CTroyMathis
01 January 2003, 05:33 PM
Migration patterns hold back Cleveland
12/30/02
Robert L. Smith and Dave Davis
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporters
When a recent government study shined a light on the most segregated cities in America, few experts were surprised to see Cleveland near the top of the list. A black-white divide has persisted in Northeast Ohio over five decades.
What alarmed Gregory Stoup, a researcher who studies the region's economy, were the characteristics of America's most integrated cities. San Francisco, Seattle and Austin, Texas, tend to be flush with new wealth and churning out jobs in the smart economy.
"The fastest-growing regions are the most integrated," said Stoup, acting director of the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University. "That's a strong correlation."
He fears that Cleveland, judged the third-most-segregated city in America in an analysis of census data, pays an economic price for its 1950s housing patterns.
The 2000 census had some good news for Northeast Ohio. People of all races are earning a little more money than a decade ago, and a dollar here still goes further than a dollar on the coasts.
We're more likely to own a house than most Americans and more likely to grow up with mom and dad, in a traditional nuclear family.
But the people who examine census results for clues to the future note some ominous trends. They see outdated attitudes and damaging migration patterns.
People with money and resources continue to move away from the city center, and no one new is moving in. A region bred on blue-collar jobs has not embraced higher education as a key to affluence. And we continue to separate ourselves by race and class when the rest of America is doing far less of that.
"The chief driver of growth is mobility of capital and mobility of people," Stoup said. "If you have a segregated community, that mobility is limited. Ideas are bottled up."
To be fair, segregation is not unique to Cleveland. Aging Midwest industrial cities with large black populations and insular European ethnic groups dominate the list of the 10 most segregated cities.
"Integration is best in parts of the country never highly segregated, or in parts of the country with small black populations," said John Logan, a census expert in Albany, N.Y., who specializes in national urban trends.
The lesson of Census 2000 may be the need to break bad patterns.
On a surface level, the census portrays a region of people who still work and live better than most. On a deeper level, experts say, it points to a community slow to embrace new ideas and to accept new cultures.
Economists agree that knowledge drives the new economy, and Ohio and Cleveland got smarter in the 1990s. But we still lag behind the rest of the Midwest and much of the nation in earning college degrees.
Experts blame not only a lack of state investment in higher education, but also a lingering belief in the earning power of blue-collar jobs.
In the future, even manufacturing jobs will demand some knowledge of math, physics or chemistry, said Joseph Keithley, the chief executive officer of Solon-based Keithley Instruments Inc., a maker of precision testing equipment for manufacturers.
"You have to be using your mind instead of your back," he said.
Last decade, planners nationwide trumpeted the wisdom of smart growth over sprawl, and Cleveland developers responded, investing in new urban housing. But residents of the city and the inner-ring suburbs continued to see brighter lights in the distant suburbs.
While Cuyahoga County's population fell by 1.3 percent between 1990 and 2000, Medina County's surged by 23.5 percent.
Claudia Coulton, a CWRU sociologist who follows population and social trends, notes that the flight to the suburbs drained Cleveland to a historic degree.
Cleveland dipped below 500,000 people for the first time in 100 years. Outlying counties like Geauga and Medina are now hard-pressed to accommodate a furious rate of development and incoming residents.
"Even though we saw a continuation of the trends of the past two decades, I think the impact may be particularly significant this time," Coulton said.
A depopulated city will have fewer people and businesses to support it, she said, while fast-developing suburbs will have to scramble to provide services.
Meanwhile, Cleveland missed out on a historic opportunity to replenish its ranks. Last decade, America saw its greatest burst of immigrants since the early 1900s. Some 13 million immigrants arrived, mostly from Latin America and Asia.
A century ago, Cleveland took a lion's share of the new talent. This time, the newcomers bypassed Cleveland for other Midwest cities, including Chicago, Indianapolis and Columbus.
Economists debate whether immigrants chase jobs or create them, but Coulton said the correlation is clear. "The parts of the country that are really vital economically are the ones that are getting the immigrants," she said.
Immigrant waves not only replenish a work force, she added, but they also build families, churches and neighborhoods. Some say immigrants also help to diversify a community, blurring color lines by adding new stripes to the rainbow.
Sabra Pierce Scott, who represents the Glenville and St. Clair-Superior neighborhoods on Cleveland City Council, notes that newly arrived Latinos are helping to diversify Ward 8 and that new housing is enticing some middle-class families to move back.
"So I think there is some movement in the desegregation of our city," she said.
Still, many experts say such movement must accelerate if the region is to prosper. "If you just look at regions that are performing above average, they have connections, among people and among research institutions," said CWRU's Stoup.
Segregation is sand in the gears of economic growth, he said, a barrier to an evolving and changing work force.
"Cultural differences often present opportunities that we're unaware of, and you see this all the time," he said. "It's ideas that drive this economy. Ideas come from people."
12/30/02
Robert L. Smith and Dave Davis
Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporters
When a recent government study shined a light on the most segregated cities in America, few experts were surprised to see Cleveland near the top of the list. A black-white divide has persisted in Northeast Ohio over five decades.
What alarmed Gregory Stoup, a researcher who studies the region's economy, were the characteristics of America's most integrated cities. San Francisco, Seattle and Austin, Texas, tend to be flush with new wealth and churning out jobs in the smart economy.
"The fastest-growing regions are the most integrated," said Stoup, acting director of the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University. "That's a strong correlation."
He fears that Cleveland, judged the third-most-segregated city in America in an analysis of census data, pays an economic price for its 1950s housing patterns.
The 2000 census had some good news for Northeast Ohio. People of all races are earning a little more money than a decade ago, and a dollar here still goes further than a dollar on the coasts.
We're more likely to own a house than most Americans and more likely to grow up with mom and dad, in a traditional nuclear family.
But the people who examine census results for clues to the future note some ominous trends. They see outdated attitudes and damaging migration patterns.
People with money and resources continue to move away from the city center, and no one new is moving in. A region bred on blue-collar jobs has not embraced higher education as a key to affluence. And we continue to separate ourselves by race and class when the rest of America is doing far less of that.
"The chief driver of growth is mobility of capital and mobility of people," Stoup said. "If you have a segregated community, that mobility is limited. Ideas are bottled up."
To be fair, segregation is not unique to Cleveland. Aging Midwest industrial cities with large black populations and insular European ethnic groups dominate the list of the 10 most segregated cities.
"Integration is best in parts of the country never highly segregated, or in parts of the country with small black populations," said John Logan, a census expert in Albany, N.Y., who specializes in national urban trends.
The lesson of Census 2000 may be the need to break bad patterns.
On a surface level, the census portrays a region of people who still work and live better than most. On a deeper level, experts say, it points to a community slow to embrace new ideas and to accept new cultures.
Economists agree that knowledge drives the new economy, and Ohio and Cleveland got smarter in the 1990s. But we still lag behind the rest of the Midwest and much of the nation in earning college degrees.
Experts blame not only a lack of state investment in higher education, but also a lingering belief in the earning power of blue-collar jobs.
In the future, even manufacturing jobs will demand some knowledge of math, physics or chemistry, said Joseph Keithley, the chief executive officer of Solon-based Keithley Instruments Inc., a maker of precision testing equipment for manufacturers.
"You have to be using your mind instead of your back," he said.
Last decade, planners nationwide trumpeted the wisdom of smart growth over sprawl, and Cleveland developers responded, investing in new urban housing. But residents of the city and the inner-ring suburbs continued to see brighter lights in the distant suburbs.
While Cuyahoga County's population fell by 1.3 percent between 1990 and 2000, Medina County's surged by 23.5 percent.
Claudia Coulton, a CWRU sociologist who follows population and social trends, notes that the flight to the suburbs drained Cleveland to a historic degree.
Cleveland dipped below 500,000 people for the first time in 100 years. Outlying counties like Geauga and Medina are now hard-pressed to accommodate a furious rate of development and incoming residents.
"Even though we saw a continuation of the trends of the past two decades, I think the impact may be particularly significant this time," Coulton said.
A depopulated city will have fewer people and businesses to support it, she said, while fast-developing suburbs will have to scramble to provide services.
Meanwhile, Cleveland missed out on a historic opportunity to replenish its ranks. Last decade, America saw its greatest burst of immigrants since the early 1900s. Some 13 million immigrants arrived, mostly from Latin America and Asia.
A century ago, Cleveland took a lion's share of the new talent. This time, the newcomers bypassed Cleveland for other Midwest cities, including Chicago, Indianapolis and Columbus.
Economists debate whether immigrants chase jobs or create them, but Coulton said the correlation is clear. "The parts of the country that are really vital economically are the ones that are getting the immigrants," she said.
Immigrant waves not only replenish a work force, she added, but they also build families, churches and neighborhoods. Some say immigrants also help to diversify a community, blurring color lines by adding new stripes to the rainbow.
Sabra Pierce Scott, who represents the Glenville and St. Clair-Superior neighborhoods on Cleveland City Council, notes that newly arrived Latinos are helping to diversify Ward 8 and that new housing is enticing some middle-class families to move back.
"So I think there is some movement in the desegregation of our city," she said.
Still, many experts say such movement must accelerate if the region is to prosper. "If you just look at regions that are performing above average, they have connections, among people and among research institutions," said CWRU's Stoup.
Segregation is sand in the gears of economic growth, he said, a barrier to an evolving and changing work force.
"Cultural differences often present opportunities that we're unaware of, and you see this all the time," he said. "It's ideas that drive this economy. Ideas come from people."