Introduction:
Thinking as a region

A remarkable convergence of thought is occurring in Northeast Ohioa growing understanding that our future depends on acting regionally. It's an understanding that many of our most serious environmental, social and economic problems are regional in scope. It's a recognition that our region's sprawling development patterns destroy communities and are not sustainable. And it includes a concern thatwith our fragmented, hodge-podge of local governmentswe have little ability to act regionally at present.

This convergence involves not only the "usual suspects," such as environmentalists, urban planners and transit advocates, but also a growing number of elected officials, religious leaders and members of the business community. Even people who once cheered "growth" at any cost are starting to question the long-term implications of investing public infrastructure dollars in new suburbs at the expense of older urban areas. They are recognizing that everyone in the region depends on a healthy urban core.

The EcoCity Cleveland Journal has covered the urban sprawl debates in Northeast Ohio, and we are proud to have played a role in heightening awareness about regional issues. In this publication we collect some of our best articles in one convenient package. We hope this will be a stimulating and useful toolplease read it, ponder it, and pass it on to friends and colleagues.

We may not all agree on the diagnoses or cures presented in these pages, but we can all recognize our regional problems and enter the debate with open minds. The discussion about acting regionally has happened before in our history. Yet, in many ways, it is just beginning. We are groping toward regionalism, struggling to discover new forms of cooperation in a political atmosphere hostile to the idea of metro government. Maybe today we can finally come to grips with the regional forces shaping our future.

David Beach
January 1996

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EcoCity Cleveland
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Cuyahoga Bioregion
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Copyright 2002-2003

Corn Fields contents

• Preface: The view from two counties
• Goal for the region

Part 1: The history and cost of sprawl

• Moving up and out
• Surrounded by suburbs
• Sprawl without growth
• Edge cities
  • What are edge cities?
• Moving to corn fields
  • Tale of seven cities
• Why worry about suburban sprawl?
• In the zone
  • Ohio enterprise zone highlights
• Balancing the books with farmland and open space
  • Farms on the edge
• Sprawling development costs us all
• The "growth" treadmill
• Invasion of the sprawl-marts
• The geography of nowhere

Part 2: Local and regional responses
to sprawl

• No more business as usual?
• Getting the transportation we want
  • Transportation priorities
• Ecological transportation
• Open houses in the wrong places?
• Zoned for your protection?
• Growth?
• Garage-sale planning in Ohio
• State land use reform: still on the shelf
  • The state's role
• Being pro-development
• Building the city of God
• Restoration inside and out
• Challenging the values that promote urban sprawl
• If Cleveland builds, the people will come

Part 3: Regional strategies
for sustainable communities

• The age of the citistate
• Past the point of no return?
• Seeds of an anti-sprawl movement
• A new metro strategy
  • Regional fundamentals