Mayor Frank Jackson is happy about the myriad efforts to revitalize Cleveland, from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to the University Circle cultural center and the recent innovation hub activity in tech and life sciences. But as he finishes out his fourth and final term, Jackson says that the city’s ultimate success should be defined by one standard only: whether future regeneration is equitable for all.

“I’ve maintained that whatever we do, it will never be sustainable if we don’t address the underlying issues that are really the issues of America: institutionalized inequity, disparities, racism, and classism,” Jackson says in a wide-ranging interview for the Land Matters podcast.

Once the nation’s fifth-largest city, Cleveland went from being a thriving center of manufacturing and commerce to a notorious example of urban decline. Yet over the last couple of decades, the Midwestern metropolis has fought its way back to stability and renewal. A big part of those advancements, Jackson says, has to do with zoning reform and land policy, including the redevelopment of parcels left vacant by urban renewal and white flight to the suburbs. Any equitable rebound, he says, “has a lot to do with land.”

The conversation is part of this year’s special 75^th anniversary series looking at the people and places that have influenced the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy over time; the city of Cleveland figures prominently in the story of the Lincoln Institute. John C. Lincoln, the founder, got his start there at the close of the 19th century, as an inventor and entrepreneur working in the burgeoning field of electricity. With $200 in savings he started the Lincoln Electric Co., now a multibillion-dollar corporation.

Cleveland was also the place where Lincoln first learned about the political economist Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, whose work inspired him to establish the Lincoln Foundation in 1946 to study land and land policy. The foundation later became the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. In recent years, Cleveland has been a focus of the Lincoln Institute’s work in other ways, most visibly as the subject of a Making Sense of Place documentary film and a case study in the Legacy Cities initiative.

As part of the Lincoln Institute’s 75th anniversary celebration, a special event is planned in September in Cleveland that includes a street fair in Public Square and a keynote by Reverend Otis Moss of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. The Lincoln Institute is also cosponsoring a series of conversations hosted by The City Club of Cleveland, with upcoming events on July 30 and September 24.

This interview is available online and in print as part of the Mayor’s Desk feature—our conversations with chief executives of cities from around the world, and during the 75^th anniversary year, those in cities that have been especially closely tied to the Lincoln Institute. (See our previous interviews with the mayors of Phoenix and Cambridge.)

You can listen to the show and subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a contributing editor of Land Lines.

Image: Mayor Frank Jackson, with Lake Erie and downtown Cleveland behind him. Credit: Courtesy of City of Cleveland.

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Former industrial and manufacturing hubs like Dayton, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana—known as legacy cities—need not choose between economic growth and equity, as growth is most durable when it benefits everyone, according to a new Policy Focus Report and accompanying Policy Brief published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in partnership with the Greater Ohio Policy Center. Legacy cities can promote long-term growth while addressing racial and economic inequities laid bare by COVID-19 using strategies mapped out in Equitably Developing Smaller Legacy Cities: Investing in Residents from South Bend to Worcester. Using case studies of successful initiatives, the report guides practitioners through equitable investment in both physical projects and people.

Legacy cities experienced declining manufacturing economies and population loss in the 20th century, and they are now at various points on a path to revitalization. The report focuses on small to mid-size legacy cities with populations of 30,000 to 200,000 residents. Though they share many characteristics with their larger counterparts, these cities face unique challenges and require tailored approaches to revitalization.

Promising policies and strategies have emerged—as outlined in the 2017 Policy Focus Report Revitalizing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities and in the digital library of the Lincoln Institute’s Legacy Cities Initiative—and some legacy cities have seen populations grow or stabilize. As the new report shows, durable revitalization requires explicit efforts to address stark social and economic inequities.

“Leaders in America’s smaller legacy cities are uniquely positioned to test, refine, and innovate equitable development practices,” authors Erica Spaid Patras, Alison Goebel, and Lindsey Elam of the Greater Ohio Policy Center write in the report. “A robust commitment to equity is a powerful tool that can lead to a brighter future for these communities.”

Drawing on years of experience conducting research, advocacy, and outreach on behalf of Ohio’s 20 legacy cities, the authors begin the report with an explanation of how greater equity can both improve everyone’s access to opportunity and support the economic prospects of cities. For example, by providing better job training for longtime residents, a city can increase disposable income and encourage businesses to hire locally and ultimately stay in the city. Reducing entrenched poverty and increasing citizen engagement can improve a community’s long-term financial health.

The authors outline seven strategies, illustrated with a diverse set of case studies, that can lay the groundwork for a city’s equitable development agenda. Strategies are tailored to the unique challenges of these small to mid-size legacy cities and also draw on their unique opportunities—such as a lack of market pressures that allows leaders more time to get plans right.

“The strategies outlined in Equitably Developing America’s Smaller Legacy Cities will be vital in rebuilding more racially and economically equitable legacy cities,” Akilah Watkins, president and CEO of the Center for Community Progress, said. “Every municipal leader in the country should engage with this guide and be bold in their efforts to revitalize their communities in a post-COVID era.”

The recommendations can be implemented at any time, regardless of a city’s market strength, and include strategies suitable for implementation at the local level by government officials; leaders of nonprofits, foundations, or community development organizations; community outreach staff at hospital systems, universities, or financial institutions; and other practitioners. Some strategies build on existing programs—e.g., integrating racial equity analyses into routine local government decision-making—while others stand alone—e.g., programs that build the leadership pipeline and civic capacity of underrepresented groups. 

“This report demonstrates a keen understanding of legacy cities, and the policy recommendations are robust and easily understandable,” said Jason Segedy, Director of Planning and Urban Development for the city of Akron, Ohio. 

“The strategies address today’s pandemic climate as well as long-standing economic decline,” the authors write. “Most of these strategies are cost-effective and prioritize investing time and human capital to build collaborations rather than just spending on new construction projects.” 

Strategies fall into two categories: 1) those that seek to strengthen relationships and build trust and 2) those that reduce disparities in life outcomes for residents and improve economic prospects citywide. 

Strategies to Build an Equitable Development Ecosystem 

• Build Trust and Repair Strained Relationships: In 2016, planners in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, delivered an apology for past racist policies, including redlining and urban renewal, and their present impacts, which helped lay the groundwork for more equitable programming and community partnerships.
• Build a Layered and Diverse Coalition: A diverse group of transit advocates in Indianapolis undertook a major outreach campaign, which included inclusive coalition-building and effective use of data, to demonstrate the benefits of public transit investment to businesses and community groups, ultimately winning voter approval for a tax to improve the city’s transit system. 
• Conduct Strategic Planning and Visioning: Erie, Pennsylvania’s Downtown Development Corporation is a non-profit intermediary responsible for coordinating the funding and implementation of downtown revitalization plans and helping to build Erie’s revitalization capacity. 

Strategies That Reduce Disparities and Increase Civic Capacity

• Utilize Place-Based Investments:The historic renovation of Dayton, Ohio’s downtown Arcade improved the physical quality of downtown and in the process became the shared home for several small business and innovation entities, allowing for better coordination among the groups to eliminate service redundancies and diagnose community needs.
• Cultivate Homegrown Talent: A coalition of business, government, and nonprofits in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, fosters community-based leadership that reflects the diversity of the city through programs that increase the number of residents serving on local boards and engage youth in leadership development. A parent-led coalition focused on ending the school-to-prison pipeline in Gwinnett, Georgia, provides advocacy training and leadership development for parents while also promoting local, state, and national policy changes. 
• Anticipate Neighborhood Change and Plan for Stability: In Atlanta, Georgia, a nonprofit organized a philanthropy-funded anti-displacement program to pay for homeowners’ property tax increases in designated areas. During Ohio’s declared COVID-19 state of emergency, the village of Yellow Springs pioneered a novel eviction protection policy, requiring landlords to accept late rent payments so residents could remain in their homes. 
• Recalibrate Existing Operations to Better Yield Equity: The city of Springfield, Ohio, adopted compassionate code enforcement strategies to help low- and moderate-income homeowners fix code violations and avoid penalties and the Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, made concrete changes to their internal operations in order to improve measures of equity in the community they serve.

The report is available for download on the Lincoln Institute’s website.

The day Peter Landers and his partners closed on the historic Aqueduct Building in Rochester, New York, was supposed to mark a new beginning. The building, named for the 19th century structure that brought the Erie Canal over the Genesee River, was to be the centerpiece of a $500 million downtown development featuring offices, retail space, and apartments.

But it was March 2020, and that was the day New York State shut down to help stop the spread of COVID-19. As the months wore on and millions of Americans settled into working from home and largely avoiding stores and restaurants, the vision for that downtown development—a mixed-use project comprising seven buildings and a riverfront park called the Aqueduct District that was to serve as a center of jobs and commerce—began to get a little cloudy.

“It gave us pause,” said Landers, who purchased the building for $4.7 million with local developers Rob Sands and Jim Costanza. “We had to pivot and rethink what was the best approach for this development. The pandemic is accelerating remote work, so we shifted our model to a more innovative approach that we believe addresses the growing need for living and working within a campus environment.”

Rochester hopes to become one of America’s first “Zoom Towns,” the nickname for cities looking to lure the growing class of remote workers with amenities and incentives designed especially for them. The Aqueduct District is now one of five finalists in a national competition hosted by the co-living company Common to become a “remote work hub.” Common manages communal living spaces (also called “adult dorms”) in nine U.S. cities and wants to capitalize on the workforce’s newfound flexibility by promoting that concept in smaller cities. The other finalist projects are located in New Orleans; Bentonville, Arkansas; Ogden, Utah; and Rocky Mount, North Carolina. All five are receiving design and marketing support from the Common team.

For legacy cities like Rochester, remote work is a chance to recapture that old company town concept—but with a modern twist. Once thriving centers of industry that fueled the growth of the American middle class, these postindustrial cities have struggled with population loss and vacancies as the national economy has transitioned away from manufacturing. In the 1980s, more than half the area workforce in Rochester was employed by corporate heavyweights with local headquarters or manufacturing divisions, including Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, and General Motors. But those giants either downsized or moved headquarters in the earlier part of this century, and the city has been seeking new ways to boost its economy ever since.

The Aqueduct District is a microcosm of that effort. Its centerpiece, the aqueduct itself, has played its own colorful role in the city’s transformation. In the 20th century, the vacated canal bed was home to a subway line for a time, then was converted to a road and became today’s Broad Street Bridge. The 21st century vision for the aqueduct incorporates this history by closing off the bridge to cars and converting it to a terrace with green space that could include a partial segment of the canal, smaller water features, or designs reflecting the subway history. Post-COVID, Landers and his partners have revamped their nearby real estate plans to include micro-units: one-bedroom apartments and efficiencies with an office incorporated into the unit. Offices now also include cowork spaces. The development, which broke ground this year, will also have a riverfront walk, cycling paths, and community gathering spaces. The goal is to create a downtown hub that will attract entrepreneurs, artisans, and other workers and offer them a variety of choices for living and working together.

ROC2025, the region’s economic development alliance, is planning to support the effort to attract new workers to the city by offering cash and other amenities as relocation incentives. Barbara Egenhofer, director of talent strategy for the Greater Rochester Chamber, said the alliance is looking at a program similar to one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which offers a $10,000 relocation incentive, and is also looking at concepts like offering neighborhood tours and down payment assistance. The remote work program ultimately hopes to lure as many as 600 remote workers in three years, as part of the ROC2025 initiative’s larger goal of adding 30,000 net new jobs in Rochester.

The prospect of fostering growth without having to create all the jobs that traditionally would have supported it is enticing for Rochester and cities across the country. While targeting the remote workforce is not a “catchall” for economic growth, said Jessie Grogan, associate director for Reduced Poverty and Spatial Inequality at the Lincoln Institute, it does make sense to incorporate it into an existing economic development strategy.

“I think it’s an interesting thing to seize upon,” she said, noting that the effects of climate change and extreme weather plus the higher cost of living in coastal cities could also be factors that help drive population toward Rust Belt cities like Rochester in the coming decades. Still, she warns, economic development should also be built around supporting existing businesses and helping them grow.

And betting on an emerging trend is a gamble. It’s still not clear how much of the current remote workforce will operate that way permanently, though research by the University of Chicago last year concluded that 34 percent of U.S. jobs can be done remotely; those jobs tend to require college or advanced degrees. Companies like Facebook and Twitter have announced that employees can work from home permanently, and a recent FlexJobs survey found that most people working remotely want to keep doing so.

But if workers can be easily lured to one city, what’s to stop them from taking advantage of incentives to move elsewhere after a few years? “I’m not sure that we have a great answer for that,” said Dana Miller, deputy commissioner of Rochester Neighborhood & Business Development. But Miller believes getting people to Rochester in the first place will help move the needle. Projects like the Aqueduct District, he says, are part of “creating this infrastructure that, whether you’re looking to start a business or you work remotely, you look at us and say, ‘Hey, I could accomplish that there.’”

Rochester may have an advantage over other mid-sized cities competing for remote workers. It has several colleges and universities in the area, including the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology, that regularly churn out highly skilled college graduates. The problem has been keeping them in Rochester—but city advocates hope that will change, too, as the city reinvents itself as a new kind of company town.

“There’s a historical image of Rochester being comprised of three big organizations—Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb—but these companies haven’t been dominant for years,” said Egenhofer, noting that most Rochester businesses employ 100 people or fewer. “That’s not who we are anymore, and we haven’t been that for a long time. We’re changing the narrative.”

Liz Farmer is a fiscal policy expert and journalist whose areas of expertise include budgets, fiscal distress, and tax policy. She is currently a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute’s Future of Labor Research Center. 

Photograph: The Aqueduct District in Rochester, New York, is part of an effort to boost the local economy by attracting remote workers and other new residents. Credit: Courtesy of CBRE|Rochester (listing agent).

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