Restoring Prosperity
The Greater Ohio Policy Center Blog
In his recent post on Urbanophile.com titled “Bribing People to Move to Your City”, blogger Aaron M. Renn discusses the Hamilton, Ohio’s incentive program to attract talent to their city. Unfortunately, it seems Mr. Renn did not take the time to properly understand the full context of this policy and in doing so misses the tremendous amount of work Hamilton’s leaders have put towards revitalizing their urban core and renewing the community’s economic prospects.
Earlier this month, I had the honor of joining the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s board and senior staff on a day trip to Worcester. LILP has been a long-time partner of GOPC’s and most recently published Regenerating America’s Smaller Legacy Cities, a policy focus report written by Torey Hollingsworth and myself.
Last week, the Ohio legislature gave final approval to House Bill 122, a bill sponsored by Representatives Steve Hambley (R-Brunswick) and John Rogers (D-Mentor-on-the-Lake) which establish the Regional Economic Development Alliance Study Committee to review the benefits and challenges involved in creating regional economic development alliances.
Last month, Greater Ohio Policy Center released a report documenting the economic impacts that the City of Columbus and Franklin County land banks had on the local economy. These economic impacts include:
The collaboration between the City of Columbus and COCIC has served to jump-start real estate activity in some of Central Ohio’s most disinvested housing markets and after more than 1,600 demolitions in the past five years, the land banks have successfully dealt with the worst of the worst properties. Today, the land banks are strategically pivoting to address properties farther up the blight pipeline through rehabilitation and blight prevention.
Below is a wrap-up of the media coverage this report has generated:
Land Banks in Central Ohio Restore Nearly 1,300 Properties in 5 Years
Non Profit Quarterly 4/3/2018 Reporter Steve Dubb
Group says land banks are boosting local economy
Columbus Dispatch - 4/2/2018 Reporter Mark Ferenchik
Columbus-Franklin County land banks report $180M in economic impact
Columbus Business First - 3/20/2018 Reporter Carrie Ghose
Hollingsworth presented on GOPC’s research into revitalization opportunities for Ohio’s older industrial cities with smaller populations – like Youngstown and Warren. She focused in on two factors that GOPC’s research has shown makes the biggest difference for revitalization in these places: strong civic infrastructure and quality of place.
