quality yes perhaps, much of the vanquished brick was for the factory boomtown working class, but that it ever lacked for urbanity i would strongly disagree. there are plenty of long urban spine streets, detroit, broadway, euclid, etc. in cle, gap-toothed as many of them are today.
again, young people forget that, for example, the central hough neighborhood had 30k sq mi density 1940s-60s (hard to imagine looking at it today) and that cle had two other downtowns, at e55th and e105th, the latter of which, while in ruins, was still there in all our lifetimes, until fairly recently when the cle clinic tore what remained down.
and cle and east cle had plenty of cheap all brick apt buildings along with large old warehouses that were still around in my childhood, but most of which are gone now.
see the movie antoine fisher for the best most typical example. midtown cle today is just clear cut of these and a tabla rasa for redevelopment.
so yeah that is not always the pretty brick look you are referring to, but it was still plenty brick and urban.
