Well…Doctorow recently referred to the British empire as a “globe-spanning criminal enterprise,” so I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with this.
Having spent quite a bit of time in Cleveland (and enough in Detroit) it always seemed to me that scale was the only real difference- A lot of the particulars are pretty similar though. Well-earned reputations for corruption. Utterly failed schools. High crime rates. Higher unreported crime rates. Both have city-sized abandoned factories (the old LTV plant, which I think is technically 5% online or something like that, is quite a sight to behold- when I was growing up, Akron to Cleveland required driving past its fire-belching stacks, kiiiinda gave the impression you were driving straight into hell) both have swathes of partially-to fully abandoned neighborhoods. Heck, don’t go to East Cleveland, ever. And if you have to drive through it, don’t stop. Run the lights. (Not even hyperbole. My oldest bestie just got held up on Euclid last week, and only got away by stepping on it and praying)
Don’t get me wrong, I love Cleveland. I have a lot of amazing memories owed to that grimy wonderland. And yeah, some parts are super nice and fine for basic white folk. Ohio city, tremont, little Italy, beechwood not too bad. The downtown core is fine too but as in Detroit, don’t walk alone after dark.
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Ok, but not as well as “Shark Week”
Probably in bad taste, but I assume he/she knew the fastest way out was a straight line?
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In East Cleveland the fastest way out is to never go- he works in university circle, and taking E Euclid is a straight shot to his house, still his normal path is to cut south and around through Cleveland Heights, twice as long of a drive. He was in a hurry that day and decided to chance it. I doubt he’ll be in that much of a rush again anytime soon.
Well that explains that. However this is clearly an example of non-Euclidean geometry!
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The Cleveland real estate market is a few different beasts. Lots of the neighborhoods are in a state of distress that is hard to express for someone unfamiliar with it. The story is very, very different downtown, where most of the purchases occurred. Downtown Cleveland has a vacancy rate that recently rose to about 6%, for perspective that is roughly comparable to the San Francisco or Seattle metros. It was around 2% a few years ago. But more than that it doesn’t matter very much if the Cleveland market is healthy, and in some ways the general distress is good for money laundering. Cleveland’s market is highly volatile, but also has a higher rate of return for investors due to that volatility. That makes it really easy to trade properties around among shell companies and clean funds easier and provide transaction points to siphon off the take for any players. A property that loses money on paper, but has a bunch of phantom tenants, overbilled renovation costs and a local government that is not incentivized to look too closely is exactly what money laundering thrives on and what Cleveland is perfect for. In addition to that, the buildings in question are somewhat iconic locally, but not the most high profile. They will always have a decent tenant base, but not draw too much attention.
The info on the LTV plant is pretty out of date. Part of the plant was torn down and replaced with a shopping center, but the remaining plant is actually one of the most productive globally per work hour. The job killer in Cleveland’s steel industry is less a matter of competition and more a matter of automation.
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Why Cleveland? No more Trump properties available for laundering?
And if one wants to get existential, why wouldn’t the seller of property to a money launderer not be considered an accessory to a crime? Why is there a legal loophole for that aiding and abetting?
If they sold the property in good faith, why should they?
And showing they didn’t is going to be so hard in most cases that it’s probably not worth it for the prosecution to pursue, when they could go after the buyers instead.
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