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Cleveland's skyline as seen from the rooftop of the United Bank Building at Lorain Avenue and West 25th Street.

(Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer, File)

The latest census report indicates that in a few years Franklin County (Columbus) will surpass Cuyahoga as the state’s most populous county. Franklin keeps growing; Cuyahoga keeps shrinking, as it has for 40 years.

In one sense, it’s a result of boundaries. If the Cuyahoga border were five miles farther out, places such as Avon, North Ridgeville, Brunswick, Twinsburg, Bainbridge — all growing with active homebuilding — would be in the county and its population would be increasing.

Cuyahoga has hit its outer limit; Franklin has not (yet). Cuyahoga no longer can add population through suburban development, as little raw land remains (a few small farms hang on in Olmsted Township). Franklin, slower to develop to begin with and 75 square miles larger, has room to grow.

From 1990 through 2010, Franklin averaged 7,100 new homes a year, compared with Cuyahoga’s 2,800. Cuyahoga’s adjacent counties averaged 7,700.

Cuyahoga has a unique distinction: It is Ohio’s first fully developed county. The implications of that are enormous.

Cuyahoga residents who want a new home find most of their choices in adjacent counties. Goodbye, Cuyahoga.

Scant suburban development adds little to the county’s tax base while obsolete properties and demolition in Cleveland subtract much. Hello, lower county bond ratings.

Being a built-out county is a curse, because our system of government was not designed to handle the impacts. Rather, our system promotes what we’ve done for many decades: construct new communities on farmland and move away from aging built-out ones. Move out and pull up the emotional drawbridge from the place departed. “I don’t live there anymore; it has nothing to do with me.”

The main implication of Cuyahoga’s farmless condition is that population must be regrown on previously developed sites. That means new construction on recycled land and adaptive reuse of existing properties — which requires occupants who can afford the price (middle-income or higher).

The only place in the county with the space to accommodate new growth on a scale that matters is Cleveland. Aged, built-out inner suburbs need renewal and redevelopment, as well, and must part of the county’s turn-around.

I am sure many thousands of financially stable people in Northeast Ohio would live in Cleveland if housing and surrounding conditions were attractive and secure. Early-stage evidence of that can be seen downtown and in neighborhoods such as University Circle and Ohio City. Cleveland sank as economic strength moved out; its recovery will occur as economic strength moves in.

The issue is scale. Redevelopment of the county’s old core must be on a large enough scale to compensate for growth that no longer can happen in the outer suburbs. That’s around 3,000 housing units a year, every year, for decades. Current production is barely 500.

The obstacle to improvement is Cuyahoga County’s system of fractured government, which makes the place where redevelopment is needed solely responsible for producing it. Cleveland alone, without support from its independent, autonomous suburbs, is supposed to secure the county’s future.

It can’t.

The city doesn’t have the tax base to finance public investments (from demolitions to street reconstructions) needed to enable the private sector to do more. Cleveland, on its own, cannot produce enough attractiveness and “demand” for 3,000 units of upscale housing per year. Suburbs (and, I would argue, the state) must chip in.

It’s time for the Cuyahoga County Mayors and City Managers Association and the County Council and executive to put the matter on their respective agendas.

Most suburbs, I expect, would resist. Why wouldn’t they?

But movement of Cuyahoga County residents to new and newer homes in adjacent counties is not going to stop; the census isn’t going to stop reporting the county’s and Cleveland’s population decline; the county’s tax base is not going to magically grow.

At stake is the future of the county (and thus the region): Pay something to accelerate redevelopment and renewal of the old core — and enjoy the benefits of an increasingly attractive, grand city — or keep sinking. That’s our choice.

Thomas Bier is a senior fellow at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.