US Census Bureau: Cleveland lost the most people last year of any city (Youngstown: prices)

[tablemtn]

Plain Dealer article

More people left Cleveland last year than any other major city in America... about 5,000 people between July 2006 and July 2007... [Cleveland has] dipped to an estimated 438,042 people.

Has this situation turned around at all since July of last year, and the spike in gas prices? Or is there still an ongoing population decline within the city?

[costello_musicman]

I like two quotes from the article:

1) "Take a breath. We didn't get here overnight," Hill said. "It's going to take a good 15 years to get out of it. But we need to do this through growth, through creating opportunity."

-and most importantly-

2) "Cleveland's rate of decline slowed in 2007, a year when several major cities -- including Baltimore and St. Louis -- saw rates of decline accelerate. And the numerical loss was the lowest in five years."

Interesting to note that our rate of people leaving and number of people leaving has been decreasing for the past few years, so it isn't as bad as it seems-- we're in fact getting better! I like the year number estimate for rebounding population from the above quote, but I would even saw give it ten years before the rate of decline gets to zero and begins again with the upward swing. We're on pace to get there!

[BelieveInCleve]

Correction: Cleveland didnt lose the most people, the population just declined at the highest rate. Im not very surprised though, its been losing people for a long time, currently the population is around 439,000. Im pretty sure that Detroit, Buffalo, Youngstown, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore, and a few other cities are right behind Cleveland.

[ottomobeale]

Cleveland needs to do a "Youngstown" to properly handle the lower population in an orderly manner. IE plan for it without all this "we will be 500K population soon again" BS.

Happy thought of the day. Cleveland is a boomtown compared to Detroit.