Dr. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Dr. Kelly Kinahan Publish “Reviving Cleveland’s Commercial Corridors: Analyzing the Storefront Renovation Program, 1983–2016”
Dr. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, Associate Professor at Levin, and Levin graduate Dr. Kelly L. Kinahan (PhD '16), have published "Reviving Cleveland's Commercial Corridors: Analyzing the Storefront Renovation Program, 1983–2016” in the Journal of Urban Affairs. In the paper, the authors investigate whether the urban geography of Cleveland's Storefront Renovation Program (SRP) aligns with theories of uneven development in shrinking cities. Using address-level data of projects and investments from 1983 to 2016, the authors analyze the spatial distribution using hot spot analysis, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, and a neighborhood typology. Overall, they find the SRP program moderately contributed to uneven development and increasingly so in recent decades, with clear clusters of investment in gentrifying neighborhoods and downtown Cleveland, while also supporting reinvestment in White, working-class areas early in its history.