Restoring Prosperity
The Greater Ohio Policy Center Blog
Many Ohioans wish to stay in their homes and neighborhoods where they have lived most of their lives. As people grow older, their ability to drive a car diminishes, and the need for frequent, efficient, and reliable public transportation increases. Known as aging in place, these residents deserve the chance to continue to live in the places they have called home for decades.
As Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) Director Jerry Wray observes, Ohio’s transportation network serves a vital role in allowing Ohioans to get to their place of work. In ODOT’s press release from this past April, Wray noted that Ohio’s transportation network “is Ohio’s most valuable man-made asset” and “gives us the ability to move goods to market, get to work, [and] take our children to school.”
This past April, Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) convened a second statewide affordable housing learning exchange at the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) offices. Affordable housing practitioners and advocates from Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo discussed local housing challenges and identified successful initiatives to build on.
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.
