Today the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission released an exciting new edition to our Data Book series, Our County: The 2023 Data Book.

Our County is the fourth in a series of Data Books providing insights into Cuyahoga County and its communities. This is the first in our series that looks at our county as a whole, comparing it with other urban counties across the Midwest.

The 10 peer counties selected for comparison (and their central cities) are:

• Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Erie County (Buffalo, NY)
• Franklin County (Columbus, OH)
• Hamilton County (Cincinnati, OH)
• Hennepin County (Minneapolis, MN)
• Jefferson County (Louisville, KY)
• Marion County (Indianapolis, IN)
• Milwaukee County (Milwaukee, WI)
• Monroe County (Rochester, NY)
• Wayne County (Detroit, MI)

The Data Book covers 50 indicators across six categories, with the indicators displayed as trend lines, bar charts, and ranked lists by county.

The six categories are:

• Demographics—Covers benchmarks of the population, including size, racial composition, and age distribution. It also covers counties’ households and their size.
• Economy—Presents indicators that measure the economic systems of the counties, including the location of job centers and the income, education and occupation of residents.
• Workforce—Shows labor force, employment by industry, educational attainment and other measures that characterize those living and working in each county.
• Housing—Covers indicators that describe living situations, including the type of housing, whether it is owned or rented, and its affordability.
• Transportation—Measures transportation infrastructure, how we get to work, the availability of vehicles, and access to public transit.
• Environment—Looks at the extent of development, air quality, and natural hazards risk.

The Data Book Series was conceived and developed for the following purposes:

• Assist the County in understanding its indicators: Provide county entities with data that helps them make funding and programming decisions.
• Provide recent data in an accessible format: Share data as quickly as possible in ways that are easy to understand and visualize for a variety of users.
• Update the data regularly: Select data that can be easily updated on an annual basis to provide timely data so communities can see how national, county, or local policies are affecting them.

“In this iteration of the Data Book, we have been intentional about the indicators we have included. We are providing meaningful data that our communities can understand and utilize to make decisions and plan for their future.” said Mary Cierebiej, AICP, Executive Director of the Planning Commission.

“We want the communities in Cuyahoga County to thrive! Having one centralized document with key indicators and comparisons against our peers is a useful tool for our community partners, so we are thrilled to add this County level Data Book to our series.”

Information in the Data Book comes from a variety of sources, including data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 Census and American Community Survey, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey, among others.