A History of Innovation
Ohio’s small legacy cities, those places with 15,000 to 65,000 residents, face unique opportunities and challenges due to their population size, urban footprint, and more modest base of philanthropy and civic leadership. Ohio’s small legacy cities are eager to uses their unique characteristics to “reinvent” themselves and chart new futures.
Since 2017, GOPC has staffed the Reinvention Cities Network.
The Reinvention Cities Network helps leaders in Ohio’s small legacy cities build local capacity through peer-learning and information-sharing. Together, members learn, in real time, what revitalization strategies are working for their peers.
GOPC also provided regular updates from “Capital Square” on state policies that can help or hinder the efforts of small legacy cities to revitalize, including increasing housing and development.
The Network brings together mayors, and executives of local Chamber of Commerce, philanthropy, economic development, and community development organizations.
The Network meets quarterly, with two of these meetings held “on site” in a small legacy city, so that participants can see the progress their peers are making in revitalizing their downtowns, neighborhoods, waterfronts, and business parks.
Get to Know some of Ohio’s Legacy Communities
GOPC's Research on Small Legacy Cities
GOPC develops and advances policies and practices that value our urban cores and metropolitan regions as economic drivers and preserve Ohio’s open space and farmland. GOPC has focused on the particular needs of smaller legacy cities and its research into successful revitalization strategies informed the policies laid out in the vision document above.
Ohio + Columbus: A Tale of Two States
This report confirms that demographic and economic trends in Ohio reflect one high-growth metro and city (Columbus) while much of the rest of the state exhibits the hallmarks of legacy places, characterized by aging populations, marginal population change, and slow income growth. The report provides recommendations for taking a more context-sensitive approach to state policies that can support Ohio’s high growth places and stable growth places.
From Akron to Zanesville: How Are Ohio’s Small and Mid-Sized Legacy Cities Faring?
Ohio’s small and mid-sized legacy cities—older industrial cities with populations greater than 20,000 situated in metropolitan areas with less than 1 million residents—are important contributors to Ohio’s economy and social fabric. Like Ohio’s larger legacy cities—Cincinnati and Cleveland—these cities faced decades of serious challenges stemming from population loss and the decline of large-scale manufacturing that were further compounded by the Great Recession.
The Reinvention Cities Network has been or is currently supported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Community Development Department, Nord Family Foundation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Raymond John Wean Foundation.