Akron Has a New Plan to Boost Its Shrinking Population

[M II A II R II K]

Akron Has a New Plan to Boost Its Shrinking Population


FEBRUARY 7, 2017

BY RACHEL DOVEY

Read More: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/akr...-economic-plan

PDF Report: http://www.akronohio.gov/cms/PTG_Akr...l__2_6_17_.pdf

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A shrinking cities model of mothballing infrastructure and relocating residents will not serve us well,” the city’s planning and development director Jason Segedy writes in a new report called “Planning to Grow Akron.” The plan, released Tuesday, is designed to grow the city’s tax base by boosting market-rate housing to attract middle- to high-income residents. One of its end goals: to boost Akron’s population from 198,000 to 250,000 by 2050.

- In 2008, a Brookings Institution paper pointed to Akron as a model of “how cities could recover from the decline of their city’s primary economic engine.” But in 2016, things didn’t look so bright for the Ohio city — and another report showed struggles with employment, housing and the economic life of downtown. That 2016 assessment was “more warning signal than death knell,” Next City’s Kelsey Thomas wrote at the time, pointing to a number of promising initiatives and programs, like the Towpath Trail integration effort. The new report reaffirms the city’s commitment to growth. “Instead of putting precious time, energy, and money into shrinking, let’s build on our neighborhood assets, and figure out how to grow again,” Segedy writes.

Officials laid out a variety of strategies to accomplish this growth, including:

• Recommending citywide property tax abatement to spur development of new housing construction and housing rehabilitation.

• Developing neighborhood-based plans to create nodes of activity and increased walkability.

• Promoting downtown housing as an alternative to vacant office space.

• Increasing the utilization of the Summit County Land Bank for acquisition of property, demolition and land-banking in targeted areas.

• Modernizing the zoning code to adopt form-based zoning to reduce impediments for worthwhile projects and encourage mixed-use development.

• Expediting the permitting process and fostering relationships with developers, homebuilders and lenders.

• Increasing the identification and marketing of historic areas and community assets to spur economic development.

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[the urban politician]

^ In other words, acknowledge that mid 20th century urban planning was a big fat blunder and needs to be undone-----FOREVER

[ssiguy]

While it's always good to plan for a sustainable future where the emphasis is on people and not cars I fear this, like many attempts in the US, will not bear much fruit.

The re-birth of American downtown areas has 2 very large problems to solve which are somewhat unique to US cities as opposed............high crime and poor schools. High crime can be tackled but even if a city is relatively safe many of the millennials they are hoping to attract will head back to the suburbs due to the deplorable state and standard of US inner city schools.

[the urban politician]

There is nothing wrong with inner city schools.

White people just don't want to go to school with large amounts of black and Hispanic people. That's all

[uaarkson]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

There is nothing wrong with inner city schools.

White people just don't want to go to school with large amounts of black and Hispanic people. That's all

You're insane. The amount of drugs and violence in these schools is pretty spectacular compared to those of wealthy suburbs.

[dc_denizen]

I think (in fact I know since I am in this situation myself) that it's more about rich educated people not wanting to send their kids to school with less wealthy and less educated people's kids

Not about race but about class

Despite the fact that elementary school educations are pretty standard in the us and its only in middle and high school that the big class and racial differences emerge.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Akron definitely seems to be one of those cities that could do a decent job of turning itself around. Many of the ingredients are already there:

1. Close-to-downtown university (University of Akron). With about 25K students, which is a good size.
2. Some halfway decent historic housing stock.
3. At least 1 large company HQ (Goodyear). Too bad it's not closer to downtown, and it's probably not a big growth industry anymore, but it's better than nothing.

Now, I think they need ... something else. Though I can't say what that something else might be.

[dc_denizen]

fewer young Ohioans leaving to live in expensive east coast and sun belt cities would be a start.

[PoshSteve]

As someone who lived there for 3 years, I wish Akron the best. Nice to see they're rolling out a plan - and following what we've been doing up here in Cleveland now too

They are facing a long road though with a still tiny downtown population which is comprised mainly of college students, and apart from Friday and Saturday nights or big events, its very 9-5. They also just lost one of their big HQs downtown when First Merit Bank was bought by Huntington, and other one, First Energy, is always seeming to make threats to leave or go out of business if they don't get their way.

I see one bright spot with their new mayor who replaces the last one who was in office for decades (you can imagine the mindset that goes with that). There are also some beautiful and intact neighborhoods to the northwest of downtown, though with the exception of Highland Square, they are all pretty suburban.

[Gantz]

This should have been done ~10-15 years ago.

Better late than never I guess.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

You're insane. The amount of drugs and violence in these schools is pretty spectacular compared to those of wealthy suburbs.

Wait, what? Since when did inner city schools have more drug use than suburbs?

Wealthy suburban schools have drug use. Inner-city schools have very little drug use, as drugs cost money and there are cultural issues (teenage blacks and hispanics tend to have lower rates of drug usage).

There are issues with inner city schools, but if you're freaked out about drugs, the last place you want to put your kids is in a wealthy suburban school.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I think (in fact I know since I am in this situation myself) that it's more about rich educated people not wanting to send their kids to school with less wealthy and less educated people's kids.

To some extent it's class and education, to some extent it's race. I now have a kid, and plan on public schools in Brooklyn, and even here in the liberal brownstone belt, home prices correlate very closely with % white in the schools.

Granted, I think race is less important than in the past. There are now plenty of white kids in Bed Stuy elementary schools, which would have been unthinkable in the past. The lower grades are just much whiter and more affluent than in the past (kindergarten classes are so much different than fifth grade classes, to illustrate the recent pace of change).

My anecdotal sense is that there's something of a class/race tipping point. A few "brave" parents send their kids to a "inner city school", then at some point, the school becomes "acceptable", and there's a deluge of interest.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

There is nothing wrong with inner city schools.

White people just don't want to go to school with large amounts of black and Hispanic people. That's all

Nah son.... I've been there, it's rough being an outsider.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wait, what? Since when did inner city schools have more drug use than suburbs?

Wealthy suburban schools have drug use. Inner-city schools have very little drug use, as drugs cost money and there are cultural issues (teenage blacks and hispanics tend to have lower rates of drug usage).

There are issues with inner city schools, but if you're freaked out about drugs, the last place you want to put your kids is in a wealthy suburban school.

I agree about the drugs. You trade rampant drug use for more physical violence though.

[mhays]

I went to two high schools. The Catholic one in lily-white Boise had more fights than the 50% black, 25% white one in a poor part of Seattle during the crack era.

[MayDay]

My take is that there's just not enough 'there' there, and it's overshadowed by Cleveland. Don't get me wrong, Akron has some great things going for it but not on the scale that creates anything resembling critical mass. Major employers, cultural institutions, desirable urban neighborhoods; sure they exist but not on a level to change the narrative any time soon.

As mentioned, the downtown residential population is tiny even with the university. The Highland Square neighborhood is charming, but it's essentially one short commercial strip with a handful of mid rise residential buildings and a few blocks of historic homes in an area with streetcar suburb density ... but that's about it when it comes to typically "urban" neighborhoods. The regional airport just lost Southwest (was formerly an AirTran focus), I could go on but you get the idea.

What I think could be a game changer (albeit a pipe dream) would be regular commuter rail service to connect downtown Cleveland to downtown Akron, at least to boost Akron as a bedroom community option.

[PoshSteve]

^ I think that would be one of the best options too. Unfortunately I don't a plan that overtly tries to tie Akron into Cleveland would gain much support in Akron. One thing I learned from living there is that the people hate to be lumped in with Cleveland, especially as anything they see as being lesser. So many people think of Akron as just as big and important as Cleveland with the go it alone mentality that is so common in NEO.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The re-birth of American downtown areas has 2 very large problems to solve which are somewhat unique to US cities as opposed............high crime and poor schools. High crime can be tackled but even if a city is relatively safe many of the millennials they are hoping to attract will head back to the suburbs due to the deplorable state and standard of US inner city schools.

If gentrification reaches its logical conclusion, the issue of urban schools basically "solves" itself.

After all, the issues in urban schools are not caused because the teachers are any worse than in the suburbs, or because the school districts are more poorly managed. They are caused because the student body is of a different socio-economic status. When you control for class/race/educational attainment of parents, basically all difference in school outcome vanishes.

Thus, if gentrification proceeds to the point there are very few low-income families left in a school feeder zone, and a whole lot of middle-class gentrifiers with small children, the schools can quickly "flip" to being high performing without any other real changes. That's of course only a possibility though. Another one is the school in the good neighborhood is closed before enrollment recovers and/or kids from "bad" neighborhoods are moved into the feeder zone before it recovers.

This does not matter for Akron, because it will never gentrify to the point of being a hip area (though it also never fell that far - Akron never saw white flight to the extent of Cleveland). But the point is in the longer run schools do not have to be "a problem."

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

^ I think that would be one of the best options too. Unfortunately I don't a plan that overtly tries to tie Akron into Cleveland would gain much support in Akron. One thing I learned from living there is that the people hate to be lumped in with Cleveland, especially as anything they see as being lesser. So many people think of Akron as just as big and important as Cleveland with the go it alone mentality that is so common in NEO.

sigh. some things never change. i know stuff like that exists everywhere to some extent, but the parochialism in ne ohio is just ridiculously off the charts. it would certainly puzzle someone from, say, minneapolis-st. paul, that is for sure.

anyway, maybe a cleveland-canton upgrade for the cuyahoga valley scenic railroad (cvsr) could be built out as a commuter train someday? or at least extensions of the cvsr, which running from the terminal tower downtown in cleveland to the akron-canton airport and canton, could still serve as a kind of stealth commuter rail service. i believe cleveland, akron and canton have all at least set aside some right of way and made tentative plans for something like this, or for a true commuter service. not sure to what extent though.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussio....php?4,3407251

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by MayDay

What I think could be a game changer (albeit a pipe dream) would be regular commuter rail service to connect downtown Cleveland to downtown Akron, at least to boost Akron as a bedroom community option.

I agree. It might be better if they were to consider their transit plan a bit more. Considering Ohio's population growth rate is 45th in the country, it might be better to figure out how to make the current population more mobile, instead of trying to attract more people and maintain the old transit model.