Cleveland and its surrounding areas contain one of the country's best-kept secrets on many fronts. Housing is affordable, the area is rich with great recreation and entertainment venues, education and training institutions are top-notch, and the economy is replete with great career opportunities. This work in progress section is designed to give you some information about Cleveland. We will be adding more information on a regular basis.

The Population

The population in the City of Cleveland is nearly 500,000 making it the 33rd largest city in the country. It is the 7th fastest-growing downtown area in the country and the fastest-growing one among Midwestern cities with more than 5,000 people living in downtown Cleveland. Over 1.3 million people reside in Cuyahoga County. Counties surrounding Cuyahoga include: Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina.

Economy and Careers

The Greater Cleveland area is the largest economic area in Ohio and home to the 15th largest consumer market in the U.S. Fortune magazine ranked Greater Cleveland as the sixth best location in North America to conduct business thanks to the backbone of five major industries forming the foundation of economic strength in the region. These industries are health and medicine, science and engineering, biotechnology and biomedical, manufacturing and education. Greater Cleveland is headquarters to 113 companies with revenues of $100 million or more, including twelve companies on Fortune’s 2001 list of the top 500 U.S. corporations. Cleveland is ranked eleventh in the number of Fortune 500 headquarters. The Fortune 2001 list also reveals that more than 37% of the top 500 companies are present in Greater Cleveland through corporate headquarters or major divisions, subsidiaries and sales offices, not to mention the more than 150 international companies who have a presence in the area.

Living in Cleveland

The great thing about working in Cleveland is there are three metropolitan areas ranking in the nation’s Top-20 markets to choose from: Greater Cleveland, Metropolitan Akron and Canton/Stark County. You will find that the cost of living in northeastern Ohio compares favorably with other metropolitan areas and is much lower than New York, Boston, Washington DC, San Diego, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Chicago. In fact, residents in the Cleveland area have enjoyed a lower average monthly mortgage payment than residents in 18 other leading major metropolitan areas of the nation.

Cleveland offers a variety of diverse locations from sophisticated urban settings in Shaker Heights, Brecksville, and Westlake, to rural landscape in Mentor, Avon Lake and Brunswick. Do you like snow? Then you’ll love eastside living where the "Lake Effect" off of Lake Erie can bring a foot and half more snow during winter storms. Westside living offers compact neighborhoods and turn-of-the-century charm. Inland areas offer everything from new housing to homes of every style ranging from horse farms to high rises. You’ll love finding neighborhoods offering trendy retail centers and quaint antique stores or sandy beaches and thick forests in your backyard. Or, perhaps you like downtown living in an artsy loft in the renovated downtown district. Whatever your desire, you’ll find it in the neighborhoods and border counties of Cleveland.

If you’re wondering about education, Cleveland is home to 23 colleges and universities that offer outstanding graduate and undergraduate programs complemented by a strong network of community colleges providing a vast array of job training programs. There is Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, and John Carroll University, to name just a few.

Arts and Entertainment in Cleveland

If you are an arts and culture aficionado, don’t miss University Circle, home to various museums and cultural institutions, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Garden and the African American Museum. You can experience first-class performing arts with Broadway productions and opera at Playhouse Square Center or a show at the Cleveland Play House or Carousel Dinner Theatre in nearby Akron.

Does music strike a chord with you? Then work your way through the more than 300 nightclubs, bars, lounges and concert venues offering live jazz, blues and good ol’ rock and roll. Visit “the house that Rock built” and experience the music and stories of inducted rock and roll legends at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. But, best of all for classical fans, Cleveland is home to the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Most as music director. During the symphony season, the orchestra plays at downtown Severance Hall and during the summer months at Blossom Music Center. In addition to the symphony concerts, Blossom also hosts rock and music concerts throughout the summer.

For those who have their sea legs, don’t miss the U.S.S. Cod, the last remaining WWII submarine left completely in its original condition and the Steamship William G. Mather Museum. Then follow up your tours with a relaxing dinner cruise leaving The Flats aboard either the Nautica Queen or Goodtime III.

And for kids of all ages, the Great Lakes Science Center gets fun down to a science with interactive exhibits and a six-story OMNIMAX Theater, or visit the NASA Glenn Research Center. If your kids are feeling adventurous, take a walk on the wild side at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and RainForest, or satisfy their thrills with some of the world’s tallest and fastest roller coasters at Six Flags Worlds of Adventure and Cedar Point.

Sports and Outdoor Activitiesin Cleveland

Cleveland is in the big leagues when it comes to its sports teams. The NFL Cleveland Browns football, Cleveland Indians baseball, NBA Cleveland Cavaliers and WNBA Cleveland Rockers basketball are all housed in new, state-of-the-art arenas and stadiums. The Q Arena, Jacobs Field and Cleveland Browns Stadium are all exciting places to root for Cleveland’s favorite teams! And don’t forget to enjoy AHL Cleveland Barons hockey and CSU Vikings college basketball.

Got to catch fish? Cleveland’s prime location on the southern shore of Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes, means it is home to some of the best sport fishing in the world including walleye, perch and bass fishing. Traveling inland, fly fisherman can cast for steelhead trout, salmon and bass in the Chagrin, Rocky and Cuyahoga Rivers.

However, if you’re not hooked on fish, outdoor enthusiasts can try swimming, boating, parasailing, scuba diving, jet skiing and canoeing at Edgewater State Park or Headlands Beach State Park. You will also enjoy the fourteen Cleveland Metroparks Reservations, or a ride on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Together these parks offer 52,000 acres of rest and relaxation. You can’t beat the 22-mile towpath for biking, running and walking stretches along the Cuyahoga River and the historic Ohio & Erie Canal, south to Akron.

Acknowledgments

Thank you Greater Cleveland Partnership, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the City of Cleveland for providing statistical data information and links, as well as many other local resources about the city of Cleveland.