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Anthony Randazzo, Reason Foundation

The first half of the 20^th century were wonder years for Cleveland. The birthplace of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company, the city became a national center for manufacturing, automobile production, steel mills, and shipping. By 1920, Cleveland was the fifth-largest city in the United States, and by 1950 the city boasted nearly 1 million people. After World War II, the city’s economic strength was mirrored on the playing fields of the NFL and Major League Baseball. As the 1950s turned into the 1960s, northeast Ohio appeared to be a place of limitless possibilities.

Today, those hopes have been dashed. The greater Cleveland area includes almost 2 million people, but the city itself contains only 433,748. The city has declined from one of the best locations in the nation to the “Mistake On The Lake.” Cleveland’s tale of decline is familiar to all inhabitants of Rust Belt cities. It is a story punctuated by economic downturn, population decline, and social unrest.

In 1966, racial tensions culminated in the Hough (pronounced huff) race riots. As in New York and Detroit, the riots created a sense that Cleveland had become ungovernable. The racial divide seemed on the mend in 1968, when Cleveland elected Carl Stokes the first black mayor of a major American city, but the 1970s saw public school desegregation battles pit blacks against whites, and liberals against conservatives.

Although racial tensions remain, the problems Cleveland faces stretch far beyond such issues. In 1969, as the nation began to develop an environmentalist sensibility, the massively polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire, providing an iconic and disturbing image of an unlivable urban hell-hole.

The tough economy of the 1970s hit Cleveland especially hard, as heavy industry jobs shifted South or offshore altogether, where labor costs and property taxes were lower. By 1978, Cleveland was $15 million dollars in debt and under Mayor Dennis Kucinich, now a U.S. representative, Cleveland became the first major city since the Great Depression to default on its loans.

Despite lavish public spending on and subsidies for sports stadiums, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and other projects designed to stimulate economic growth, Cleveland in the 21st century remains mired in a funk of double-digit unemployment and population flight.

Cleveland proper has lost more than half its population since 1950 and routinely ranks as one of the poorest cities in the United States. More than 10,000 vacant homes in the city—22.1 percent of housing—act as a constant reminder of Cleveland’s ongoing economic catastrophe.

Compared to the rest of America, Cleveland lags far behind:

Yet the problems of Cleveland—and many other once-great American cities—are not insurmountable. Cities that have embraced entrepreneurship, competitive contracting, and privatization have thrived while Cleveland has faltered. Cities that have instituted school choice have seen their children succeed despite worse conditions than Cleveland's. Cities that have simplified regulation and zoning have experienced robust economic growth while Cleveland limps along.

Is a Cleveland renaissance possible? Of course it is, but only if local officials, business leaders, and citizens embrace the bottom-up policies that have helped places as diverse as Houston, Chicago, and Oakland, California succeed.

Anthony Randazzo is director of economic research for Reason Foundation.