Basketball might be Cleveland’s most-watched “export,” but healthcare and biotechnology are the primary economic engines of the city, with the famed Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals the two largest employers and MetroHealth Systems the eighth largest.
And, if you have a great idea for a healthcare startup, Cleveland has support in the form of multiple business incubators and plenty of health-tech companies—that is, plenty of potential buyers.
Still, you won’t find Cleveland overly crowded. In fact, the metro area’s population has declined slightly, going from 2,059,929 to 2,055,612 residents between July 2015 and July 2016, a 0.21 percent dip, according to the latest census data. During that time, the population of Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, also contracted. It went from 1,255,025 to 1,249,352, a 0.45 percent decrease. (The metro area is larger than the county, and its population is bigger.)
However, over the longer term, Cuyahoga County attracted 41,581 domestic movers from 2011 to 2015, according to another census study that covers those years.
Where, you’re probably asking, are all those people moving from?
That same census study gives us a pretty good idea. Slightly more than half (52 percent) came from within Ohio, and the balance (48 percent) came from elsewhere within the U.S., mostly from nearby cities such as Chicago and Pittsburgh.
Below are rankings for the top five counties of origin for movers to Cuyahoga County:
Movers outside of Ohio:
- Cook County, IL (Chicago)
- Allegheny County, PA (Pittsburgh)
- Orange County, FL (Orlando)
- Bexar County, TX (San Antonio)
- Erie County, NY (Buffalo)
Movers from Ohio:
- Lorain County
- Summit County
- Lake County
- Medina County
- Franklin County
Above are the top places inside Ohio that people moved to Cuyahoga County from over the five-year period 2011-2015. Numbers represent the number of movers from that place during the period.
Sources:
City of Cleveland Economic Development: http://rethinkcleveland.org/Data-Reports/IEDC-Data-Set/Leading-Employers.aspx
Cleveland Health-Tech Corridor,
U.S. Census Bureau
