Tucked two-thirds of the way between Cleveland and Akron, Hudson is a safe eye in an economic storm.
The city’s prim residential houses and large tended lawns seem sheltered from foreclosures, resident flight and dwindling tax bases. The historic downtown storefronts along Darrow Road are busy with afternoon shoppers. By evening, First & Main is alive with local and national retail stores and restaurants. Across the street from the bustling commercial center, the grassy town square is surrounded by historic churches and the quaint ivy-covered, East Coast brick architecture of Western Reserve Academy.
Not surprisingly, Hudson boasts the type of numbers real estate agents dream of: a population of 23,500, 66 percent of residents with college degrees or better, an average household income of $99,724 — almost three times Cleveland’s.
But Northeast Ohio’s recent problems have even crept into the shady suburban calm. Earlier this year, toy manufacturer Little Tikes, a 37-year resident of Hudson, announced a plan to sell its 122-acre facility, proving that even the strongest cities are vulnerable to the region’s weaknesses.
That point is not lost on Hudson Mayor William A. Currin. The illusion that outlying cities such as his are independent of the region’s troubles is a dangerous fantasy, one he is quick to dispel.
“Hudson is by no means an island,” says Currin. “No one is.”
The reason, he argues, is a lack of regional cooperation. “We were lulled into being overly parochial because of those attitudes, because we didn’t have to work together,” says Currin. “Well, we do now. We have had a turning point. A house divided will always fall.”
So the mayor of Hudson, yes, quaint Hudson, has been rallying area leaders around the idea of a united region, promoting a new take on regionalism that doesn’t focus on shared services or collapsed government, but on large-scale economic development and planning.
As the chairman of the Northeast Ohio Mayors and City Managers Association, Currin has been vocal in his public speeches and in the media that the region must work together.
But Currin is more than talk — and he‘s not alone. After a 34-year career at Johnson & Johnson, Currin brings a results-oriented approach to the charge for regionalism, adding a fresh voice to a debate that has for too long been heavy on discussion and light on action.
He is leading the mayors association’s Regional Economic Revenue Study, which is examining data from case studies throughout the country to identify a plan for regional economic development that could change the face of Northeast Ohio.
“I think this is a seminal moment in time,” says Jim Trakas, a candidate for the 10th Congressional District seat and member of Currin’s committee. “The group is harnessing the brain power to really make substantive and positive change, not just change for change’s sake.”
“The major obstacles, of course, are political, and these obstacles are tied to how the issue of regional collaboration is framed,” says Ed Morrison, former executive director of the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case’s Weatherhead School of Management and current economic policy adviser at the Center of Regional Development at Purdue University. “If it is framed as Sam Miller framed it, we will get nowhere.”
Forest City’s Miller offered to fund a community dialogue to consolidate regional government and get the nearly 60 different governments in Cuyahoga County to act and think like one large community.
But such an effort will find no support among area political leaders, according to Morrison. Politicians will resist for fear of losing influence or even their jobs. “That framing leads to protective reactions and gridlock,” Morrison adds. “On the other hand, if this issue is framed as a transformation and part of a growth-oriented agenda, then it has a chance.”
Regional collaboration, Morrison stresses, will only find support if everybody benefits from it.
Currin feels the mayors association’s approach does just that. Regionalism must be looked at in the context of large-scale economic development, he says, because reckless, unplanned growth and costly competition between cities for new business pose the greatest threat to the region’s economic future.
In other areas of the country, the solution has been a combination of revenue sharing and collaborative growth planning. “What we’ve found is that large amounts of money can be saved for communities if you plan better as a total region,” Trakas says.
But any comprehensive regional economic development plan must be collaborative, nonpartisan and sustainable to send the right message to the rest of the world, Currin says. “Northeast Ohio is ready to compete.”
When Currin speaks about Northeast Ohio, his affection extends beyond Hudson to the Cleveland Orchestra to the park system to the lack of traffic congestion on the highways. His enthusiasm for the region he has lived in and served for the past 40 years is heartfelt and infectious.
But the mayor is also aware that in the past decade or so, Northeast Ohioans have failed to acknowledge all the region has to offer. “People have been gravitating to the negative. That’s inappropriate; it’s self-flogging,” he says. “We have enormous attributes that other regions can never dream of having. But we are in a transition, and [the future] depends on how we get out of that transition.”
The mayors association has been interested in regionalism since its founding in 2000. Yet, this Regional Economic Revenue Study is its most serious effort to date. Funded by a $90,000 grant from the Fund for Our Economic Future and financial contributions from 37 area communities, it is looking at regional revenue-sharing models in three metropolitan areas: Dayton, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Generally considered the most successful, the Twin Cities’ model arose from an economic situation similar to Northeast Ohio’s own. When the plan was formalized in 1971, the area of 187 separate communities was 14th in the nation in terms of per-family income and had a wounded industrial base thanks to the loss of the timber and other natural resource industries.
The plan eliminated competition between cities for new business. When a business moved to the area or relocated, a share of the tax revenue was spread to other area communities. By doing away with the infighting, the region was able to plan the growth of new businesses strategically, building development in areas already equipped with infrastructure.
By carefully planning its land use, the region saved an estimated $27 billion to $29 billion in unneeded infrastructure. Today, the area still has 187 separate communities, but now is fourth in the nation in per-family income. The region’s pooled tax revenue from new-company relocation and growth is now valued at around $600 million.
Currin says a variation of the Twin Cities model could prove successful in Northeast Ohio. Too often competition between communities leads to costly tax abatements, leaving no benefit for the city or school district, he argues. Also, when businesses sprawl out into outlying areas, cities are forced to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure, meaning higher taxes on residents in those places. By pooling revenue and collectively planning growth in areas already serviced by infrastructure, Northeast Ohio can control its development and let everyone enjoy the benefit.
In the past, tax-sharing agreements have raised eyebrows and tempers from city leaders who don’t want to see their profit distributed to other communities. For example, last year Avon, Cleveland and the surrounding West Shore communities battled over the I-90 interchange at Nagel Road.
Critics of the $19 million interchange held up its approval in the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, a transportation-planning body made up of top elected leaders and transportation officials from five counties, arguing it would suck jobs from older, more established communities, encourage sprawl and drain resources for added infrastructure.
Rather than risk losing the interchange, Avon conceded to a revenue-sharing agreement. The deal requires that if a company with more than $750,000 in payroll relocates from one of the neighboring communities to Avon, the tax revenue would be split between the two for five years. The overall agreement lasts for 30 years.
“It felt like someone holding a gun to your head,” Avon Councilman Craig Witherspoon toldThe Morning Journal in Lorain. The ripple effect of the agreement — and how it was negotiated (Cuyahoga County has the largest population, thus giving it the most NOACA votes) — caused Medina and Lorain county officials to question their involvement in the organization.
Currin says case-by-case agreements such as this will always leave one party upset, but his plan would call for a policy that is equable for the entire 16-county region.
“When you talk about land-use planning and revenue sharing, that’s pretty revolutionary for this region,” says Pepper Pike Mayor Bruce Akers, also a member of the study committee. “I feel it might have been a tough sell for some mayors and city councils.”
Currin says parochial attitudes must go.
“Everybody wants to talk about tax sharing like it’s the bogeyman. That’s malarkey,” he says. “It’s the planning that’s key. In order for people to participate in the planning, you have to have an incentive, and that’s new capital investment revenue sharing. The planning is land-use planning, planning where sewers go, where interchanges go, when you aspire to redevelop an area that already has the transportation.”
Currin’s study group met with the mayors association’s advisory committee in mid-March to present its ideas. The advisory group comprises representatives of all the involved cities, including the mayors of Cleveland, Akron, Elyria and Youngstown. For Currin, a consensus among all the members is key. “We want to accomplish this,” he says. “This is not a study just for study.”
The details of the plan will be released publicly around the middle of May, once the mayors association can come to an agreement on something it can champion. Phase Two of the plan would involve working out the implementation. Currin says it’s unclear whether this arrangement could be simply agreed upon by the communities involved or if the state Legislature would have to pass enabling legislation.
Currin hopes to implement the plan by the beginning of 2009.
Whatever the details of the final plan are, the consensus among those involved is that Northeast Ohio is hungry for change.
“From the conversations I’ve had with leaders, they’re ready to do something different. I think people are really going to like these ideas, and they’re going to be different,” Trakas says. “People realize you’re not going to get better by doing the same old thing.
“Mayor Currin is a great visionary, with a strong understanding that positive change is not talk, but action,” he adds. “Many of the communities in this region are desperate for this type of leadership.”
Currin repeatedly shies away from any personal praise. Instead, he says Northeast Ohio must shift its focus from individuals or individual cities to the entire region. Only with a collective voice can the area announce its willingness to work for its future.
“At Browns Stadium, if there’s one fellow yelling, ‘Go, Browns,’ can you hear him? No,” Currin says. “But if the whole stadium is yelling? That’s pretty loud. And why are they all yelling? Because with a win they all benefit. It’s the same concept here.”