The worst decade in Cleveland history began badly. The ending was worse.
These numbers tell only part of the story: In 1970, Cleveland was home to 750,903 residents. Ten years later, 573,822 lived there, an almost unimaginable loss of 177,081 residents, or nearly 23.6%. But Cleveland’s population loss in the 1970s tells only part of the story.
Unfortunately, there’s no need for me to research those losses. As Cleveland City Hall reporter and then politics writer at the Cleveland Press for nine years of that decade, I lived them…