Cleveland is suburban as heck, right? We are Parma-lawn-flamingoes, 45-minutes-to-work suburban. Or are we?
A June 9, 2017, Crain’s Cleveland Business story examined a NewGeography.com analysis, which ranked Cleveland as the country’s 45th most suburbanized metropolitan area out of 53. The 2017 data analysis ranked the country’s 53 metropolitan areas with over 1 million in population by the extent of their suburbanization.
Perhaps we’re not that suburban, but it’s a bit more complicated. By that analysis, Cleveland is still 78% suburban.
“The population of surrounding counties is still outpacing the population of the core city,” says Richey Piiparinen, Cleveland State University fellow and the CEO and founder of Rust Belt Analytica.
That sprawl to exurbs such as Medina, where a number of industrial jobs have relocated over the past 50 years, might suggest a more slowly suburbanizing metropolitan area. That migration hasn’t been accompanied by more people living in the city; we’ve seen 3.28% population loss over the last eight years.
“It’s not a myth that we’re sprawling,” says Piiparinen.
And parts of Cleveland, such as Glenville, look a lot like suburbs. Still, there’s much to love in even suburban-feeling places. Cleveland offers them in admirable diversity and abundance.
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Read More: Click here to read the full list of 30 Myths That Define Cleveland
CLE Myths: Suburbanized Cleveland
Is Cleveland really as suburban as we think?
