Getting old--people and houses

You're going to need $200 grand for your healthcare in retirement, according to today's Crain's, no matter what your income level. Personally, I'm telling my kids to take the Eskimo way--just put me on an ice floe and wave goodbye.

But Crain's also writes about some guy in the New York Times Sunday magazine bemoaning the fate of older suburbs. And yes, some places like Shaker Heights are having to change their philosophy in order to keep their housing stock up -- it used to be people of all levels of income could find a place in Shaker, but the city's inability to build a bigger business tax base has driven the taxes really high, and now they're harrassing the heck out of homeowners (particularly the beautiful two-family homes abundant in certain areas) to spend more and more on updating their properties. It's getting rougher for a bigger-range-of-ordinary-income people to afford to live there.

Anyway, in Europe they didn't go to the suburbs thing so much. They kept on investing in their cities, refurbishing as they went along. In Chicago, the city is so attractive that investors attack it in segments. Many of them tear out the innards of older buildings and put spiffy new systems and decorative touches in--and because people love living in the city, they buy them in droves. The price of real estate in many areas averages 10% appreciation (inflation?) almost every year.

Cleveland's got too much going for it. And the places like Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights are the antithesis of this guy's fear--losing culture. People are in the streets, neighbors get to know each other, residents band together to fight crime when it occurs.

No one says it's easy, but we have the passion to overcome our problems. We write about people like that on Capitalist Cleveland all the time.