Cuyahoga: 6th biggest loser
Cuyahoga Co. has achieved a dubious distinction: 6th largest population loss in the country since the 2000 census. The only bigger loser that wasn't involved with Hurricane Katrina was Michigan's Wayne County, which contains Detroit, a city whose raison d'etre anymore appears to be to make Cleveland look good.
I'm one of those Cuyahoga escapees. I mostly bailed for love (and I've sometimes wondered, on that morning commute, just how much I love). But I left a town that is overgoverned and under-serviced. We don't have downtown Republicans endorsing cigarette taxes for the arts. If our county commissioners tried to strongarm a gun show out of existence, they'd probably get their own private gun show. Windham Village constantly turns down an income tax to support the admittedly overextended police, perhaps because they've seen what happens when cops have time on their hands. And our roads are better-maintained. It's not perfect: our schools suck too, and we have a county bus system that is twice as mismanaged as RTA. And we have crime. But we don't have a city government micromanaging us or sucking our sustenance for their pet projects.
If the city gave me 5 acres of brownfields to transport Black Water to, and exemption from zoning and property tax, I'd consider coming back. For better or worse, this is where it's at for me professionally. But that isn't going to happen, because I can't dangle "28,000 jobs" in front of anyone. Cleveland gives away the town to developers, then mistreats Joe Sixpack. And then they wonder why Mr. Sixpack leaves.
Comments
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: March 22, 2007 07:41 PM
I lived in Cuyahoga County for a few years. Thankfully it was only in a far southwest suburb and not in Cleveland. I still couldn't wait to get out of there, though.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: March 22, 2007 09:04 PM
My county actually had more people leave then Cuyahoga, but because it could sucker enough people to replace them, ended up with a gain:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cgrowthmar22,0,3689943.story
The key for us is the cost of housing: SoFla is where the real estate bubble peaked very high, and hasn't come down very much. So you have to pay out the nose to own a home, pay out the nose in property taxes once you own it, and pay out the nose in insurance premiums because of the hurricanes.
The legislature had a special session at the start of the year, and passed a deal that is supposed to help the home insurance problem, and which seems to be an amalgamam of everyone's favorite bad idea. Right now, during the regular session, they say they'll deal with the property tax mess. We'll see how that works out.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: March 23, 2007 09:31 AM
Medina or Lorain, Jo? You're pretty close to the border anyway. I still haven't forgiven Jane Campbell for that stunt she tried on Dick Walters (trying to shut down his gun show) after Columbine. It backfired pretty well though: the gun show was crammed, Fox was showing handicapped patrons and asked the management where the protesters were (there weren't any).
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: March 23, 2007 11:50 AM
I live in Lorain Co. Medina wouldn't be too bad either, except the same thing is happening there that's going on here -- we're losing our "green space" to home builders.
Posted by: bob
Posted on: March 29, 2007 01:11 PM
Cleveland, the new Detroit.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: March 30, 2007 09:59 AM
Brookpark Rd., the new Eight-Mile?