almost everything we like to think of as American.

Exploration, perhaps, teamwork, tinkering and innovation--culminating in a race. Of course even racing cars without engines is linked with 1950's and 60's car culture.

In the mind it gets back to the primordial garage, where we know so much of our innovative economy was always born and reborn.

The Derby has fallen on hard times and a film is being made partly in hopes of spurring more support.

The Derby has lost key sponsors, including Chevrolet and Levi Strauss Co. over the years and in 2009, FirstMerit Bank demanded payment on more than $600,000 in loans.

But a new board is making some tough financial decisions to keep the Derby alive -- and in Akron.

''We are committed to making sure that the Derby survives,'' Bill Evans, the board president, told the Akron Beacon Journal. "The Derby is so inexorably linked with Akron's brand.''

Ironically all of this is happening at the very moment so many people are returning to DYI everything.

I'll take a slim shot and throw out the idea of building the derby into a longer Festival of Do It Yourself Culture. Something for all ages. Imagine for example demonstrations of new power ideas or solar car races. Perhaps it could actually have events spread from Akron to Youngstown or even further--but invite projects from around the country.

Sort of Burning Man for the common man. Science meets art meets fun on very practical level.

The question then comes up. Well, don't both Pittsburgh with it's Art's Festival and Cleveland's Ingenuity Festival attempt to do that? Yes, and really no. Both seem very focused as demonstrations of very local and hyper local creativity. The door is still very much open to anyone who wants to transend that and tap into a very deep powerful international trend.

Hunter Morrison: Who Defines Northeast Ohio?

The truth is I don't know enough about this subject to wade in here but what he says rings very true. What we have here is neither Pittsburgh+ or Cleveland+ but a series of very significant communities often holding priceless assets we need to figure out how to use better and build on.

Don't let some ex New Yorker, and a few other Pittsburgh residents talk about what's going on in your town.

If you have thoughts, events, insight or images you want to share about art, music, film, urban design, architecture, transit or history in the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie, Morgantown, Akron, Canton region--Cleveburgh, email me diggingpitt@gmail.com. We can hook you up to post.

This is not Hyper Local media, but regional media seeking local viewpoints.

Yinz Cleveburgh and Random Art Links: April 4--15

Ooops, there's a lot more stuff I coulda/shoulda put on here. I'm way behind on this. Anyway, a few news items and stories from the Cleveburgh region.

Cleveland

The tenth, Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo.



Music Draft Lottery. A great idea, that would be hard to make up.

"The 2008 Lottery League was a surprising success. It yielded 33 bands that convened to play 10-minute sets at a blowout show at the Beachland. Last year, several of the acts contributed to a compilation CD, and some bands kept going after the "Big Show," earning their way into the Lottery League's "Hall of Fame." Because of the amount of work involved in coordinating the project, council members decided to wait until this year to launch a sequel."

Cleveburgh

New Northeast Ohio economic development website, Theplus.US up.

Kent

The Youngstown Vindicator is seeking images, memories and stories of Kent State, May 4th 1970.


Akron

25 Hill, a new movie about The Soap Box Derby, is a labor of love for people in Akron.

Pittsburgh

Null Space gives a rundown of the many contradictory Marcellus Shale and other energy stories. In the near term, Natural Gas prices are near record lows and far away from levels that would make recent projects pay off.

Barge Traffic reached 15 year lows in 2009 partly reflecting lower regional power demand for coal. Coal, in case you don't know it is the primary fuel for American power plants. Your green Electric Car--is fueled by coal, dude!

The Pirate's milk the baseball revenue sharing welfare system for all they can.

Keystone Commons Industrial Park, on the old Westinghouse site expannds amid a surge in occupancy. Pipe needed for Marcellus Shale projects may be a big factor.

What's so interesting here is how close the current use of the site fits with it's original purpose as a place for hard core "tinkering", metal working and industrial R&D. Westinghouse Air Brake, now known as WABTEC still has it's headquaurters here.

If you have thoughts or insight you want to share about art, music,film, urban design, architecture, transit or history in the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Erie, Morgantown, Akron, Canton region--Cleveburgh, email me diggingpitt@gmail.com

This is not Hyper Local media, but regional media seeking local viewpoints.

Some Pittsburgh and Cleveburgh Artist Links Up

You might have noticed the evolving sidebar, now includes a somewhat more rational breakdown of my link list. Media, and blog links are separated from other arts institutions and now there are links to a sampling of local artists which will get a bit longer.

I will not be linking to every artist in Pittsburgh. This list is an attempt to show some of the richness around here but it's also a bit tilted towards artists that have achieved some level of "success" beyond the local area. They do exist and more are coming. Artists are rarely considered to be a significant economic asset in the region.

Also, one may have noticed that I included a lot of people who's work blurs the line between art and technology. It's entirely possible that the next big job creating tech startup will emerge from one of these artist's efforts. Obviously, a lot of these people have "day jobs" in those fields and are feeding off a growing community here.

Yinz Cleveburgh And Random Art Links

OK, I am going to try to bring back Yinz links on a weekly basis.

Not all the links will be from recent "up to date news", but will be more a sample of things I found online that could be of interest.

Pittsburgh:

CMU, will buy and convert building into student apartments for 93 students.

Came Across great Franktuary website and blog (via I Heart Pittsburgh)

Report and ideas from the midsize cities conference in Pittsburgh.

Active debate about "Hipsters in Pittsburgh" on Pittsblog.

New York Times looks @ East Liberty. Discussion on Pittsblog.

Brent Burket Looks @ his latest Pittsburgh Art Trip @ Heart As Arena. (really a link to a two part post on Hyperallergic)

Brent posts on Hyperallergic about trip.

Silliman's blog posts video about Gtech project in Pittsburgh.

Roberta Fallon of Art Blog rides Amtrak from Philly To Pittsburgh, visits Giant Eagle that sells beer in Homestead and other stuff.

City in Iowa thinks it can learn from Pittsburgh.

Cleveland

Cleveland thinks about downtown casino design.

Cleveland admires Penn Ave Arts Initiative(via Null Space)

Photography of Cleveland SGS on Rust Wire.

Youngstown
Month of huge positive economic development news in Youngstown on Defend Youngstown.

Akron

Talent retention expert,Joe Cortright talks in Akron.

Sorry, many more but burned out.

Another Blog Name Change

I'm trying to get the blog's title to match up better with it's broader focus.

When, one thinks of reaching out to the wider world around here, most either show little interest or say, cool--wow, we need to link to NY and Philly. Yes, we do but we also need to understand and focus on the advantages, assets and opportunities in our own hood.

Geography is a hand you are dealt and our hand is not bad at all. We are pretty close to Harrisburg, Philly, NY, Baltimore and DC--but by travel time should be much, much closer to the cities in Ohio. Combined, there are many more assets here than we understand or fully leverage.

Still organizing blog and other links.