Playhouse Square, Downtown Cleveland, March 11, 2020. Image: Mark Zannoni/Center for Cleveland
Location
Located on the southern shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland is a coastal city that enjoys the beauty and prestige of a waterfront city and with rich global cultural amenities, yet at significantly lower operating costs for businesses and residents compared to other innovative coastal cities like New York and San Francisco. The city is located in the US Eastern Time Zone (same as New York), and is well-situated from natural disasters that threaten other urban areas in the US such as hurricanes (on the east coast), tornadoes (in the Midwest and South), and earthquakes and fires (Southern California). In relation to the nation’s financial capital, Cleveland is approximately a one hour flight from New York City. Cleveland is located in the state of Ohio and is the state’s premier city and largest metropolitan economy and population.
Newsworthy
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Economy
Cleveland has a vibrant and diverse economy and is the headquarters of the Fourth District of the US Federal Reserve Bank.
Once a mighty industrial giant, as manufacturing moved south and overseas, Cleveland has since transformed to a service-based economy. Cleveland is the leading center of medicine in the world and is known globally for medical research, biotechnology, med tech, and healthcare. In addition to numerous research organizations and biotechnology companies in the city, patients travel to Cleveland from over 130 countries per year for treatments at the Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic is also exporting its expertise, having opened the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi in 2015, Cleveland Clinic Canada in 2017, and Cleveland Clinic London in 2022. Additionally, the Clinic has five hospitals in Florida.
Other key industries in Cleveland include advanced manufacturing, law, aerospace, banking, insurance, technology, education, and polymers and materials. As a center of capital and management, Cleveland is a well-established headquarters city for both US and foreign firms and ranks 14th among US cities for headquarters of Fortune 1000 companies. Industries in the city benefit from the many prestigious institutions in Cleveland, including Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, and University Hospitals of Cleveland, and a long history of industry, manufacturing, and innovation.
Metropolitan Cleveland is home to nine (9) Fortune 500 companies on the 2023 list—in ranked order: Progressive, Cleveland-Cliffs, Sherwin-Williams, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Parker-Hannifin, FirstEnergy, TravelCenters of America, Avery Dennison, and KeyCorp.
In terms of sectoral employment, education and health services is the city’s largest sector, followed by trade, transportation, and utilities; then professional and business services. Manufacturing is now ranks fifth, while government ranks fourth.
Very rare amongst American cities, Cleveland has a strategically located airport right downtown, Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL/KBKL), similarly positioned as London’s City Airport serving the central business district. BKL’s longer runway of 6604 feet makes it only 399 feet shorter than New York LaGuardia’s longer runway. The airport can handle 757s and similar aircraft in commercial service. (A photo of the airport can be seen here.)
In December 2023, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis released its County Estimates for local area gross domestic product (GDP). Cleveland’s core county, Cuyahoga, grew at 3.3% between 2021 and 2022, a rate higher than all of our standard benchmarking cities—Detroit (2.5%), New York (2.3%), Philadelphia (2.3%), Chicago (2.2%), and Pittsburgh (1.0%). Compared to other cities within the state of Ohio, Cleveland led market growth as well surpassing Cincinnati (1.5%) and Columbus, Ohio (0.6%). A 3.3% annual growth rate is significant, and if constant, would be the equivalent of 38% growth compounded over ten years, and a full doubling of the economy in 22 years.
Culture
In addition to a diverse economy, Cleveland is a rich cultural center, with world renown institutions, collections, talent, and history. Some of these institutions are:
The Cleveland Orchestra - considered by many critics as the finest orchestra in the United States and one of the best in the world.
The Cleveland Museum of Art - considered the second finest art museum in the US (after the Met in New York), and one of the most pre-eminent collections in the world.
Cleveland Museum of Natural History - contains the largest collection of human skeletons in the world for use in research in evolutionary study, pathology, prosthetic prototyping, orthopedics, and other studies. The museum is currently undergoing a $150M expansion. A Cleveland paleoanthropologist from the Museum, Donald Johanson, discovered the famous “Lucy” skeleton of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis in Ethiopia in 1974. When the partial skeleton was found, it was the oldest and most complete early human ancestor ever found. After research and assembling the bones, Lucy was repatriated from Cleveland to Ethiopia around 1983.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum - a museum that is dedicated to Rock and Roll and is a significant global attraction.
Playhouse Square - Cleveland’s theater district includes 11 performance spaces, in numerous theaters, making it the largest theater district in the US outside of New York City.
Karamu House - a famous black theater and the oldest continuously operating black theater in the country.
Other museums in Cleveland offer rich insight into their subjects including the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Money Museum, Cleveland Police’s Police Museum, the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum, the Cleveland History Center, and the Dittrick Museum of Medical History, amongst others.
Innovation
As a global leader in technological and medical innovation and progressive and cultural thought, Cleveland claims many “firsts”. To name a few:
First college in the US to admit women (Oberlin College, 1837)
First electric street lighting in the world (Public Square, 1879)
First electric traffic signal in the world (E. 105 St & Euclid Ave., 1914)
Oldest continuously-operating black theater in the US (Karamu House, since 1915)
First airport passenger terminal building in the US (Cleveland Municipal—now Hopkins International—Airport, 1929)
First airport control tower (1929) and first aviation ground-to-air radio system in the world (1930) (Cleveland Municipal—now Hopkins International—Airport)
First airport field lighting in the world (Cleveland Municipal—now Hopkins International—Airport, 1930)
First woman in the US to host her own news show (Dorothy Fuldheim, on WEWS, 1947; WEWS was the first television station in Cleveland and 16th in the US)
First rock concert in the world (Moondog Coronation Ball at the Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952)
First black mayor of a major US city (Carl B. Stokes, 1967)
First coronary artery bypass surgery (Cleveland Clinic, 1967)
First rail transit link in the US between an airport and a downtown (RTA’s Red Line, 1968)
First minimally invasive aortic heart valve surgery (Cleveland Clinic, 1996)
First face transplant in the United States (Cleveland Clinic, 2008)
First successful robotic single-port kidney transplant in the world (enabling all surgical instruments and the donor kidney to be placed through one small abdominal incision, Cleveland Clinic, 2019)
First Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) system in the US (Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, 2022)
Climate
Cleveland is situated in the northern part of the United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across which is Canada. Accordingly, the city enjoys the range of seasons offered—-with winters that are not too cold and summers that are not too hot or humid. Snowfall is typical, though not a certainty, during the winter (Dec.-March).
Cleveland is at 41.5 degrees North Latitude, approximately the same as Barcelona and Rome. So the hours of daily daylight are the same: the sun shines 15 hours per day in Summer (June/July) and 9.5 hours per day in winter (Dec./Jan.). But while Barcelona and Rome experience a Mediterranean climate, Cleveland enjoys cooler temperatures in winter.
Average high and low temperatures and average snow/rainfall by month are as follows:
Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
History
On July 22, 2023, Cleveland celebrated her 227th birthday—227 years of progress, development, difficulties, and rebirth.
The city was founded by Moses Cleaveland on a mission to map and survey the holdings of the Connecticut Land Company. At the confluence of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie, Cleveland was to be an ideal site for the capital city of the Connecticut Western Reserve. The city was named for its founder, though the first letter “a” in his name was dropped in 1832.
After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the city’s population and economy began to boom, and by 1920, Cleveland was the fifth largest city in America after New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit.
Beginning in the 1950s, development of the interstate highway system, crowded housing conditions, school busing policies, suburbanization, and the movement of manufacturing jobs to the south and overseas negatively impacted Cleveland neighborhoods resulting in a population decline for the first time in the city’s history. Like other major US cities, Cleveland faced major environmental, social, and fiscal issues in the 1960s and 70s. However, today, after a slow, but concerted effort to address the issues of the recent decades and a transformation of the city from a manufacturing to a service-based economy, the City is again thriving and experiencing significant investment and development, as well as steadily increasing tourism and convention activity (temporarily paused due to COVID-19). The Cleveland economy, between 2010 (the Great Recession ended in 2009) and 2018, has expanded 11%. For comparison, during this time, the New York economy grew 14% and the Chicago economy also grew 11%. Looking forward, once the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, the pre-pandemic momentum of new growth, interest, and investment in Cleveland will continue, bringing the city into a new era of Cleveland history.
Quick Facts
Metropolitan Cleveland is the largest population and economy in the state of Ohio. (Ohio is the 7th largest state in the US by population and economy.)
Population (Metropolitan): 2.9 million for the immediate 8-county area; 4.9 million for the full economic area.
Air Market Population: 4.93 Million
Media Market Population (DMA) (per Nielsen Media Research): Cleveland ranks as the 19th largest in the US with 1.6 million households (3.9 million population).
GDP: $207 Billion (2022) (25th Largest in US) (immediate 7-country area only). Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
GDP per capita: $67,400
Major Industries: Healthcare, aerospace, biotech, medtech, tech, advanced manufacturing, law, materials science
Cleveland Area Codes: Country Code: +1. Cleveland has five local area codes:
216 in the city’s core
440 and 436 - Eastern and Western suburbs
330 and 234 - Southern region
Time Zone: US Eastern. Currently Eastern Daylight Time (EDT): UTC-4.
Date founded: 1796
Notable Global Cultural & Educational Institutions: Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Museum of Art, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum, Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, Oberlin College
Geography: The Cleveland Metropolitan Economy is comprised of two US government-defined “metropolitan statistical areas” (MSA’s), the Cleveland MSA and the Akron MSA. This area is made up of Cuyahoga County (of which Cleveland is the center) and the seven outer counties: Lorain, Medina, Summit, Portage, Geauga, Lake, and Ashtabula.
The Terminal Tower, one of the Cleveland’s most graceful and famous buildings, stood above the Cleveland Union Terminal, a sprawling railroad station and complex. Local transit trains, both heavy rail and light rail, still stop there today at a station called “Tower City.” Image: Mark Zannoni / Center for Cleveland.