Saturday, March 17, 2001
Cincinnati's decline leads Ohio cities
Census shows suburbs booming
By Ken Alltucker, Cindy Schroeder, Michael D. Clark,
Robert Anglen and John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati lost more people than any Ohio city in the past decade, but the region's surrounding counties have boomed as thousands have fled the city and Hamilton County to live in new suburban homes.
Greater Cincinnati accelerated its reach to the north and east, making Warren, Butler, Clermont and Brown among Ohio's fastest-growing counties, according to Census 2000 results released Friday. (Map of population change)
The city's 9.1 percent population drop, to 331,285, was largely expected, but Mayor Charlie Luken said the numbers punctuate the need to shore up the city's housing and job base in order to prevent further decline.
“At least it's no worse than forecasted, but it's unacceptable,” said Mr. Luken, referring to earlier predictions of an even larger population slide. “That's why we have begun a growth strategy that will reverse that trend.”
The story is just the opposite in Cincinnati's suburbs, where roads and sewers can't be built quickly enough for families seeking new and larger homes and jobs outside the city. Warren County's 39 percent growth was enough to retain its title as Ohio's second-fastest-growing county, trailing only Delaware County north of Columbus.
Butler and Clermont counties also grew at double-digit clips, and Brown County was the state's sixth-fastest-growing county — an indication of the Cincinnati region's growing reach.
The Census Bureau will release Northern Kentucky population figures next week, and projections show Greater Cincinnati's growth extends south of the Interstate 275 loop.
The sprawling population growth is creating a “doughnut effect,” said Rosemary Gleim, director of Ohio State University's Data Center in Columbus.
“People are able to get their homes, their land and drive their SUVs to downtown to go to work,” said Ms. Gleim, who has studied Hamilton County's migration trend to suburban communities in Butler, Warren and Clermont. “I think some people are sick of living near the city.”
The lure of a better life in the suburbs was enough to prompt David Fleischer to move from his Northside home to southern Warren County. He is one of thousands of former Hamilton County residents who decided within the last decade to move north.
Mr. Fleischer, a commercial photographer, had lived in Hamilton County for 15 years until he moved in 1998 to Landen in Deerfield Township.
He largely blames officials from Hamilton County and Cincinnati for prompting his move through what he described as their lack of effective and cooperative leadership.
“I watched the leadership in the city and the county waste our money and lead us to nothing. Their leadership ... ends up with nothing but mediocrity,” Mr. Fleischer said.
The census figures show Cincinnati's and Hamilton County's 2.4 percent population drop was mainly the result of a rapid decline in white population. The city's white population dropped by 44,793, or 22 percent. To put it another way, one in five white Cincinnatians died or moved out of the city in the 1990s.
The white flight was equally staggering in Hamilton County, which lost 56,485 white residents. Blacks increasingly pushed out of the city into Hamilton County. The county's black population grew four times faster than the city's black population from 1990 to 2000. (Map of racial shift)
The census figures released Friday didn't show migration, birth or death figures, but previous studies by the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission have documented the city's and county's loss of white population to Butler, Warren and Clermont counties. Also, the city's birth rate declined from 18.1 births per 1,000 residents in 1993 to 15.8 in 1998, the Cincinnati Health Department said.
Cincinnati's black population increased more than 4,000 to 142,176. (Tristate racial breakdown).
The city's population decline was the main culprit for Hamilton County's population drop of 2.4 percent, or more than 20,000 residents.
Only two Ohio counties of more than 100,000 people lost people at a faster clip than Hamilton — Montgomery and Mahoning in eastern Ohio.
Cincinnati wasn't alone in struggling to keep people in the 1990s. St. Bernard dipped below 5,000 — enough to change its status from city to village.
Mayor Barbara Siegel said her city plans to appeal its count, which showed St. Bernard dropped from 5,344 residents to 4,924.
“We feel we have the numbers to remain a city,” she said.
The change in status means St. Bernard would go from seven to six council members, and would have to elect all of its city officials at large, instead of choosing four of them from wards, Mrs. Siegel said. St. Bernard also would no longer have a president of council, and it would lose the positions of service director and auditor.
Cincinnati's 9.1 percent drop prompted city leaders to worry about the loss of political influence and millions of dollars in federal aid.
In 1990, city officials estimated the census undercounted the city's population by 3 percent to 4 percent, costing it $40 million in federal funds.
Dev Saggar, a city planner and economist, said Cincinnati's population loss “will definitely have an impact on federal funds,” but he could not yet give a dollar estimate, or say exactly what programs or services might be affected.
At the other extreme, Colerain Township, with 60,144 residents, retained the title as Ohio's most populous township.
Close behind in the bid for top ranking among the state's 1,309 townships was West Chester, which ranked third with 54,895 residents — a 38.3 percent population gain from 1990.
While officials of the two townships say the rankings offer little more than bragging rights, advantages of being a highly populated township include more political influence, according to Michael Cochran, executive director of the Ohio Township Association in Columbus. He also has said that concentrated populations can help attract developments that require a large number of workers.
Clermont County's population grew by 18.5 percent, while Butler County saw its residents increase by 14.2 percent. Hamilton County remained the state's third-most-populous county, despite a population loss of 2.4 percent.
While some jurisdictions worried about drops in population, others took the loss of residents in stride.
“It's not a make-or-break type of thing for us,” Rick Dettmer, Norwood's community development director, said of his city's 8.4 percent population drop.
Among the municipalities showing major percentage population gains were the Warren County cities of Mason, which saw its population increase 92.2 percent from the 1990 level, and Lebanon, which registered a 62.3 percent gain.
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