So, I’ve spent time in the more southern part of that district, not so much the Cleveland part.
I didn’t realize how much map gore that mf has until an hour or so ago, but here’s my sense of the geography near Akron.
Akron itself is pretty poor, obviously. The greater Akron metro, which does not include Cleveland, is either 1st or 3rd cheapest metro area in the country, by cost of living. But that connection goes through two relatively rich areas, Fairlawn and Richfield. However, I kind of suspect that a lot of that space isn’t really residential; like it may well be connected by a string of parks, car dealerships, and shipping companies along main roads, that kind of thing. It’s hard to tell on mobile.
As a rule of thumb, as you enter the middle terrain between akron and Cleveland, you stop seeing exurban layouts (nice grids, relatively dense, plenty of food/retail near living clusters), and the landscape becomes dominated by post 90s suburban developments formed when someone sold the farm their parents owned and it got turned into 30 houses crammed into that space, with culdesacs etc, dotted by oases of Starbucks and fast food. A truly artificial landscape, lab-grown by local finance capitals.
So, given that the vast majority of the population of the district lives in actual (hollowed out) urban cores, these connecting strips are probably not deciding factors. But I do think it’s an interesting geographical dynamic
So, I’ve spent time in the more southern part of that district, not so much the Cleveland part.
I didn’t realize how much map gore that mf has until an hour or so ago, but here’s my sense of the geography near Akron.
Akron itself is pretty poor, obviously. The greater Akron metro, which does not include Cleveland, is either 1st or 3rd cheapest metro area in the country, by cost of living. But that connection goes through two relatively rich areas, Fairlawn and Richfield. However, I kind of suspect that a lot of that space isn’t really residential; like it may well be connected by a string of parks, car dealerships, and shipping companies along main roads, that kind of thing. It’s hard to tell on mobile.
As a rule of thumb, as you enter the middle terrain between akron and Cleveland, you stop seeing exurban layouts (nice grids, relatively dense, plenty of food/retail near living clusters), and the landscape becomes dominated by post 90s suburban developments formed when someone sold the farm their parents owned and it got turned into 30 houses crammed into that space, with culdesacs etc, dotted by oases of Starbucks and fast food. A truly artificial landscape, lab-grown by local finance capitals.
So, given that the vast majority of the population of the district lives in actual (hollowed out) urban cores, these connecting strips are probably not deciding factors. But I do think it’s an interesting geographical dynamic
oh hey, look, it's the only new development happening in my hometown. and that's not even a self-doxx, it's happening literally everywhere.