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"Can Ohio's big cities be saved?"

Ohio The seven biggest cities in the state of Ohio are dissected in an eight part special report in The Columbus Dispatch this week called "On the BRINK - Can Ohio's big cities be saved" written by Mark Niquette, Alan Johnson and Joe Hallett.

I wrote about the series on my other blog ColumbusBestBlog.com today in Blame "Sex and the City" after listening to an audio comment from an urban-policy expert, Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institute. The comment is the On The Web part of the story inspired the idea that popular culture (TV) has shaped demand for cool, dense, urban areas by today's young adults. TV shows including HBO's "Sex and the City"... it's a Viral Idea, shaped by popular culture including TV according to Katz.

In "FINDINGS" on the front page of the Sunday December 2, 2007, Columbus Dispatch said of Ohio's big cities:

"Except for Columbus, Ohio's big cites have endured vast population and job losses, but now city leaders realize the glory days are not coming back."

I'd be interested to know from people who live in Ohio's six other big cities, Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown or the suburbs near those cities, how they feel the Columbus Dispatch series reflects their community. I believe they are going to do a city each day... with Columbus next Sunday?

The Monday installment in the Columbus Dispatch series is about Cleveland Ohio.

Great graphics about Cleveland employment, population, etc.

Maybe because I sell real estate primarily along the north outer belt in Columbus I was struck by a young Cleveland woman's comment about moving to the suburbs to raise a family, in the future.

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Posted by Maureen McCabe Central OH Homes on 12/03/2007 09:18 AM

Comments (12)

Ohio in the Regional (Localism) Channel

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Originally posted at: Columbus Ohio real estate : "Can Ohio's big cities be saved?"

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12 Comments on "Can Ohio's big cities be saved?"

DEC

2007

I have to say that's not news that everyone likes to hear.

I dunno if you saw the story, but on the news a few months ago there was a story about some small towns and cities taking dilapidated houses and tearing them down. They were doing this to create more city parks. The town officials thought it was a good way to structure the city to look its best even while losing jobs and citizens to the bigger cities like Columbus.

I just guess our culture as a whole has been moving towards more urban ares for a while now.

Good Story!!

I'm a suburb kind of person. While I think the conversions to condo lofts is "way cool", living in them just wouldn't appeal to me. (what would Murphy do?) When we visited Miranova, I couldn't help but think what a major task it would be simply to carry in groceries, even though they have an elevator.

In the 50's-70's, it was exciting to go to Lazarus for a day of shopping. Parking in their lots was easy, but it was an all-day event. Who has time for that anymore? It's much quicker in the suburbs to park in front of the store, and "get-in & get-out".

I've read that some developments are being planned to resemble the small-town environment where people walk from their home to the little hardware store, the little gift shop, the little drug store, etc. The development that was planned opposite North Orange was to be like that. That project was canceled due to the housing slump.

The main negative I see to the burbs are all the vacant strip malls and the excess of big box stores. Both are a blight to the landscape. Bigger isn't always better.

I don't think I did see it Drew.

The tearing down homes to create green space is the approach that Youngstown is using according to the article. Akron is concentrating on polymers, Cleveland is going after biomedical businesses related to Cleveland Clinic, Dayton has "surrounding medical centers..." and Toledo is hanging onto past sucesses at "manufacturing and assembly powerhouses" I don't really understand what a couple of those even mean.

I think this comes from a study done in 2004. I think the focus of the study that was done is more concerned about losing population to cities outside Ohio, than everyone moving to Columbus. In one of the audio comments the fella from Brookings Institute mentions Chicago and Madison in the midwest as well as cities outside the region. In the audio comment about popular culture, Viral Idea he talks about a guy moving from Cleveland to Washington D.C. because you can get coffee at 11:00 PM and find other people who want coffee at 11:00 PM....

Elaine I believe the type of development that was proposed in North Orange is considereed "new urbanism" Early on in blogging I wrote about the OSU School of Archtecture getting an award I think somehow related to Easton and got nasty comments from anonymous people about "fake towns without grit."

Mixed use zoning which is part of New Urbanism you can have residential mixed in with commercial so that people can walk rather than drive to do errands. Walkable communities, sustainable communities all kinds of buzzwords.

I found the entry on Discover Columbus, OSU won the award for a plan for a town in Mississippi that was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Rebuilding a town, I quoted an article in the Lantern which refered to Easton as an example of "new urbanism" that people in Columbus could identify with... that was what got the snotty comments.

Interesting, Maureen. I'll have to keep checking to see if they are accurate about Toledo. Thanks!

It will be interesting to read when they get to Toledo, Carol. What they had in Sundays paper was the snapshots which showed: Toledo grew geographically for 1950 to 2000 from 38.3 square miles to 80.6 square miles. Population dropped from 303,616 to 298,448 from 1950 to 2006. Housing - median home value in 2000 dollars rose from 57,376 (in 2000 dollars) tp 75,300 in 2000. Employment (average annual jobs went from 143,400 to 136,400, those figures are from 1983 to 2006... The numbers come from US Census data, Ohio Office of Strategic Research, Ohio Labor Market Information and the and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a related article the mayor of Toledo seemed like he was the only mayor not blaming the state legislature for being anti city.

DEC

2007

Carol would be the authority on this, but didn't Chrysler decide to stop building Jeeps up there? If so, that might explain why their focus is on assembly plants and why population declined if the workers went elsewhere.

Regarding Easton, I hardly think of it as an "urban" area, and it's not the same type of development as was planned at North Orange. To me, it's just a different style of shopping mall.

I'm pretty sure the Jeep plant is still alive and well in Toledo... since I've been blogging I know there was a study that showed increasing housing values for that market were increasing because of jobs. It probably included the whole market, suburbs and city of Toledo.... but Toledo was the only market in Ohio that had big increases in housing prices and it was because of jobs, it was probably back in late 2005 when I first started blogging .

We can quibble about what Easton is but Easton is what Easton is. I think if you look at the entire Easton area, the total development rather than just the mall you can see it is different than Tuttle and Polaris. There is housing at Easton, I think it is all rental housing and I don't know how walkable it is from the townhouses or apartments to the shopping and entertainment areas, restaurants, etc. but I remember reading about it before it was built. Easton is not downtown but if I am not mistaken it is in the City of Columbus, not a suburb. Yes on the west end of the Easton development there's lots of big box shopping just like all over Central Ohio that matches what is just north of it on Morse Rd...

Looks like there are / were layoffs at Jeep, a shift eliminated.

DEC

2007

That's what I thought. I recall several years ago that some of the assembly, production or something, was going to be moved to, I belive, Mexico. The discussion was that 'how could such an American icon' (WWII), be moved out of the country.

Oh I am looking at layoffs that were announced earlier this year. Not sure if it has anything to do with production of Jeeps in Mexico...

DEC

2007

Today is the Toledo part of the Columbus Dispatch series and I am trying to blog about that on ColumbusBestBlog.com now... It answers Elaine's questioning if Jeeps were NOT made in Toledo anymore if that had been moved to Mexico. It tells what the recent layoff is about.
On the brink: Toledo - Leaders say manufacturing remains the answer for city

Elaine wrote: "but didn't Chrysler decide to stop building Jeeps up there? If so, that might explain why their focus is on assembly plants and why population declined if the workers went elsewhere."

In a nutshell one of the Jeep plants in Toledo assembles 500 Jeep Wranglers in a day. That is Toledo Supplier Park. The other Chrysler faciility, Toledo North Assembly Plant, makes the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro. Weak demand for Dodge Nitros is what caused the third shift at that plant to be eliminated in late October 2007.

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