• Database: City and Village Populations, 2007
• Graphic: Biggest gains and losses, 2000 to 2007
• Graphic: Percent change in population, 2000 to 2007
As civic leaders try to spark a Cleveland renaissance by attracting businesses and residents downtown, they face a challenge convincing the hometown folks of the city's prospects.
More people left Cleveland last year than any other major city in America, the U.S. Census Bureau will report today. Since 2000, only hurricane-ravaged New Orleans weathered a sharper rate of population loss.
Cleveland's descent slowed last year and the numerical loss -- about 5,000 people between July 2006 and July 2007 -- compares favorably to the 1970s, when the city at times hemorrhaged 15,000 people a year. But the rate of decline remains alarming for America's 40th-largest city, which has dipped to an estimated 438,042 people, and the neighbors are not faring so well, either.
In March, the Census Bureau reported that Cuyahoga County suffered the greatest population loss of America's large counties between 2000 and 2007, while the population in the seven-county region also fell.
Today's report, which offers population estimates for all municipalities, indicates much of that loss is occurring in Northeast Ohio's cities and older suburbs.
Since 2000, Cleveland has bled 8 percent of its population, or about 40,000 people. In that same time, 22 suburbs lost an even greater share of their residents, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of census data. The shrinking bedroom communities include Bay Village, Lakewood, Euclid, Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights, Mayfield, Chagrin Falls and Garfield Heights.
Meanwhile, population loss accelerated in Akron last year. No suburban community is rising fast enough to make up the difference. And so the whole region tilts downhill.
"It's an obvious fact. It's been an ongoing trend," said Mark Salling, director of the Northern Ohio Data and Information Service at Cleveland State University. "There's no longer surprise. I think even our angst has been diminished."
Salling is unsure of the population impact of the foreclosure crisis, which has hollowed out many urban neighborhoods.
"Where do people who lose a home through foreclosure go?" he asked. "Do they move to the suburbs?"
Maybe not, he speculated. But boarded-up houses probably spur better-off neighbors to move.
While the census report offers sobering statistics for Ohio's largest metropolitan area, it also contains some hopeful news.
Cleveland's rate of decline slowed in 2007, a year when several major cities -- including Baltimore and St. Louis -- saw rates of decline accelerate. And the numerical loss was the lowest in five years.
On the national scene, New Orleans staged the most dramatic comeback. The Big Easy was America's fastest-growing large city last year, swelling by nearly 14 percent after experiencing the nation's greatest rate of loss the previous six years.
Some see Cleveland poised for a new day.
Pointing to massive investment in University Circle hospitals and in downtown housing, Ken Silliman, chief of staff for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, said the city will soon look more attractive to new and current residents alike.
"We are very optimistic about where we are heading," Silliman said.
Edward "Ned" Hill, acting dean of CSU's Levin College of Urban Affairs, said a revived downtown could lift the entire region.
"Take a breath. We didn't get here overnight," Hill said. "It's going to take a good 15 years to get out of it. But we need to do this through growth, through creating opportunity."