A recent Brookings Institution report, "Restoring Prosperity: The State's Role in Revitalizing America's Older Industrial Cities", got a lot of play across Ohio and the country last week," said Partridge, the Swank Professor of Rural-Urban Policy in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Developmental Economics. "What's most important for Ohio to consider is its recommendation that we need to work across regions to solve problems. Cities, suburbs and townships, particularly in Ohio , need to work together as an integrated unit rather than compete with each other."

Ohio has experienced weak population growth for decades, but the state has not addressed a key underlying issue -- substantial population redistribution within the state, Partridge said.

"The pulls and tugs that our townships are experiencing are the mirror image of the decline of our cities' central core," Partridge said. "These two trends have the same underlying cause, and it will take regional cooperation to address it. Too often, outlying areas and central cities treat each other as if they're from different planets, but the problems they're experiencing are very interconnected."

More information about Ohio ’s growth and change is found at http://exurban.osu.edu