“The reality is now, when you got a county that is built out, like Cuyahoga, the only way it can grow its tax base is to redevelop its old core and renew the old places," Bier says. "If it doesn’t do that then we can look to the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of steady decline.”

Bier acknowledges that the loss of manufacturing jobs has contributed to the economic decline of Cleveland. But he argues that state government is also to blame because it expects old communities to solve problems for themselves when a regional and statewide approach is needed.

He says lawmakers should consider incentives such as income-tax breaks to keep people from moving out of cities.