Chris Quinn is on Crack

Chris Quinn is the editor over at The Cleveland Plain Dealer/cleveland.com. He is so terrible at his job, we have a whole category on our website detailing his failings.

But today...

today...

How many ways can you say your head nearly exploded?

Or ideas are so bad that they broke your brain?

Why journalists like me should never, ever run for office: Letter from the Editor

First of all, in his Letter from the Editor, Quinn rambles on about his dog. I have a dog and have mentioned it in exactly zero of my articles. You don't care about my dog. Then he uses his dog as a segue to, maybe, the worst idea I have ever heard of: Merging Euclid, South Euclid, East Cleveland, and Cleveland Heights.

Now if you don't live in Ohio, let me tell you why this idea is such an abomination.

East Cleveland used to be one of the nicest suburbs in Cleveland, between 1910-1920.

Editor's Note: For those bad at math, that was over a CENTURY ago.

By 1940, its population swelled from 9,000 to 40,000. But East Cleveland had its problems, almost immediately after World War II, and its growth stalled. At the same time, as all of its neighboring suburbs were growing exponentially, it began to shrink. That was in the 1950's. Since the 1980's, East Cleveland has been the Poster City for urban blight.

Being, arguably, the most corrupt and poorest city in Ohio, East Cleveland is not a candidate for any patchwork fixes. It should be eligible for Superfund status.

This is how you fix East Cleveland. You bulldoze half of East Cleveland, dissolve it, merge it into Cleveland. The end.

Why hasn't that happened? East Cleveland officials feared the loss of control and they still believed they could stop the decline. Cleveland officials shied away due to the massive financial drain such a merger would have on Cleveland, which has its own in-progress rebuilding efforts to contend with. - NEO Trans Blog

Now you're a bleeding heart liberal and worry about those 40,000 low income residents? Guess what? East Cleveland has been hemorrhaging population for the last two generations and is back down to about 13,000 residents. In the year 2020, East Cleveland wasn't the 4th poorest city in Ohio, it was the 4th poorest city in America. East Cleveland is on the bottom end of a 70 year doom cycle.

Now the rest of Chris Quinn's idea really isn't that terrible. It, at minimum, deserves debate. A Euclid, South Euclid, Cleveland Heights (in yellow) merger would create a suburb the size of Parma. Parma has a lot of problems? All of Cleveland's Inner Ring Suburbs have problems.

East Cleveland "No Go" Zone in Red

A lot of developmental problems could be solved by a more regional mindset, but you could argue for about a half a dozen merges that would make sense. Unfortunately, no local government entity wants to put itself out of a job.

Now look closely at that map. I grew up on the southern edge of the map, and currently live on the western edge of that map. I graduated from Cleveland State University, a college my son currently attends.

East Cleveland's problems can only be solved on the State Level. The time for East Cleveland to solve its own problems was 50 years ago. You have to incentivize Cleveland to take East Cleveland through State or even Federal money.

Chris Quinn opining for a 4 city merger, that includes East Cleveland, just because, is pure insanity. No municipality in America wants to annex one of the nation's poorest cities.

You think I'm exaggerating for effect?

Look for yourself and take a tour on Google Maps:

Click on Map to start your Magical Tour of East Cleveland

Now imagine the editor of YOUR newspaper suggests merging East Cleveland to your town?