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While retail and office employment has declined in downtown Cleveland since the 1960s, restaurants, entertainment venues, and hotels are much, much greater in number.
In the 1950s, there were likely no suburban department stores in Greater Cleveland, apart from small Sears and J.C. Penney stores. Severance Center in Cleveland Heights was Greater Cleveland's first enclosed mall in 1963.
With the development of freeways in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was inevitable there would be a suburban migration of both residents and retail.
While downtown's major department stores were wonderful and exciting, they also were a major pain for residents not living in close proximity to downtown. Greater Clevelanders used to commit a full day to downtown Cleveland shopping in order to justify the travel time, parking costs, etc.
Consider that now for the first time in Cleveland's history, its major pro sports venues are all located downtown.
The Rock Hall has become even an international tourist attraction.
The new convention center combined with Quicken Loans Arena and the expanded list of downtown hotels puts Cleveland back on the convention map.
PlayhouseSquare has evolved into one of the best and most successful theater districts in the U.S. This is an amazing and totally unexpected transformation that is one of the keystones IMO of downtown Cleveland's revival.
Downtown's air quality is much improved from the 1960s.
The paucity of good restaurants in downtown Cleveland as late as the 1980s would be hard for younger persons to imagine today. E.g., a two-story Burger King located where the Corner Alley is today was a significant lunch destination. The rest of East 4th St. was a forbidding alley, only Otto Moser's was a smoky, dingy, yet wonderful throwback deli encouraging anybody to venture down East 4th at that time.
Still missed, however, are the New York Spaghetti House and the several good cafeterias that once served both downtown shoppers and office workers.
The Theatrical on Short Vincent was the premier downtown dinner club, and also is missed.
The Market District didn't exist and the West Side Market's survival seemed questionable.
The Warehouse District was a foreboding area until it's revival.
In short, the character of downtown Cleveland west of the Innerbelt and Ohio City's Market District is significantly changed in the last 40-50 years.
With the conversion of once busy office space to residential use, with even the Terminal Tower now facing such a conversion, a major question is what will happen to downtown employment. Will there ever be a corporate employment revival?
As for Greater Cleveland, it will suffer if the Republican Toll Road is allowed further to take hold with annual toll increases approximating the rate of inflation in coming decades.
Perhaps one, yet unfortunate positive for population growth will be if climate change triggers a large northern migration in coming decades.
It still amazes and disappoints me that the Republican Toll Road is so tolerated by Cleveland's political and business elite, but this certainly is because the Cleveland corporate and news media elite is IMO very Republican leaning, as proven IMO by the Plain Dealer/NEOMG's eager participation in the political assassination of Cuyahoga County's own Ed Fitzgerald.
Rather than defend Fitzgerald, who had a distinguished career as Lakewood mayor and Cuyahoga County's first Executive, the PD/NEOMG instead ignored (and still does IMO) the Kasich administration's leveraging of the Ohio Turnpike, the ongoing ravaging of Lake Erie by corporate ag interests in the Maumee River basin, the devastation wrought by transferring state liquor revenues to the secretive JobsOhio program and the slashing of the school funding and the local government funds, and the underfunding and then transfer of Edgewater and other Cuyahoga County state parks to the Cleveland Metroparks (there is no reason that the state couldn't have transformed Edgewater with a substantial commitment of resources). Kasich wasn't even attacked for refusing to debate Fitzgerald, who likely would have launched a devastating attack on the Kasich policies already enumerated if given the opportunity to do so.
My ten cents, looking back and forward over my lifetime.
The projection is probably true. There is so much momentum in favor of the Texas cities (think about the amount of jobs, housing product, infrastructure, getting built based on the historic performance and projections.) So yes, I am sure TX and the other south and western metros will have tremendous growth.
Now, if you live in the industrial great lakes and rust belt regions, consider yourself very, very lucky. As long as you have a job and live a comfortable lifestyle, and you're happy with the climate - its a great place to live. I used to live in Dallas, left the good job prospects for one simple reason - didn't want to live in a sea of cookie-cutter houses, strip shopping malls, congested freeways, glassy office buildings, etc. You can have it, don't care if it grows 200% a year, I will not be there.
Bizjournals posted an article stating that American City Business Journal and The US Census Bureau compiled data to project populations for MSA'a till 2040.
I know these are projections and they can change but is Cleveland really going to maintain this downward trend?
What is contributing to this continual loss of population, even after the loss of manufacturing jobs years ago.?
Not looking to bash the metro, I grew up 40miles Southwest and just looking to comprehend the situation Cleveland is dealing with.
I believe it. Cleveland has pushed businesses out left and right. When the jobs go away, people go where the jobs are. Somewhere else. People need jobs! They need people to hire them!
I just returned from a long visit and it's just so sad to see that Cleveland, especially as you go west to Lakewood, just keeps sliding. I wouldn't go back because of the cold and darkness that hangs over the city all winter, but I still love Cleveland hope the best for it and all the people who live there.
If they don't encourage businesses to stay and get more to come in, Yes, Cleveland will continue to slide.
Everyone makes fun of Cleveland. I take a lot of grief when sports fans see my Chief Wahoo bumper sticker. "The river catches on fire!", all that stupid stuff. Less now that the tribe is doing well, but still. I sing Cleveland's praises to them (because if you're not from Cleveland, shut up about it sucking, that's for us, not for you!), and the chief will come off the car when I'm dead, but I know it's sliding.
I hope they turn it around. They could IF they wanted to. It wouldn't be that hard. But I don't think they want to. Maybe someday.
What are you talking about specifically? What routes/areas are sliding? Lorain Ave.?
I'm just curious because, although I don't frequent it, Detroit Ave. seems to have been relatively resurrected in recent years.
Agreed. The West side is, generally speaking, one of the engines of Cleveland's current revitalization and there are numerous new businesses opening, though they are heavy on the entertainment side. The area north of Detroit Ave in Detroit-Shoreway is getting particularly pricey. Housing isn't to Tremont-level prices across the board, but the Edgewater Hill area alongside Battery Park and The Edison is really shooting up in value.
Even the less desirable parts of the West side are stabilizing for the most part. There's also a lot of planned work about to happen on Lorain. A lot of development is concentrated in Ohio City, but there is also a plan to do with the Lorain Station district work similar to what was done with Gordon Square.
Bizjournals posted an article stating that American City Business Journal and The US Census Bureau compiled data to project populations for MSA'a till 2040.
I know these are projections and they can change but is Cleveland really going to maintain this downward trend?
What is contributing to this continual loss of population, even after the loss of manufacturing jobs years ago.?
Not looking to bash the metro, I grew up 40miles Southwest and just looking to comprehend the situation Cleveland is dealing with.
Any Greater Cleveland definition that doesn't include Akron (in adjacent Summit County) is flawed from the get go!!! Cleveland has suburbs in Summit and Portage counties. So the government's MSA definition is nowhere near reality. Columbus and Cincinnati's MSAs go 1 sometimes 2 counties out from the core county. So it's really not a fair comparison, especially when Akron is 1 county out from Cleveland and Canton is 2 counties out.
The problem with Columbus is that outside of Franklin County (and quite frankly inside Franklin County) there are nothing but farms and open fields!!
My guess is that by 2040, and probably a lot sooner (2025), Cleveland and Akron will be in the same MSA. Remember, these government definitions have a political component!!
Every time I'm in the Cleveland forum, "experts" say I'm wrong.
I say everyone calls the marginal "the marginal" and the experts say that they don't, they use the word the news people use.
I say that very few, if any, people who live there call it "C-town" but simply "Cleveland" and the experts say No, everyone says C-town.
I say the airport has exposed, wooden subfloors all over the place and the experts say it doesn't and when was I last there, which was two weeks ago and then "Oh, yeah, there is, they're redoing it, isn't that great."
I say the city is sliding, especially as you head toward Lakewood and the experts think that means Lorain.
I'm really starting to believe you people didn't grow up in Cleveland, don't hang out with people who live there and now...I'm not even sure if you have maps of the place.
People do call the marginal "the marginal", almost nobody except news people call the city "C-town" and Lorain doesn't run onto Lakewood.
Lorain is scary, though.
No, businesses won't return because you put apartments where the businesses used to be. They don't CARE where people live. They want to make money and they're going to go to a place that charges them less than you guys do. Want businesses back? Drop all the ridiculous fees and taxes. You'll get more business - and make more money, yourselves - that way. Plus, people would have jobs and better pay, so you'd be doing mankind a favor. There just is no lose there.
Or continue to fee and tax the businesses out of Cleveland and watch it go further down the drain, see more people suffer.
Your call. I know what people who really cared about Cleveland and its residents would do.
Last edited by LuvOrlando; 10-25-2016 at 01:18 PM..
I say the city is sliding, especially as you head toward Lakewood and the experts think that means Lorain.
I'm really starting to believe you people didn't grow up in Cleveland, don't hang out with people who live there and now...I'm not even sure if you have maps of the place.
I don't believe anyone accused you of being wrong - just asked for elaboration on what you meant.
As a current resident and homeowner in a near west neighborhood that is stabilizing and undergoing gradual change, I'm interested in what, exactly, you see as declining in light of all of the progress that WRnative referenced. Furthermore, the Lorain Ave developments I mentioned would arguably be people wanting to turn things around, as you mentioned was possible.
Also I concur that I have not heard anybody say "C-town."
Any Greater Cleveland definition that doesn't include Akron (in adjacent Summit County) is flawed from the get go!!! Cleveland has suburbs in Summit and Portage counties. So the government's MSA definition is nowhere near reality. Columbus and Cincinnati's MSAs go 1 sometimes 2 counties out from the core county. So it's really not a fair comparison, especially when Akron is 1 county out from Cleveland and Canton is 2 counties out.
The problem with Columbus is that outside of Franklin County (and quite frankly inside Franklin County) there are nothing but farms and open fields!!
My guess is that by 2040, and probably a lot sooner (2025), Cleveland and Akron will be in the same MSA. Remember, these government definitions have a political component!!
It's fair in that they comply with the defined standards of metro areas. It can really go both ways. I don't particularly feel like Perry/Hocking counties are part of the Columbus area, but those counties meet the minimum requirements of addition. While Akron might meet them for Cleveland, the possibility remains that Akron does not want to be a part of the Cleveland metro, but a separate metro. Or maybe Cleveland doesn't want Akron added. Both sides have to agree on the addition or it doesn't happen, even if the standards are met. If both are in agreement and the addition still doesn't happen, then those counties are not meeting the minimum standards. It's one or the other. It's pretty rare to see stagnant or shrinking metro areas gain counties, though.
Metro areas are not defined by continuous development. That designation would be Urbanized Area.
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