american_amadan

I think River benefitted from a lot from families with 3-4 kids moving into the city because schools in their former cities got worse or they could no longer afford the private schools in the area. So unlike Lakewood, which really just has the problem of household size shrinking everywhere in the US, the household size in River probably grew.

What I would do with the Central neighborhood is desperately try to transform it into a neighborhood that appeals to young black professionals that work downtown or go to school at CSU. I'm not trying to promote segregation, but the reality is that the big money investments aren't coming to that neighborhood anytime soon unless a there's a footprint of wealth in the area. There's polar opposites happening in Cleveland and across this country, wealthy white professionals are moving back into cities, wealthy black professionals are heading to the suburbs. Both have valid reasons why. If the city/county could somehow turn it into a place where the wealthier black families would live it would have a great effect on the rest of the neighborhood. I can't even begin to count how many successful black families I know that came from Central and west of East 55th. But there seems to be no incentive for them to go back and live there. The county knows this but it will be hard to get the ball rolling. I think it does a huge disservice to the cultural history of our city if the near east side turns into just another Ohio City. Ohio City is fine, but we don't need flannels and microbreweries everywhere.

Thank you for the county view. With all the news coming out about the Census it's been a pain to find actual stats from the Census itself. From the eye test it seems that a lot of professional whites are moving into Cleveland while a lot of the working class whites that are left are heading to the inner ring suburbs. It's no secret that a safe neighborhood in Cleveland proper is no longer affordable to everyone. A lot of working class whites have left to Parma (which surprisingly saw growth). I think the story is similar with the black population and Euclid. If Euclid really did grow over the last 10 years I'm surprised, but not shocked. Euclid has become a hotbed for the black population that has the means to get out of the rougher Cleveland neighborhoods but don't want/can't move out of the area altogether. I've also noticed a trend of professional blacks, especially their children, moving to the South (Atlanta, Charlotte, etc). While that's not backed by any scientific method or statistics, it begins to explain how the county is losing some of it's black population. Overall though I don't think this Census is bad news, considering how brutal 2010 was for the entire region. We seem to have finally bottomed out (outside of East Cleveland, which may go below 10,000 soon).

There's a caveat with that though. The non-Hispanic white population didn't grow that much between 2010-2020, the Hispanic White population did. In the 2019 survey we we're 40% white but 33.8% were non-Hispanic whites. The Hispanic population (especially Puerto Ricans) has boomed in Cleveland over the last 20 years.

I mentioned this about Lakewood and I think it's also true of downtown. Many people are living downtown with official address' in other cities or even counties. This is especially prevalent among the younger age groups (under 25s) who use their home address instead of changing it. I remember doing that when I was at Ohio U. I wanted to vote in Cleveland, not Athens, so I never changed my address.

I don't think the Cleveland decline is that big of a deal, especially since the county stayed relatively stable. I think it's certain this was the last decline for both, so the good news is we finally bottomed out. A poster above mentioned something I think that is correct. Cleveland proper had a very rough time from 2010-2013ish. I would bet a lot of money that we we're well below 376,000 in 2013. The city was still bleeding from the foreclosure crisis and no new development was offsetting it at all. The growth really started around 2018 IMHO. I'm confident it'll be a great decade for the city of Cleveland. I still think more people are living in Lakewood than what is reported. I know a handful of people who are living in Lakewood but still have their address at home in other cities/counties. I think that's more common than we think, especially in the 21-25 range.