Urban Institute President Calls on Ohio to Take the Lead in Broadening Access to Opportunity

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and Policy Sarah Rosen Wartell, President of the Urban Institute, spoke about the connections between place and opportunity at the Starting from Home Conference in Columbus last week. Rosen Wartell discussed research illuminating the “geography of opportunity” – or the connection between where a child grows up and his or her long-term economic prospects – which was an animating theme for much of the conference. Neighborhoods can either serve as a “springboard” or “trap” for people living in poverty, and research has consistently found disparities within and between regions in providing access to opportunity.

Because some neighborhoods serve as better springboards than others, Rosen Wartell argued that moving to a different community needed to be a realistic choice for low-income people. She noted that there is some bipartisan consensus around this idea, with free market advocates championing the removal of regulatory barriers like exclusionary zoning. Because of that common ground, mobility programs could be an area of opportunity for federal policy moving forward. Rosen Wartell cautioned that long-term solutions to poverty are not only as simple as moving low-income people to high opportunity places. Strategies that bring higher-income people to low-income neighborhoods are equally important, because amenities and other services will follow new residents. Protections need to be put in place to make sure that existing residents are able to benefit from these new opportunities and can remain in neighborhoods that are changing.

The benefits of creating mixed-income neighborhoods are not limited to giving people living in poverty greater access to opportunity. Regions experience real costs from economic and racial segregation, including lost wages, lost productivity, higher crime rates, and drained public resources. Ohio’s largest metropolitan regions – Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati – are among the most segregated nationwide in terms of income and race. Contending with this challenge could help make these regions both more equitable and more competitive.

Rosen Wartell noted that the 2016 Presidential election shone a spotlight on Ohio, particularly the significant economic change it is experiencing and the resulting growth in regional inequality. She suggested that Ohio has the opportunity to use this spotlight to demonstrate to the rest of the country that access to opportunity does not have to be “a zero sum game.” Given changing federal priorities, states can be “laboratories of creativity” in trying new approaches to creating economic opportunity. Ohio, she believes, is in a position to take the lead in developing pathways to broadly shared prosperity. Greater Ohio Policy Center is committed to advancing these important goals in our state through research and policy advocacy.

Greater Ohio Policy Center Outlines Budget Priorities

By Jason Warner, GOPC Manager of Government Affairs As Greater Ohio continues its advocacy efforts at the Ohio Statehouse, we have recently updated our policy platform as it relates to House Bill 49, the state main operating budget for Fiscal Years 2018-2019.

The full position paper is available here.

To learn more about House Bill 49, including status updates, you can read our April legislative update. 

“The Future of the Great Lakes Region”: New Urban Institute Report Explores How Decline in Manufacturing Industry is Shaping the Industrial Midwest

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and PolicyA new report from the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Instituteexamines economic and demographic changes over the past century in the Great Lakes region (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) and projects trends into the middle of the twenty-first century.  The report finds that that region’s reliance on manufacturing has created unique challenges that set it on a different path than the rest of the country. Importantly, the challenges in the manufacturing sector have deepened dramatically in the last fifteen years. Although there were major shocks to the manufacturing sector in the 1970s, employment in the sector recovered and eventually grew to its highest level in 1999. At that point, the sector experienced an even greater shock from automation and foreign competition, causing it to shed 35 percent of jobs in the region from 2000 to 2010.

This dramatic loss in employment had a number of important ripple effects. Manufacturing jobs pay an average of $78,000, dramatically higher than average wages in the region. As a result of the loss of manufacturing employment, the Great Lakes states saw a decline in higher wage jobs while other regions experienced growth. Meanwhile, other regions saw net job growth of 17.5 percent from 2000 to 2015, while the Great Lakes states saw only 3.7 percent growth in that time period. Notably, low-wage jobs accounted for all of this job growth in the Great Lakes region.

Toledo-glassmaking

Glass-maker in Toledo, Ohio

Demographic trends appear to mirror recent economic decline. The Great Lakes region has continued to grow population slowly, but the authors estimate that the region will stop growing by 2030 as baby boomers age and out-migration continues. Between 50,000 and 105,000 people left the region every year between 2007 and 2014, but out-migration appeared to slow after the end of the Great Recession. The timing of this trend is particularly impactful because it happened just as the millennial generation came of age and began entering the workforce. As a result, the Great Lakes region lost younger workers as other regions saw growth in this cohort.

The region’s workforce is aging, particularly in the manufacturing sector: people ages 45 to 64 account for 46 percent of manufacturing employees, up from 36 percent in 2000. The number of people in the workforce is anticipated to remain flat as baby boomers retire and young people leave the region. The authors predict that this could result in a tight labor market in the 2020s, potentially pushing wages higher if the workforce has skills appropriate for available jobs.

Despite population loss – or perhaps because of it – the region is becoming more racially diverse. The non-Hispanic white population has declined back to 1990 levels, while the African-American population is 17 percent higher than in 1990. The Hispanic population has seen the greatest growth – surging from 800,000 in 1990 to 3.1 million in 2015. Correspondingly, the foreign-born population in the Great Lakes region has grown, but not to the same extent as other parts of the country. The authors argue that efforts to invest in communities of color and mitigate long-standing racial disparities are crucial to the long-term health of the region. People of color are the only growing population cohort in the region, and will make up an increasingly large portion of the local labor force.

While many of the findings of the report are quite sobering, the authors suggest that wise investments in human capital, civic capacity, and community revitalization can help reverse decline by encouraging young people to stay and by sharing prosperity more broadly among residents. Recommended investments include sustainable financial support for upgrading and maintaining water and energy infrastructure to bolster economic development. Critically, these investments cannot be focused only on the largest metropolitan areas in the region. The Great Lakes states’ deep challenges are present – sometimes to an even greater extent - in small cities and rural areas as well, and efforts to restore the region’s prosperity must be fully inclusive of these communities.

New paper explores the connection between economic growth and opportunity in smaller legacy cities

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and Policy A new report examining the role that funders can play in promoting equitable economic growth in smaller legacy cities was recently released by a collaborative of four Federal Reserve Banks and members of the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. The report features case studies from four smaller legacy cities – Cedar Rapids, IA; Chattanooga, TN; Grand Rapids, MI; and Rochester, NY – that have shown some signs of economic revitalization since the Great Recession. The report’s authors travelled to each of these cities to get a better sense of whether there was an “arc of recovery” for revitalizing smaller legacy cities and to see what lessons could be learned from these comparatively strong communities.

Instead of identifying a single arc of recovery, the authors observed that there are truly two arcs of revitalization in smaller cities: an arc of growth and an arc of opportunity. The arc of growth reflects improved economic performance, with stabilized or growing populations, increased jobs, rising household incomes, new business starts, and other signs of economic growth. The arc of opportunity, however, traces how widely the benefits of economic growth are shared within the community. While each of the cities examined were moving steadily along the arc of growth, few of them appeared to have made significant progress in spreading opportunity among all members of the community, particularly low-income and minority residents.

In studying the arc of growth, the authors found important common features among the case study cities. Economic revitalization in each of the communities was kick-started by some kind of catalytic event that convinced local leaders they had to take action. Leaders from a variety of sectors, including the business community and philanthropy, stepped in to address significant challenges. Critically, these leaders – locally-focused funders in particular - could provide access to long-term, patient capital to fund revitalization efforts that did not align well with the time-horizons of public dollars or most private capital. These projects were largely successful in reshaping downtowns, but their benefits did not spill into neighborhoods across the city.

Local stakeholders reported that conversations about revitalization were beginning to acknowledge that economic growth alone may not be sufficient to improve outcomes for all residents. This mirrors the conversation in the academic literature, which is increasingly coalescing around the notion that inclusive growth is more sustainable and robust than growth that only benefits some people. The authors conclude that local funders have a unique role to play in helping to unite the two arcs, due to their access to patient capital for revitalization projects and their role as conveners of cross-sectoral partners. In particular, funders can promote accountability in connecting growth with prosperity by continually raising the “equity question.”  

The authors also identified promising strategies that funders in the four case study cities had begun to pursue to ensure broader access to the benefits of economic growth:

• Place-based interventions to address poverty: Funders are engaged in multi-generational, multi-pronged approaches to poverty reduction that are focused on a particular neighborhood or community.
• Policy changes to address poverty: Funders are advocating for policies that help marginalized communities access opportunity and ensure that economic development efforts help alleviate poverty.
• Focus on preserving affordable housing while revitalizing downtown: Funders are promoting investments in affordable and family-oriented housing near emerging employment centers.
• Focus on business retention and supply chain recruitment: Funders are encouraging communities to place emphasis on retaining existing businesses through workforce development and focus recruitment efforts on companies in the supply chain of existing industries.
• Develop new leaders: Funders are guiding communities to focus on ensuring the next two generations of civic leaders are cultivated and will work to connect the arcs of growth and prosperity.
• Make evidence-based decisions:  Funders use and publicize data on neighborhood and regional conditions.

This piece raises important issues around how to ensure that urban revitalization efforts are equitable and sustainable in smaller legacy cities and beyond. As more communities recover from the Great Recession, these questions will become increasingly important in ensuring long-term growth and prosperity. 

Urban Expert Richard Florida Warns of Deepening Crisis of Cities But Believes Mayors Can Help Reverse Course

By Alex Highley, GOPC Project AssociateLast week, University of Toronto professor and urban theorist Richard Florida delivered a series of lectures in Columbus. In front of a large crowd at Ohio State’s Mershon Auditorium, he spoke about his new book, The New Urban Crisis, which describes the worrying decline of the middle class in cities throughout America. After highlighting the major points of the book, Florida asked questions about solving the new urban crisis to Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther, Findlay Mayor Lydia Mihalik, and former Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams.

Florida argues that whereas the urban crises of past decades manifested in the outward movement of people and wealth from city centers into the suburbs, today’s urban crisis is marked by a growing wealth and opportunity gap throughout neighborhoods in cities, including Columbus. While the vestiges of the old urban crisis continue to live on, Florida sees a startling inequality both between various cities and even within cities. Today, a “winner-take-all urbanism” has emerged that sharpens the contrast between “winner” and “loser” cities. As young, talented, and educated, people seek to work together on innovative ideas, they cram themselves together in those areas of concentrated resources and wealth. Even within “winner” cities, suburban areas, along with some traditional urban areas, have experience marked decline and poverty while economic cleavages between neighborhoods have become more pronounced.

Check out Greater Ohio Policy Center’s (GOPC) new blog series on shrinking cities

To combat this modern crisis, Florida believes that mayors must be given the political and fiscal tools to develop local solutions, instead of following a one-size-fits-all federal urban policy, which Florida admits he previously championed. Devolving more responsibility to mayors recognizes the reality of deep social and political differences in America, which were conspicuous during the last presidential election, and allows mayors and community leaders to promote urban policies unique to their cities. In alignment with this idea, Williams believes that Youngstown should take the unconventional step of embracing its “shrinkage,” rather than expending energy on attempts to attract new residents. To do this, the city must develop policies that accept the nature of population decline while seeking to capitalize on the great ideas and creativity already flourishing in Youngstown.

Richard Florida lecture OSU

 Seated Left to Right: Williams, Mihalik, Ginther, and Florida

Ginther, Mihalik, and Florida expressed that improving and expanding local public transportation systems will help boost economic opportunity for struggling families. For residents in many neighborhoods in Columbus, a lack of reliable transportation imposes a barrier to employers and the potential employees seeking work. In Findlay, Mihalik notes that over half of the city’s workforce actually commutes from outside Hancock County; as a result, many people are pushing for bolstering public transportation.Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) supports efforts to connect Ohioans to job opportunities by improving public transportation networks throughout the state.

While many people are encumbered by today’s often divisive national politics, Florida sees less partisanship and more willingness among stakeholders to work together to achieve results at the local level. Florida notes that when he meets mayors, he usually has little idea or concern about whether they are Republican or Democrat, because party identity is less defining of the policies mayors pursue. Mihalik emphasizes the idea that mayors can elevate important public policy discussions, and should do more to promote civil dialogue among citizens. She also believes that leaders need to offer more potential solutions to problems, rather than simply criticizing what they think needs to be fixed. In sum, combining mayoral action with citizen input will help expand economic opportunity for more Ohioans.

Introduction to GOPC’s Reading Series on Shrinking Cities

By Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC Manager of Research and PolicyMany of GOPC’s followers are likely familiar with the concept of “shrinking cities” – communities that have experienced significant population decline and property abandonment over a period of decades. But what exactly this term means – and the feelings it can provoke – varies from person to person and community to community.

A few cities, including some in Ohio, have decided to embrace the concept of shrinking and are refocusing their planning efforts on how to “right-size” the city’s infrastructure for a smaller population. Others, also in Ohio, have rejected the idea and are implementing strategies to regrow their populations. Neither choice is necessarily right or wrong, but the question of how to deal with substantial population decline is one that most of Ohio’s legacy cities will have to answer. 

While “shrinking cities” as a concept is still relatively new in the United States, academics and urban planners have started to explore the question of how U.S. cities can manage population decline. As part of a literature study led by Dr. Mattijs Van Maasakkers at The Ohio State University, Torey Hollingsworth, GOPC’s Manager of Research & Policy, read a series of academic books and articles exploring the complex questions surrounding shrinking cities. Because the issues arising in shrinking cities align closely with GOPC’s mission of urban revitalization and sustainable growth, we will be launching a new blog series that summarizes some of the books and articles that were the most interesting or relevant in Ohio.

Portsmouth Historic Buildings 2

A key theme that runs throughout much of the literature on shrinking cities is a re-examination of the concept of growth. Can a city “grow” even if it is shrinking? Are there opportunities to create greater prosperity and opportunity for residents even in the face of population decline? These are important questions for people who work in or care about cities with declining populations. We hope that these summaries provoke even more questions and raise some ideas for paths forward.

We will be posting these summaries over a series of weeks. If there’s a book, article, or other work about shrinking cities that you’ve found useful or interesting and want to see covered – please let us know. 

This article is part of a blog series exploring books and articles written about shrinking cities, or communities that are losing population and dealing with housing vacancy and abandonment. For more information on this series, see the first post “Reading Series on Shrinking Cities”. These summaries are provided only for educational purposes and opinions expressed in these summaries do not necessarily reflect those of Greater Ohio Policy Center.

April 2017 Legislative Update: Latest News from the Ohio Statehouse

By Jason Warner, GOPC Manager of Government Affairs With the legislature wrapping up spring break, now seems like a good time to provide the first status update on a number of bills currently pending before the 132^nd Ohio General Assembly.

GOPC has compiled a comprehensive recap of legislation, which is available here

A number of bills have been introduced since the new general assembly began in January, but most of the work continues to concentrate on the various budget bills which must be enacted by July 1, 2017 when the new state fiscal year begins. Already, one of those bills has already been passed and signed into law; the state transportation budget was signed by Governor Kasich on March 31 and will provide funding for Ohio Department of Transportation, among other agencies, for the next two state fiscal years, which begin on July 1, 2017 and end on June 30, 2019. HB26 includes a significant boost in funding for public transit fleet replacement, increasing funding for this program by $10 million per year and is primarily derived from the state motor fuel tax and federal transportation funding.

The main operating budget, HB49 is still pending in the House Finance Committee. This bill provides funding for state government operations for the next two state fiscal years, which begin on July 1, 2017 and end on June 30, 2019. Also known as the general revenue fund (GRF) budget, this is the primary source of funding for state government operations for the next two years. The House is expected to pass a version of the budget by May 3, 2017; the Senate has begun informal hearings on the budget and will undertake formal hearings following the passage of the House version next month. Final passage is expected by June 30, 2017.

During the spring break, Governor Kasich was joined by House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger and Senate President Larry Obhof at a press conference to announced that, due to declining state tax receipts, it would be necessary to cut $400 million per year over the next two years from the current budget proposal. It is not yet known what areas will be targeted for cuts in the budget proposal, but state budget director Tim Keen has indicated that the new budget will essentially be flat funded; meaning that funding for state programs will remain equal to what they have been for the past two years.

For more information about all bills GOPC is currently tracking, please read the full legislative update, which is available for you here

Pending Congressional Approval, Federal Budget Will Cut Important Transportation Grant Program

By Alex Highley, GOPC Project AssociateUnder the Trump administration’s recent budget proposal, a crucial grant program supporting capital investment for transportation projects across Ohio and the country is slated to be abolished. The federal program known as the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants are earmarked to be eliminated, unless the House and Senate budget bills reverse the provision doing away with the program. Funding for TIGER, a program that was developed in 2009 as part of the federal Recovery Act, is allocated to state Departments of Transportation (DOT) and local jurisdictions by Congress following a merit-based award process. Should Congress decide to scrap the program, some planned transit, rail, and bike and pedestrian projects in Ohio could fail to produce the funds necessary for completion.

Since 2009, TIGER grantshave funneled over $4 billion to a variety of innovative transportation projects around the country, including transit, rail, port, road, and bike and pedestrian. Since the program’s inception, the annual program budget has declined over time, reducing the number of awarded projects, while applications have ramped up. The US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) latest round ofTIGER grant awards, known as TIGER VII, are set to deliver $500 million to various projects nationwide. In total, this amount will support 39 capital projects in 33 states. However, award amounts have been slowly declining since the initial TIGER I, which funded 51 separate capital projects in the form of $1.5 billion in award money.

Downtown overhead

Akron's downtown promenade was awarded a $5 million TIGER capital grant in 2016. Photo credit: AkronStock 

TIGER grants are immensely important in Ohio, where they offer needed funding assistance to multi-modal projects that would struggle to generate the necessary funding otherwise. For example, in 2015$6.8 million was awarded to Ohio to divide among sparsely-funded public transit agencies in rural areasof the state such as Athens, Wilmington, Chillicothe, Knox, Lancaster, Marion, Logan, and others. Moreover, theOpportunity Corridorproject, which is a path designed for transit, bikes, and pedestrians in northeast Ohio, along with thedowntown promenade in Akron, have enjoyed the fruits of grant awards in recent years. In total,Ohio has received over $79 millionfrom the TIGER program for transportation projects (see the table below for a year-by-year breakdown).

The success of the program is manifested by the substantial local investment it has spurred. USDOT calculates that TIGER’s initial investment has leveraged $1.74 billion in matching funds by state and local actors, including the private and public sectors contributing to the completion of the project. However, due to the program’s widespread appeal, acquiring TIGER grants have become increasingly more difficult. As local transportation projects face a dwindling supply of resources, the TIGER program has become more competitive given the increasing demand. Subsequently, many advocates have called for an expansion of the program to aid local governments in finishing important projects.

Scrapping the program entirely would represent a big blow to public transportation systems in Ohio in particular, given many local systems are insufficiently supported.The Ohio Department of Transportation's (ODOT)2015 Transit Needs Study estimates that Ohio’s public transportation systems suffer from a $192.5 million dollar funding shortfall in combined capital and operations needs. Moreover, the study finds that the state of Ohio spends just 63 cents per capita on public transportation over the course of each year, ranking Ohio 38th in the nation in its investment in this crucial policy area.

Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) believes that Ohio’srecently-passed transportation budget, which includes a $10 million increase in flex funding for public transportation, is a positive step to modernizing the state’s transportation system. However, local systems will continue to struggle to meet the demands of riders, and the possible federal elimination of the TIGER program will increase the financial strain on cash-strapped agencies that are seeking the funds to ensure they can properly invest in their capital systems as well as operate sufficiently.

For more resources on transportation policy affecting Ohio’s cities and regions, please visit GOPC’sTransportation Modernization webpage.

TIGER Grants Total Award Amounts in Ohio

2009: $20 million

2010: $10.5 million

2011: $12.5 million

2012: $16 million

2013: no award

2014: $400,000

2015: $6.8 million

2016: $12.9 million

Grand Total: $79.1 million

Community Development Block Grants Proposed for Elimination

By John Collier, GOPC Intern The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is one of the longest running programs of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Beginning in 1974, the program has provided communities with a source of flexible funds to aid in affordable housing and anti-poverty programs. The future of the program is unclear, as the Trump Administration, in its 2018 Budget Blueprint, is calling for the elimination of the CDBG program.

The flexibility of the CDBG program sets it apart from other grant programs provided by the federal government. With CDBG grants, state and local governments have a large amount of discretion in how the money is spent, and require less federal oversight.

CDBG funds are allocated in two separate funding streams.  One goes to states and the other directly to cities meeting certain requirements. Seventy percent of CDBG funds are allocated to what is referred to as the CDBG Entitlement Program. This program distributes funds directly to large cities and urban counties. Eligible communities receive CDBG funds determined by a formula based on population, poverty rates, and housing units. Since the funding is based on a formula and depends on a number of factors, CDBG funding can vary from year to year. 

The other 30 percent of CDBG funds are allocated to the State CDBG Program. States award the CDBG funds to smaller units of government for a wide array of purposes. The State CDBG Program allows non-entitlement cities (typically cities with populations fewer than 50,000) to benefit from this CDBG program. In Ohio, CDBG funds are administered by the Office of Community Development at ODSA. The Office of Community Development outlines four areas for CDBG funding in Ohio:

1. Community Allocation – projects including public facilities, services, housing, and economic development

2. Neighborhood Revitalization – targeted investment in low and moderate-income neighborhoods

3. Downtown Revitalization – targeted investment in façade improvements, streetscapes, and public infrastructure

4. Critical Infrastructure – high priority projects, typically single-component projects such as roads and drainage, which provide a community wide impact

In 2016, Ohio received $137,566,074 from HUD’s CDBG programs, $41,292,727 went to the State Program and $96,173,347 was distributed through the Entitlement Program. Forty-five communities in Ohio were eligible for the Entitlement Program. The breakdown of expenditures of the State Program funds is as follows:

• 55% for Public Facilities and Improvements

• 20% for Housing

• 14% for General Administration/Planning

• 7.5% for Economic Development

• 2% for Public Services

According to the State of Ohio’s 2014 Accomplishment Report submitted to HUD, state program funds benefitted an estimated 885,599 individuals through the various projects funded by CDBGs. One of these state projects took place in Preble County, which assisted the Village of Lewisburg in a revitalization of its downtown district. The funds helped repair building facades, install decorative brick pavers, decorative planters, sidewalks, etc. In Miami County, state CDBG funds were utilized in a critical infrastructure project. CDBG funds allowed Bradford Village to replace 1,250 feet of water lines as well as to install 3 fire hydrants. The project benefited the entire village.

While total CDBG disbursement has decreased every year since 2002, it may now be completely eliminated. President Trump’s proposed 2018 Budget requests a $6.2 billion or 13.2 percent decrease in discretionary funding for HUD from 2017 levels and a complete elimination of the CDBG program. The blueprint claims the program “is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results” and aims to redistribute the funds to other activities.  The CDBG remains a valuable source of flexible funding for community development, and there is no obvious replacement source for cash-strapped communities.  Federal lawmakers need to carefully consider the merit of the program before making any changes.

For more detailed information on the CDBG program visit the HUD Exchange.