Cleveland-Akron area remains major market

Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND

Much concern has been raised — with good reason — over Cleveland’s dramatic drop in population and the lack of growth regionally.

But Census 2010 numbers released this year also reveal another fact: Despite the losses, the Cleveland-Akron urban area remains a major market that can serve as a significant regional center.

With nearly 2.9 million people, the eight-county Cleveland-Akron area ranks 18th nationally — right between Denver and St. Louis. It’s the most populous census-defined region in Ohio and is among the largest within hundreds of miles.

With the exception of Detroit, one has to go west to Chicago, east to Baltimore-Washington or south to Atlanta to find a larger area, census figures show.

Many of these details were not available in early March when the new population numbers were released for Ohio, because the bureau produced the results a few states at a time.

A look within the complete national numbers finds:

Despite rapid growth in the South and Southwest, the nation still is heavily concentrated in the old big three urban centers. One out of every six Americans — or 50 million people — lives in the New York, Los Angeles or Chicago areas.

Forty-two percent of the nation lives in one of the 18 urban centers that are at least as large as Cleveland-Akron, a consolidated statistical area the federal government defines as Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit counties.

Regionally, Detroit is the largest at 5.2 million people. Other consolidated areas nearby include Pittsburgh (2.4 million), Cincinnati (2.2 million), Indianapolis (2.08 million), Columbus (2.07 million), Buffalo (1.2 million) and Dayton (1.1 million). The Youngstown-Warren-Boardman metro area has 672,892 people.

Raleigh, N.C., a city that with the 2010 census became larger than Cleveland, remains smaller than Greater Cleveland as a metro area, at 1.7 million people.