The Cuyahoga County Planning Commission is completing a year-long study looking to address the issue of urban and suburban sprawl.
Huge multi-lane highways like Interstate 90 or Interstate 480 cut through neighborhoods and feed into large thoroughfares lined with parking lots, shopping centers and industrial parkways throughout Northeast Ohio.
Sprawl might seem innocuous, but critics say when populations and businesses move away from an urban core, they not only take tax revenue with them, they also have detrimental impacts on the environment, human health and safety.
Along with the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission, the Greater Cleveland RTA and the city of Cleveland are targeting dozens of square miles of land for potential re-zoning and encouraging more “transit-oriented development.”
Tuesday on the “Sound of Ideas,” we’ll learn more about what transit-oriented development is, what it looks like across the region, and why those bodies are joining forces to try to spur more of that development.
We’ll look at how already existing projects like the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights and two apartment buildings — the Intro and Church & State — in Ohio City came to be built.
We’ll also look at what challenges are ahead for transit-oriented development advocates, and what will need to happen in order to reverse decades of sprawl in Northeast Ohio.
Later, we will hear about the Cleveland Eviction Defense Fund. It's an investment by the Rocket Community Fund that augments the right-of-counsel work being done by the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.
GUESTS:
- Patrick Hewitt, Planning Manager, Cuyahoga County Planning Commission
- Maribeth Feke, Director of Programming and Planning, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority
- Matt Moss, Manager, Strategic Initiatives at the City of Cleveland Planning Commission
-Colleen Cotter, Executive Director, Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
-Laura Grannemann, Executive Director, Rocket Community Fund
Watch the discussion in the player below.
