Saturday, February 20, 1999
State's original suburbs unite
Group hopes older cities not overlooked
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MADEIRA — Once they were the favored places, the cities and villages just outside Cincinnati where everyone wanted to live and work. Now too many of the moving vans pass by, heading further from Cincinnati into the newest most-desirable places.
Inside Cincinnati's original suburbs such as Reading, Madeira and Wyoming, officials stew in a circle-the-wagons mind-set — weary of losing state money and clout to the second suburban layer sprawling through adjacent Warren, Butler and Clermont counties.
Help may come via the First Suburbs Consortium, formed in 1996 in Cleveland's early suburbs — one of the first such groups in the country — and expanded in 1998 to include suburbs surrounding Columbus. Pro-consortium representatives spoke in Madeira on Friday, pushing the idea that survival takes a group effort.
“You have more potential for the number of communities involved in First Suburbs than any other place in the state,” said Kimberly Gibson, with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission in Columbus and coordinator of First Suburbs' statewide effort. “Our goal is to have a First Suburbs Consortium in every major urban area in Ohio.”
Gathering like-minded people could end the isolation of officials in first-layer cities such as Wyoming, who have been working to find solutions.
“We're looking at why people move to Wyoming,” said John Braun, a city councilman, citing the need to maintain the quality of Wyoming's schools and to improve recreational facilities. “This could give us a united voice when we're lobbying in Columbus. And for those of us trying to solve problems ourselves, it helps us to learn what others are doing.”
The consortium can tackle state and federal budgeting that favors new development over redevelopment and ignores older areas, said Tom Bier, a Cleveland State University professor who helped set up Cleveland's consortium.
“The state will help communities develop, but, once you're built, you're on your own,” Mr. Bier said. “That's the heart of the matter. It's what brought down our cities — the oldest real estate is in the inner cities. ... If older
communities are going to be viable resources in the next 30 years, it will take money from the state.”
In the June issue of Governing magazine, Mr. Bier cited an example: A recent gift of federal money for a road to open 200 acres for new industrial sites in a second-ring Cleveland suburb, vs. a state loan fund — which communities must pay back — for developing vacant industrial plots in the inner suburbs.
“The deck is stacked against any place in this state that is old,” Mr. Bier said.
Characteristics of a “first suburb” include an abundance of older housing, sluggish development, losses in population, slow growth, and a decline in school enrollment. It's a pattern found in Cincinnati's neighborhoods in the 1950s and '60s, and “it's starting to happen, or will happen soon, in the first ring of suburbs,” said Steve Howe, a University of Cincinnati professor.
The drain begins when new-house construction, usually outside a city's core areas, is larger than the number of new families, Mr. Howe said. It was extreme between 1980 and 1990 in areas such as Cleveland, where two houses were built for every one household coming in, and Youngstown, which was building seven new houses for every new household.
“That sucking sound was the suburbs drawing families out of the cities,” Mr. Howe said.
The Cincinnati area was a healthy market in 1980s, with a 1-to-1 ratio of new houses to new people, Mr. Howe said.
By the 2000 census, Hamilton County will lose population and occupied households, Mr. Howe said, because “the region is growing but the central county is starting to shrink.”
“Hamilton County is suffering more than any other county from too much outward movement,” he said.
In 1991, 30 percent of people who sold a house in Hamilton County bought a new house in Clermont, Butler or Warren counties, Mr. Howe said.
Research by the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission shows that in 1980, 33 percent of the metropolitan area's new houses were built in Hamilton County. By 1997, Hamilton County's share of new houses had dwindled to 15 percent, with 57 percent going up in neighboring Butler, Warren and Clermont counties.
The Cleveland-area First Suburbs Consortium has had an impact, said Jan Deveraux, a council member from the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights and a consortium organizer.
“We're seen as a positive group — we're not just "anti-this and anti-that,'” Ms. Deveraux said. “We're looking for the balance between development and redevelopment.”
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