When the top story in the Enquirer and the news was that their metro overtook cleveland in pop, the media JUMPED on it. Could Cincinnati “Finally be bigger and better than Cleveland?”

Not Quite.

The realism is the information is false in a sense. Clevelands metro area “figures” released specific for “Cleveland Metro” include only
HALF of its total “True” Metro population.

Summit county (Akron) (The next county over) as well as Portage County (Next county over) are their own identity, even though the suburbs of cleveland and Akron run head-on, and smack right together. There is no feeling of leaving one urban metro to another. I-77 doesnt count because it goes through the Nat Park, where no urban sprawl can take place. They are the same TV Market as well. What you essentially have here is a Minneapolis/St Paul thing going on.

UNLIKE Cincinnati, There is essentially 900,000 (+) people who live 30 miles from Cleveland, but not added in the “Cleveland Metro” population figures.

The realism is if 15 counties surrounding Cleveland were added into ONE metro, rather than 2… such as it is in Cincinnati, Clevelands “True” metro population would be near 4.3 million…which would DOUBLE that of Cincinnati.

If anything, the population figures should look like this……Rather than breaking them all up

1.) Cleveland/Akron/Canton……3.5 Million
(Canton is an hour away from Cleveland, but directly linked to Akron, which is directly linked to Cleveland)

2.) Cincinnati/Dayton (Cin-day)….3.2 million
This is still an extreme far fetch, but Cincinnati and Dayton ALMOST have the Cleveland/Akron thing going on as well. Nevertheless, Cleve/Akr would still be more populated than Cin/Day

I LOVE Cincinnati, and honestly would never move back to Cleveland. The city of Cleveland should be a third world country. Personally, I feel Cincinnati is better than Cleveland, but definately NOT BIGGER. That comment in the enquirer about IKEA moving to Cincinnati because there are more people there is absolutely ridiculous. The real reason is because there is an IKEA an hour and a half away from Cleveland in PA.

Who knows, maybe one day they will give Cleveland/Akron one population figure as it should be, but until then Cincinnati can live it up boasting they are “Finally bigger and better” than Cleveland.

Cleveland is also part of the larger Cleveland-Akron-Elyria Combined Statistical Area, which is the 14th largest in the country with a population of 2,945,831 according to the 2000 Census.

Columbus annexed until it became 215sq mi in order to look bigger in population.
Cleveland is 78 sq mi; Cincinnati is also 78 sq mi.

The decision to open an Ikea in Cincinnati was based on the redundancy that exists in the largest city Cleveland and the third largest Columbus.

If business decisions are based on misleading data then they are bad business decisions.

They could’ve done that after 2000, but Taft was too much of a coward. The plan basically would have put Kucinich and Brown in the same district. Taft was afraid that Brown would run for governor in ‘02 if that happened, so the plan didn’t come to fruition.

As poor a gov. as Taft was, he most likely would’ve beaten Brown in ‘02 (he had already beaten him once before). Kucinich could’ve been gone, Brown would’ve been gone, and if that had happened, it’s unlikely that Brown would be in the Senate today.