Addressing Sprawl in NE Ohio

[PoshSteve]

It boggles my mind, how a city (and metro) shrinking in population is still moving full speed ahead in gobbling up the countryside with sprawl. I could understand it when it was just Cleveland shrinking, and its residents moving out to the suburbs and them expanding, but in the last decade with the central city and the established suburbs AND also relatively new suburban areas on the outskirts all shrinking, there is no need for development after development still popping up at a growing rate... but its great to see that people here are finally talking about it and maybe planning on doing something. In the central county, Cuyahoga, there are 57(!) separate cities, each with their own agenda, and each poaching off of the center and each other. The new county executive has been starting off great by working to try and bring things together, sponsoring an anti-poaching agreement between most of the cities, downtown and University Circle are now growing exponentially, and a few of the wealthy east side suburbs are set to vote on a merger so things are starting to turn around.

I know we have great minds on this forum, and sprawl is an issue that is loved being debated, so what do you think needs to be the next step for Greater Cleveland to finally get its act together?

Consortium will address harm caused by suburban sprawl
By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer 4-24-12

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The biggest and most ambitious regional planning effort in half a century is taking aim at suburban sprawl and the economic mayhem it’s causing in Northeast Ohio.
The year-old Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium wants to envision a rational future for the 12 counties of Northeast Ohio, where expanding suburbs are consuming hundreds of square miles of farmland while cities are thinning out and the region overall is losing population.
The pattern harms the region's economy, the group says, because fewer and fewer taxpayers are carrying ever more fiscal overhead for everything from roads to schools and public services. It also hurts the environment and renders the region more vulnerable to higher gas prices.

They show that the population of Cuyahoga, Lorain, Medina, Wayne, Stark, Summit, Portage, Mahoning, Trumbull, Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga counties fell by 7 percent from 4.1 million in 1970 to 3.8 million in 2010.
At the same time, non-agricultural areas with more than 500 people per square mile grew 33 percent over the four decades, from 1,200 to 1,600 square miles. While cities started to hollow out, suburban areas added 400 more square miles of roads, parking lots, strip shopping centers, subdivisions, multiplexes, fast food restaurants, schools, churches and gas stations.

One solution considered by working groups in the consortium, but not yet discussed or approved by the organization’s board, is encouraging local governments to concentrate new development along existing road and transit corridors.
Other ideas include revenue sharing among municipalities, retrofitting newer suburbs to make them more friendly to pedestrians and transit, and creating new transit routes that connect cities and employment centers across the region. Transit agencies in the region serve riders largely within county lines, not across them.

[MolsonExport]

It's all here:

• Video Link

[min-chi-cbus]

In the Twin Cities there is either conceptual or approved plans to concentrate development in the core along existing busy commercial nodes and transitways. So far (2010's), the demand for development in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as the metro area as a whole, is conforming to this plan. There has to be well over 5,000 units of housing, for example, that is being planned for the city of Minneapolis currently -- 99% of it adheres to that one guideline bolded above.

Since Cleveland has already workshopped this idea, I'd say it's a good place to start, and its success should not be inhibited by its Midwestern localle (since it's already working in the Twin Cities)!

[mhays]

You have to restrict growth on the edges while also making it easier as infill. That has to be state-mandated to get around the problem of each town and county doing their own thing. Easier said than done, but it's happened in some states.

[untitledreality]

The easiest solution would be to remove the incentives tied to greenfield development and move them to brownfield development, while simultaneously relaxing many of the typical restrictions/hurdles attached to brownfield redevelopment.

Large scale developers/builders of spec housing are always going to go where the easiest money is.

[miketoronto]

That stat on the population is a little weird. The population may be lower than 1970. But I think the actual metropolitan population is growing again.

[Jonboy1983]

Agreed on all counts. Something I'd like to add, how about establishing some greenways plan or even a green belt to discourage growth or development in some parts. I know that there's a National Park there now. Why don't they develop something around that in the form of a green way or green belt? They could have a system of trails interlinking with some of the other (well-established) suburbs.

We've had that problem here in Chester County, PA in that we've lost so much green space to suburban development. My wife told me that there are even some areas that went from woods and fields to rather dense single-family suburban subdivision development -- within the last 20 years or so!

I live in Downingtown, PA, which is right smack in the geographic center of Chester County pretty much, and I am on the borough's planning commission. We're going to discuss the proposed Brandywine Valley Greenway project. What it essentially calls for is a preservation of all buffers (wooded areas abutting the creeks flowing into the Brandywine as well as the Brandywine itself), a rather vast network of trails and other recreational grounds. The county as a whole is among the fastest growing in the nation. This could be used as a tool to encourage more dense development in already built communities such as Downingtown and nearby West Chester, which is southeast of the borough.

[min-chi-cbus]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

Agreed on all counts. Something I'd like to add, how about establishing some greenways plan or even a green belt to discourage growth or development in some parts. I know that there's a National Park there now. Why don't they develop something around that in the form of a green way or green belt? They could have a system of trails interlinking with some of the other (well-established) suburbs.

We've had that problem here in Chester County, PA in that we've lost so much green space to suburban development. My wife told me that there are even some areas that went from woods and fields to rather dense single-family suburban subdivision development -- within the last 20 years or so!

I live in Downingtown, PA, which is right smack in the geographic center of Chester County pretty much, and I am on the borough's planning commission. We're going to discuss the proposed Brandywine Valley Greenway project. What it essentially calls for is a preservation of all buffers (wooded areas abutting the creeks flowing into the Brandywine as well as the Brandywine itself), a rather vast network of trails and other recreational grounds. The county as a whole is among the fastest growing in the nation. This could be used as a tool to encourage more dense development in already built communities such as Downingtown and nearby West Chester, which is southeast of the borough.

There's something here (Cleveland) called the "Tow-Path" that I believe is a trail and greenway.

[PoshSteve]

I agree that we need some kind of state legislation to address the sprawl. Even with Cuyahoga county starting to work together in a more unified manner (thanks to the new executive Ed FitzGerald), Greater Cleveland is already so spread out that its more of a matter of the outer areas in Lake and Medina counties feeding off of the central city. I think a greenbelt, akin to Toronto's, or the sprawl limits in Oregon would be the best starting point. We already have a great network of parks that completely surrounds the city, but they have already been hopped over long long ago. I think we need something larger, mandated by the state government to limit development in an area perhaps starting in Lorain in the west, to Brunswick/Strongsville, through the national park to Macedonia/Twinsburg, and then up north along the Chagrin river to Mentor and Painsville along the lake. Already the national park in the south has greatly limited sprawl to the west and northeast

Cleveland Metroparks, "Emerald Necklace"

image from Clemetparks.com

[novaCJ]

Make it really hard to build out by establishing an agricultural or open space reserve(s) (like in Montgomery County, MD), making it extremely difficult to subdivide lots and create greenfield development, and make infill, brownfield development and rehabs (which Cleveland has no end of) easy and profitable. If the population is increasing, people want a safe and easy place to live, and migration toward the center would be more popular and desirable if the City of Cleveland were safer.

Part of the problem in Northeast Ohio is the proximity of Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Cleveland and numerous other smaller towns, which creates a growth pattern in which the suburban population of each city expands towards the others.
This and the lack of cooperation among counties makes it difficult to initiate things like a Portland-esque Urban Growth Boundary, but there are other, just as effective ways to achieve the goal.

[Jonboy1983]

Holy crap. It's like a smaller scale L.A. pretty much (Burbank, Riverside, Pasadena, etc all within proximity of one another as well as the behemoth that is L.A. itself...

I like the idea of all those linear parks forming the "Emerald Necklace" around Cleveland-Proper.

My wife and I are thinking of planning a trip out to Cedar Point. I'm changing our thinking and suggesting staying in Cleveland and making a day trip out to Sandusky (I figure an hour or so drive each way out I-90). I've never been there, and as a planner, I'd like to take in what's going on in that city.

[novaCJ]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

Holy crap. It's like a smaller scale L.A. pretty much (Burbank, Riverside, Pasadena, etc all within proximity of one another as well as the behemoth that is L.A. itself...

I like the idea of all those linear parks forming the "Emerald Necklace" around Cleveland-Proper.

My wife and I are thinking of planning a trip out to Cedar Point. I'm changing our thinking and suggesting staying in Cleveland and making a day trip out to Sandusky (I figure an hour or so drive each way out I-90). I've never been there, and as a planner, I'd like to take in what's going on in that city.

Not really. I kind of see where you're coming from with the LA analogy, but NE Ohio is MUCH less dense and less populated (12.8 million vs. 2.8 million), with more space in between each city and every city functioning as it's own metropolitan area with it's own identity, but as part of a common region. Cleveland and Akron are growing towards each other, but are nowhere close to functioning as parts of a common urban area like the various cities in SoCal have. Cleveland is a nice, though underrated city with boundless potential that is just begging for some love.

[PoshSteve]

Clevelands relationship with Akron is kind of odd i think. Each are separate MSAs, Cleveland centered on Cuyahoga County, Akron on Summit, but the numbers you get from those are a bit misleading due to the way the census counts. The northern tier of Summit county (Richfield, Sagamore Hills, Northfield, Macedonia and Twinsburg) are associated as suburbs of Cleveland, but are counted as part of Akron. Even the suburbs south of there, notably Hudson, have more commuters to Cleveland than Akron. The big reason being that they are mostly north of the bulk of the national park. But here we have ~82k people who are counted as part of Akron, while their cities are much more a part of Cleveland. Not to mention people like me who regularly travel between the two core cities

I know we are already part of the Cleveland-Akron CSA, but I feel like sometime soon we are going to be one MSA too

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

Clevelands relationship with Akron is kind of odd i think. Each are separate MSAs, Cleveland centered on Cuyahoga County, Akron on Summit, but the numbers you get from those are a bit misleading due to the way the census counts. The northern tier of Summit county (Richfield, Sagamore Hills, Northfield, Macedonia and Twinsburg) are associated as suburbs of Cleveland, but are counted as part of Akron. Even the suburbs south of there, notably Hudson, have more commuters to Cleveland than Akron. The big reason being that they are mostly north of the bulk of the national park. But here we have ~82k people who are counted as part of Akron, while their cities are much more a part of Cleveland. Not to mention people like me who regularly travel between the two core cities

I know we are already part of the Cleveland-Akron CSA, but I feel like sometime soon we are going to be one MSA too

For that reason, I sometimes think that the census should use combined statistical areas as opposed to MSAs.

[min-chi-cbus]

Originally Posted by novaCJ

Not really. I kind of see where you're coming from with the LA analogy, but NE Ohio is MUCH less dense and less populated (12.8 million vs. 2.8 million), with more space in between each city and every city functioning as it's own metropolitan area with it's own identity, but as part of a common region. Cleveland and Akron are growing towards each other, but are nowhere close to functioning as parts of a common urban area like the various cities in SoCal have. Cleveland is a nice, though underrated city with boundless potential that is just begging for some love.

NE OH has well over 5 million people though, and up to 10 million if you include SW PA. Now I realize this is a larger region than even massive LA, but not by a ton, I'd think.

The reason LA has the density it has, and why Cleveland doesn't, besides cost of land and environmental constraints like mountains, is because LA has been growing at light speed since 1900. When Cleveland grew fast, it grew dense. I notice that the fastest-growing cities -- for the most part -- develop denser than slower-growing cities. Each plot of land makes much more money for a developer and they don't have to worry about selling lots -- they get gobbled up.

I agree with another poster: beef up the police presence and make the city streets appear friendlier and people will move back to the city. Crime and perception of crime will continue to destroy this city in the form of disinvestment (or complete lack of investment). Get people interested in moving to the city and give them a reason not to worry!

Easier said than done, I know!

[novaCJ]

Originally Posted by min-chi-cbus

NE OH has well over 5 million people though, and up to 10 million if you include SW PA. Now I realize this is a larger region than even massive LA, but not by a ton, I'd think.

The reason LA has the density it has, and why Cleveland doesn't, besides cost of land and environmental constraints like mountains, is because LA has been growing at light speed since 1900. When Cleveland grew fast, it grew dense. I notice that the fastest-growing cities -- for the most part -- develop denser than slower-growing cities. Each plot of land makes much more money for a developer and they don't have to worry about selling lots -- they get gobbled up.

I agree with another poster: beef up the police presence and make the city streets appear friendlier and people will move back to the city. Crime and perception of crime will continue to destroy this city in the form of disinvestment (or complete lack of investment). Get people interested in moving to the city and give them a reason not to worry!

Easier said than done, I know!

I did a quick visual check on a map, and it seems that the NE Ohio region(sorry about the population, I read it wrong. Should be ~5 mil) is slightly larger than the LA area. SW PA is roughly the same size as NE OH, depending on your definition of the area. It's the same story as most older cities: As you said, very dense in the core and in older areas where it grew quickly, but spreads out as you leave the center. LA keeps a higher and relatively similar density throughout it's area, accounting for it's higher population and density. (sorry if this is a big *duh* and kind of obvious, just letting you know I'm on the same page here). I guess my point is that NE OH needs to start working on a more regional level to bring itself up to speed, which has been difficult until recently because of the isolation stemming from the more rural areas between the cities, as opposed to LA which is continuously urban. But this thread is about ending suburban sprawl and bringing people back into Cleveland (LA is another ball of yarn to unravel elsewhere). So back on that note...

Yes, I do see Cleveland and Akron someday combining into the same MSA. Although it may take some time, it will eventually happen, I'm just concerned this may occur because of continued outward sprawl. Both cities really need to focus on redeveloping their cores while still promoting a shared identity of sorts to the rest of the world. Yeah, seems kind of impossible and may just be wishful thinking on my part.

I am also in agreement with the crime perception issue in Cleveland. Crime is still an issue, but it is made out by many people to be much worse than it is, and seems to be a huge deterrent to bringing people and business back into the city.

[min-chi-cbus]

Originally Posted by novaCJ

I am also in agreement with the crime perception issue in Cleveland. Crime is still an issue, but it is made out by many people to be much worse than it is, and seems to be a huge deterrent to bringing people and business back into the city.

IDK....I live close to the city in Shaker and take the RTA (blue line) every day for work, and I feel anything and everything people would be saying about the perception of crime in the city. It's not ideal, let's put it that way.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

It's all here:

• Video Link

That's a great song!

[novaCJ]

Originally Posted by min-chi-cbus

IDK....I live close to the city in Shaker and take the RTA (blue line) every day for work, and I feel anything and everything people would be saying about the perception of crime in the city. It's not ideal, let's put it that way.

Yeah, that's not exactly the greatest part of town you're going through... my perspective may be slightly skewed, I have friends and some relatives who talk about the place like it's in a war zone and you need to go through military checkpoints or something...clearly not the case. Not trying to deny or downplay the existence of a crime problem, but I have yet to hear of a mushroom cloud risisng over East Cleveland. The crime rate won't get any better if people don't take the initiative to fix it and reinvest in the area, but failed circular logic among businesses, organizations and residents prevents that from happening. It won't get better unless you work to make it better, but not enough are taking that first step because no one else is. Including, seemingly, the police.

[PoshSteve]

Originally Posted by novaCJ

but I have yet to hear of a mushroom cloud risisng over East Cleveland.

Ahhhh yes, if only the city of East Cleveland could be surgically removed from the planet.... But i think people really blow the crime issue out to be bigger than it really is. I dont currently live in Cleveland, Im in Akron for school, but I work in the Kenmore neighborhood here, known as "THE ghetto", and I live in an inner city neighborhood where people exclaim "why would you move THERE?!" when i tell them where. Things are not as bad as outsiders think, and both neighborhoods have alot of great things going for them. Like another poster mentioned above, most of the crime people talk about, and what is shown by all the stats are happening by and to the people who have immersed themselves into that life of lowlife crime and honestly laziness. I have never had anything happen to me, or seen any. neither have my neighbors friends and coworkers. At work we regularly check the crime spotter , and when we talk about it, its always followed by how its not a surprise based on the crowd the victim associates with.

Other than that, most of what you do see is the random stuff that can and does happen anywhere, be it in "the ghetto" or "mcmansionville". If you dont associate with it, most of the crime stays in the shadows.