page_title: Cleveland
section_title: Late 20th and early 21st centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Cleveland / History / Late 20th and early 21st centuries
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: The Cuyahoga River winds through the flats.
context_page_description: Cleveland, officially the City of Cleveland, is a major city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. It is located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. maritime border with Canada and approximately 60 miles west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania state border.
  Cleveland is the largest city on the shores of Lake Erie, the second-largest city in Ohio, and the 53rd-largest city in the United States. The city proper has an estimated 2019 population of 381,009. Greater Cleveland is ranked as the 33rd-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with 2,057,009 people in 2018. A Gamma + city, Cleveland anchors the Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, the most populous combined statistical area in Ohio and the 15th largest in the U.S., with a population of 3,515,646 in 2010.
  Cleveland was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River by General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city was named. A port city, it grew into a major manufacturing center due to its location on both the river and the lake shore, as well as numerous canals and railroad lines.
context_section_description: After the war, Cleveland initially experienced an economic boom, and businesses declared the city to be the "best location in the nation." In 1949, the city was named an All-America City for the first time and, in 1950, its population reached 914,808.  In sports, the Indians won the 1948 World Series, the hockey team, the Barons, became champions of the American Hockey League, and the Browns dominated professional football in the 1950s. As a result, along with track and boxing champions produced, Cleveland was declared the "City of Champions" in sports at this time. The 1950s also saw the rising popularity of a new music genre that local WJW (AM) disc jockey Alan Freed dubbed "rock and roll."
  However, by the 1960s, Cleveland's economy began to slow down, and residents increasingly sought new housing in the suburbs, reflecting the national trends of suburban growth following federally subsidized highways.  Industrial restructuring, particularly in the railroad and steel industries, resulted in the loss of numerous jobs in Cleveland and the region, and the city suffered economically. The burning of the Cuyahoga River in June 1969 brought national attention to the issue of industrial pollution in Cleveland and served as a catalyst for the American environmental movement.
  Housing discrimination and redlining against African Americans led to racial unrest in Cleveland and numerous other Northern U.S. cities. In Cleveland, the Hough riots erupted from July 18 to 23, 1966 and the Glenville Shootout took place from July 23 to 25, 1968. In November 1967, Cleveland became the first major American city to elect an African American mayor, Carl B. Stokes, who served from 1968 to 1971 and played an instrumental role in restoring the Cuyahoga River.
  In December 1978, during the turbulent tenure of Dennis Kucinich as mayor, Cleveland became the first major American city since the Great Depression to enter into a financial default on federal loans. By the beginning of the 1980s, several factors, including changes in international free trade policies, inflation, and the Savings and Loans Crisis, contributed to the recession that severely affected cities like Cleveland. While unemployment during the period peaked in 1983, Cleveland's rate of 13.8% was higher than the national average due to the closure of several steel production centers.
  The city began a gradual economic recovery under Mayor George V. Voinovich in the 1980s. The downtown area saw the construction of the Key Tower and 200 Public Square skyscrapers, as well as the development of the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex—consisting of Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse—and the North Coast Harbor, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, FirstEnergy Stadium, and the Great Lakes Science Center. The city emerged from default in 1987.
  By the turn of the 21st century, Cleveland succeeded in developing a more diversified economy and gained a national reputation as a center for healthcare and the arts. Additionally, it has become a national leader in environmental protection, with its successful cleanup of the Cuyahoga River. The city's downtown has experienced dramatic economic and population growth since 2010. In 2018, the population of Cleveland began to flatten after decades of decline. However, challenges still remain for the city, with economic development of neighborhoods, improvement of city schools, and continued encouragement of new immigration to Cleveland being top municipal priorities. Despite such challenges, Cleveland has become increasingly recognized by national media as a city on the upswing. This trend has been accompanied by major victories in sports, most prominently the victory of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals, the first major professional sports championship won by a Cleveland team since 1964.
caption: The Cuyahoga River winds through the Flats in a December 1937 aerial view of Downtown Cleveland.
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