Publications
Research that makes an impact
The Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) has released a white paper Unlocking Opportunity: Ohio’s Brownfield Remediation Fund Awards & The Benefit of Brownfields, which analyzes the full grant awards for the Brownfield Remediation Fund and makes the case for additional funding for environmental clean-up.
Building on Momentum: An Argument for State Investment in Public Transit in Ohio, provides an assessment of both the current status of the state's public transportation infrastructure and capacity. The report focuses on why, given shortages of reliable workers, and a growing number of rural elderly and disabled residents who need transportation options, it is critical for Ohio to continue to maintain and grow the historic investments which have been made in public transportation since 2019.
The Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) has released a multi-year strategic housing plan for Springfield. Quality Housing for All: A Four-Year Strategic Plan for Springfield provides community leaders with a roadmap to address current and future housing needs in Springfield. Community leaders have elevated housing as a communitywide priority.
Leaders in the City of Portsmouth identified housing as an important component of city’s revitalization journey, launching a comprehensive housing analysis as a first step to understand housing conditions across the city. Various community partners engaged the Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC) to analyze market rate and affordable housing conditions within the municipality.
Former industrial and manufacturing hubs like Dayton—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.
For over six decades, working Ohioans have paid income taxes to the jurisdiction where they work. Recognizing the unprecedented situation created by the pandemic, the Governor and Legislature established the emergency measure to minimize burdensome paperwork on businesses and moderate the financial impacts of the pandemic on cities.
In two reports, GOPC shows how attempts to repeal the emergency response is short-sighted and will seriously threaten Ohio’s large and small communities, jeopardizing Ohio’s economic competitiveness.
Since 2004, the City of Cleveland has used tax abatements to encourage developers, builders, and homeowners to build and substantially rehabilitate housing in the City. The Cleveland Tax Abatement Study was undertaken to better understand the historic usage of the tax abatement program, the value the program generated for the City, and to recommend potential adjustments to the program.
As a first step to improving housing options, The Champaign Economic Partnership commissioned the GOPC to analyze the market rate and affordable housing markets in Champaign County and its four largest communities: the City of Urbana and the Villages of Mechanicsburg, North Lewisburg, and St. Paris.
Given recent and anticipated market activity in Milo, in 2017, The Columbus Foundation commissioned GOPC to analyze market and demographic conditions in the neighborhood. The report, Positioning Milo-Grogan for Success, was intended to help Milo residents and stakeholders manage future development activity so that it is inclusive and equitable.
Ohio has the potential to bring millions of dollars in additional investment, enhance job growth, and foster economic development through the continued investment in brownfield redevelopment. Found in every county, these 9,000+ former industrial and commercial sites are unusable in their current condition. These blighted properties discourage investment and create barriers to economic advancement.
Public transportation is a lifeline; connecting workers to jobs and vulnerable populations to the services they need. Just a few short years ago, the Ohio Department of Transportation noted in their Transit Needs Study that the need and demand for transit is changing in response to both underlying demographic change in Ohio’s population and to cultural preferences.
Building Assets: Ohio’s CDFI Industry is an independent analysis of Ohio’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) are business-minded entities that lend money to people and in places where it is not readily available from conventional banks. CDFIs are essential partners in stabilizing and redeveloping Ohio’s weak-market neighborhoods and cities.
In the past five years, the Columbus Land Redevelopment Office and Central Ohio Community improvement Corporation (COCIC) have generated $180 million in economic impact in Columbus and Franklin County communities. The land banks work together to help create stronger, safer neighborhoods by obtaining and managing blighted properties and creating redevelopment opportunities.
