A Letter to the Region

In June, the NEOSCC published its first report, the Conditions and Trends platform.  The platform is the result of over 150 experts in the region coming together to look at Northeast Ohio and how our land use effects economic development, the environment, housing and communities and transportation.  The resulting report was transformed into what we call a platform or launching place for engagement. By creating an on-line tool, we ensured that the platform can evolve as we engage the region in a discussion about existing conditions and trends.  It also creates the opportunity to add more data, maps and graphics as we become aware of these resources. We developed the Conditions and Trends Platform with four distinct ways for everyone in Northeast Ohio to learn about the findings: Themes – five themes were developed based on the relationship between the findings; Subject Matter (i.e. Economic Development, Environment, etc.); Maps/Geographies – the…

One of the Vibrant NEO 2040 work streams is focused on the attributes of a quality connected place and the elements that lead to vibrant place making. We have many of these great spaces and places through Northeast Ohio that truly make our 12 county region unique. A good way to begin analyzing these attributes of quality connected places is to think about what we have as assets in the region. Northeast Ohio is a diverse, vibrant and exciting region, with assets, attributes and points of pride in every community. Those assets may be natural wonders, historic buildings, cultural monuments, arts institutions, etc. Everyone who lives here has his or her own idea of Northeast Ohio’s most important assets. NEOSCC has been working to catalog, map, and quantify the impact of Northeast Ohio’s regional and local assets. Because our assets make us what we are as a region, we want…

  As a partner, supporter and/or member of NEOSCC, you have likely heard us mention our new Conditions and Trends Platform (CAT), an online tool designed to help Northeast Ohioans understand, talk about and contribute to the future of our region. We are very excited about the potential of this tool, and we need your help to make sure it gets seen and shared. We are relying on you and your fellow NEOSCC supporters to help spread the word about the Conditions and Trends platform to your colleagues, friends and family across the region. We’ve made it easy for you; in the attached Toolkit, you will find several components designed to help you talk about and share the Conditions and Trends Platform with your networks, in person and especially online.     Conditions and Trends Toolkit: What It Is and How to Use It NEOSCC’s Conditions and Trends Platform (CAT)…

As two of the most significant expenses in our personal lives, housing and transportation cost can play a key role in our quality of life and where we choose to live.  Over the last few years a new tool has been developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology to analyze some of these costs relative to income and geography. To integrate this way of thinking into the choices and decisions made by home buyers, renters, urban and transportation planners, and developers, CNT and our collaborative partner, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), developed a groundbreaking tool, the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, that measures the true affordability of housing choice-by factoring in both housing and transportation costs in a neighborhood. The cost of getting around takes a significant bite out of household budgets. The average family in the United States spends about 18% of after-tax income on transportation, but…

NEOSCC Consortium Member, the Green City Blue Lake Institute has launched a wonderful new website:   The new site is based on a three-step process: Explore: Until you experience Northeast Ohio and the natural systems that support life here the soils, the water, the plants and animals, the climate it’s hard to know how to take care of this place. So the first step is to explore the bioregion, root yourself here, learn to love your home territory. Live: Empowered with the intimate knowledge of place, you can begin to improve your own life. You can lead a healthier, more fulfilling life that has less environmental impact. Transform: Beyond the changes you can make in your own life, we all need to work together on big, complicated things like the design of more sustainable cities, buildings, and transportation systems. We need a sustainability policy agenda and projects that transform the region.   What…

Translating sustainability and the triple bottom line  into accessible concepts and actions has long been a difficult aspect of broadening the audience and stakeholders for sustainability initiatives.  This has been particularly true in how everyone can take action. At its recent Sustainable Cleveland 2019 Summit, The City of Cleveland launched its new dashboard.  The new tool includes performance measures that will help to capture progress made along the 10 year initiative: Measuring progress is essential to the success of Sustainable Cleveland. The performance indicators measure results, inform strategy, shine a light on what is working and they educate and inspire us through stories and metrics. The framework focuses on sustainability initiatives in the areas of business, personal/social, built and natural.  Most importantly, the site highlights how you can affect these areas at home, work and in your community.   While some of the measurements have yet to be published, it is definitely worth…

The image above is part of the  Vibrant NEO 2040 presentation that will be presented today at the first in a series of meetings with Northeast Ohio’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations/Council of Governments Board of Directors.  This morning at the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), we will be discussing the overall status of the project, the upcoming scenario planning process, project outcomes/products and engagement. This conversation will be followed by brief roundtable discussions on four of our work streams:  Economic Development, Environment, Connections and Housing and Communities.   Utilizing the findings from the Conditions and Trends Platform, we hope to engage local leaders in exploring the following: What do these findings mean to you and your community? What do these findings mean to the region? What else do you need to know about your community? What else do you need to know about Northeast Ohio? Over the course of the next…

One of the most interesting findings in the Conditions and Trends Platform is that 90% of NEO populations is within 1 mile of a park or a green space. The highest concentration of parks and protected spaces is in the center of the region, around the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Ravenna Arsenal in Summit and Portage Counties. There are, however, areas concentrated along the edge of the region that are further than two miles from a park or protected space. These areas include western Lorain and Medina counties, southern Wayne and Stark Counties, and parts of Ashtabula, Trumbull, and Mahoning counties. What Can I Do Today? Learn: Watch the NEOSCC October Board Meeting on You Tube Share your thoughts: Take the Bike Cleveland Northeast Ohio Biker Survey Act: Become a member of the Conditions and Trends Platform and let us know what you think about our findings

As part of a grantee peer-to-peer exchange in Pittsburgh this week, we were given a tour of the East Liberty Neighborhood redevelopment project. From the East Liberty Development Corporation’s website: Our first community plan, A Vision for East Liberty, produced in 1999, helped guide our neighborhood’s recovery from urban renewal efforts. Recognizing the success that followed the 1999 plan, we decided to come together again to include new and old neighbors and expand and refine our vision. Through a process of community meetings, a broad range of people who live, work, shop, play, worship, and invest in East Liberty shared our love for the neighborhood, our concerns, and our dreams for its future. The guiding principles below, which emerged from these meetings, will guide residents, developers, organizers, and stakeholders through the ever-evolving process of planning and development toward our community’s goals. Over the last 12 years, 1,400 high-rise public housing…

Back in June, NEOSCC took its board meeting to Mahoning County.  As part of our 12 Counties in 12 Months Program, the NEOSCC Board had an opportunity to tour some of Youngstown’s unique assets as well as some of the redevelopment work that is occurring. Part of the tour was led by Youngstown Neighborhood Development Council (YNDC), a multifaceted neighborhood development organization launched in 2009 in partnership with the City of Youngstown and The Raymond John Wean Foundation to catalyze strategic neighborhood reinvestment in neighborhoods throughout the city.  YNDC highlighted some of the neighborhood revitalization work during the tour. We wanted to showcase a recent YNDC publication:  Lots of Green 2012 Impact Report. YNDC’s Lots of Green program is a nationally-recognized, vacant land reuse strategy implemented in Youngstown neighborhoods by the YNDC and multiple partner organizations. The program engages residents and volunteers through several programs, including Iron Roots Urban Farm, Market Gardener Training, Community Gardens,…

With Thanksgiving just a few days away, we wanted to share a recent post from the Good website proposing a 100 mile Thanksgiving challenge.  Happy Thanksgiving! In the spirit of using less fuel and supporting local farms and food artisans, we challenge you to try a 100-mile Thanksgiving. A 100-mile Thanksgiving uses ingredients sourced from within 100 miles of your dinner table. Think of it as an opportunity to celebrate local food, rather than an obligation to source every last ingredient from within 100 miles. Food miles, or the amount of miles a certain product has traveled to its final destination, are an important consideration when trying to reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of oil and gasoline used in making a meal. What Can I Do Today? Learn: Visit NEO Food Web for information on Local Food Act: Visit the Local Food Network to get involved Share your thoughts on our…

NEOSCC counts numerous Public Housing Authorities among its membership.  Shawna Daugherty of Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority prepared a NEO 101 Series presentation on “What is a Public Housing Authority?” to educate our board on the different aspects of PHA’s.  Here are a few facts: Public Housing Authorities (PHA)provide housing and rental assistance to low-income families through two programs: Public Housing With this method, the PHA owns and manages properties. Approximately 1.2 million families reside in public housing around the country. Properties range from single family homes to high-rise apartments. Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8) This method allows families to use a voucher anywhere a landlord is willing to accept it. The housing authority will subsidize the rent and utilities. Voucher programs serve about 3 million families nationwide. Beyond these core services, PHA’s offer a variety of ancillary community services in support of their housing developments. There are a number of community partners…

In The Plain Dealer yesterday, Hunter Morrison, NEOSCC Executive Director and Jason Segedy, NEOSCC Board Chair contributed a guest column, “Finding the tools to keep Northeast Ohio’s future bright”,  to the Forum section discussing NEOSCC, the Conditions and Trends Platform and Vibrant NEO 2040.  Here is an excerpt from the piece: Admit it: You love Northeast Ohio. You love the people, or the history, the museums, the food, or the parks and the sports. For all of us, there are aspects of our region about which we are proud, unique qualities that make it a great place to live. We all want to see the things that we love about Northeast Ohio thrive and grow, just as we would like to see the challenges facing our region addressed and put behind us. The Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium works to help residents preserve and build upon what we value, and to fix…

As part of the Vibrant NEO 2040 planning process, NEOSCC is conducting a regional analysis of impediments to fair housing choice (often called a Regional AI).  Western Economic Services –  is helping us craft a useful Regional AI for all of the communities in our 12-county region. Working with Western Economic Services, we have created two surveys to help gauge the status of fair housing in our communities.  If you are involved in the housing industry please take some time to complete the survey. Links to the two surveys, one for government officials and one for housing stakeholders can be found below.  Our definition of “housing stakeholders” are people like an advocate/ service provider, banking/ finance, construction/ development, condo or homeowner association leader, insurance, law/ legal services, property management, real estate, or resident advisory council leader. Government Officials Survey Housing Stakeholders Survey Please fill out the most appropriate survey and…

“iNaturalist is a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world.” iNaturalist (http://www.inaturalist.org/) is a smartphone and web-based data gathering program designed to provide an ecological learning and teaching platform for amateur and professional naturalists alike. The world is full of naturalists and many hikers, hunters, birders, and beachcombers record their observations of the environment around them. If the record of observations is comprehensive enough, it may be possible for scientists and land managers to monitor changes in biodiversity, and allow anyone to use the comprehensive record of life to learn more about nature. A comprehensive record of nature is the primary purpose of iNaturalist. According to its website, iNaturalist began as the Master’s final project of Nate Agrin, Jessica Kline, and Ken-ichi Ueda at the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Information in 2008. Nate and Ken-ichi continued…