Last week, GOPC Executive Director Alison Goebel and former Cleveland Heights City Manager Tanisha Briley had an op-ed published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer advocating for the incoming Biden Administration to push for a new federal/local partnership program designed to assist America’s economically challenged places.
The proposed program, modeled on the Ohio State Resource Network , could help to bridge the seemingly insurmountable political divide between big cities and the rest of the country.
COVID-19 and the resulting economic and fiscal crises have hit all of America’s cities hard. Once prosperous cities now face extraordinary challenges related to loss of jobs, small businesses and revenue to fund essential services. The impact, however, is especially great in places already struggling before March 2020.
Chillicothe in red Appalachia and Cleveland Heights and Sandusky in blue industrial Ohio would seem to have little in common if looked at solely through a political lens. Two-thirds of Ross County, where Chillicothe is located, voted for President Donald Trump; two-thirds of Cuyahoga County voted for President-elect Joe Biden.
But these cities face common economic challenges. Chillicothe and Cleveland Heights, for instance, are both dealing with the impact of concentrated poverty, with rates hovering around 18% to 19% for both. And each has seen dramatic population declines – since 1960, a loss of 13% in Chillicothe and 29% in Cleveland Heights.
The full op-ed is available online.
Image courtesy of cleveland.com.