In 2010, leaders representing a 12-county region of Northeast Ohio recognized that our communities’ futures are intertwined and concluded that the region could be more successful if we work together to anticipate, prepare for, and build our future. The Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium (NEOSCC) was created to determine how to achieve this goal.
NEOSCC’s assignment was not to “plan” the future of Northeast Ohio—those are decisions for the leaders and residents of Northeast Ohio’s communities to make. In broad terms, NEOSCC was created to answer three questions:
- What course is northeast Ohio on?
- What future does northeast Ohio want for itself?
- How do we make that future a reality?
Over a three year period, each of the 12-counties participating in the NEOSCC effort collected extensive amounts of data, prepared maps and conducted public engagement.
The county-level data was then aggregated into a regional framework report, Vibrant NEO 2040 – A Vision, Framework, and Action Products for Our Future, addressing the three questions above, and published by NEOSCC in February, 2014.
To provide decision-makers at the county level with the details most relevant to them, NOACA reassembled the data presented by NEOSCC to focus on each individual county. The county reports reflect data collected and analyzed by NEOSCC at that time.