A Call to Regionalism? One for All and All for One

During my junior year at my alma mater, Cleveland State University, I wrote a paper on regionalism that to this day, is one of my favorite papers/projects of my undergrad years.

I wrote about The Case for Regionalism for Cleveland, as well as working examples of regionalism across the country such as the Minneapolis-St.Paul region, Louisville, etc.

I ran across a newspaper article in The Plain Dealer on Thursday encouraging Cleveland and its’ suburbs to work together to rebuild the core of Cuyahoga County. This isn’t quite about regionalism and consolidating resources and governments, but it is about the concerns of the region and what is being done about them.

Tom Bier, a nationally known housing analyst & retired Cleveland State professor, warned Cleveland City Council members that Cuyahoga County’s problems will only get worse if they don’t look at the bigger, regional picture.

Bier says that the loss of population and wealth is no longer just a Cleveland problem and that the loss will weaken the county if cities don’t work together to rebuild the core.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland collected data showing increasing numbers of vacant houses, houses late on property taxes and homes sold through sheriff sales through the last year and a half in Cuyahoga County.

As a kid, I had several classmates whose families moved to the inner ring suburbs for various reasons, most of them being middle class & upper class families. That trend is decreasing, as these families today seem to be moving further outward from the city, to the neighboring counties.

It seems that suburban municipalities seem to take a ‘not-my problem’ approach when it comes to the urban core. But when they begin to lose residents to the neighboring counties, they do have a share in the problem along with the city of Cleveland and vice versa.

What would the urban core and the surrounding communities working cooperatively look like to solve this problem?

Would it mean forming a task force/board designed to assist in the rebuilding and redesign the urban core?

And how do you go about making the urban core a more attractive place to live in hopes of slowing the bolt for the neighboring counties as well as attracting newcomers to help increase the tax base?

How do you make the urban core a more livable place for families & future homeowners?

You are only as strong as your core, I hope communities in Cuyahoga County realize this. As Cleveland goes, so goes the rest of the county.

Strengthen the core and it will hopefully trickle down to suburban communities.

All for one and one for all.