Warren

Cheryl Stevens, CRS
Snelson & Stevens Inc. Realtors
Phone: 330-856-6666
E-mail: cherylbstevens@aol.com
Serving the Mahoning Valley's real estate needs for over 22 years. Buyer agency representation. Youngstown, Howland, Cortland, Boardman, Canfield.

The sale of crops provides 60 percent of Ohio’s farm income, and the sale of livestock and their products provides the remainder. The major cash crops are soybeans, corn, and soft red winter wheat, the kind used in pastry flour. The principal livestock and livestock products are poultry and eggs, milk and cream, hogs, and cattle. Ohio is also a leading producer of greenhouse and nursery plants.

Although considerable portions of southern and eastern Ohio are wooded, forestry plays a relatively minor role in the state’s economy. More than 95 percent of the state’s annual timber harvest is made up of hardwoods.

Ohio has a long shoreline on Lake Erie, but the lake’s water quality deteriorated so badly as a result of industrial and urban wastes that the fish population declined substantially by the mid-20th century. Efforts by the United States and Canada to clean the lake have begun to show results, and by the early 1990s recreational fishing had resumed.

Ohio is one of the leading states in the nation in the production of clay, limestone, sand and gravel, salt, and coal. By value of production the leading minerals are coal, crushed stone, natural gas, sand and gravel, petroleum, lime, salt, and clays. Belmont, Meigs, and Monroe counties are the principal producers of coal, most of which is obtained by modern surface-mining methods. Limestone, found mainly in the western half of Ohio, is open-pit-mined for use in lime, cement, plaster, mortar, flux, and ammonia. Sand and gravel, common in glaciated parts of Ohio, is mined primarily for use in the construction industry. Salt, found in rock form in the eastern and northeastern counties, is mined by the pumping method. Most of the oil fields are in eastern Ohio. Natural gas is found primarily in the eastern counties.

Ohio ranks third in the nation in income generated by industrial activity, behind California and Texas. Ohio is among the nation’s leaders in the production of rubber and plastics and as a producer of stone, clay, and glass products. Ohio’s most important industry in terms of the value of its contribution to the state’s income is the manufacture of transportation equipment, including motor vehicles and automobile parts, aircraft engines and parts, and motorcycles. The construction of machinery ranks high in importance, with Ohio industry building refrigeration and heating equipment, tools and dies, welding equipment, machine tools, and pumps. The shaping of metal into components is another large industry in Ohio, with workers stamping metal parts for the automotive industry, creating sheet metal, and crafting hand tools, among other enterprises. The production of chemicals and allied products, such as cleansers, pharmaceuticals, and paints, contributes significantly to the state’s economy. Food processing is also important, with Ohio industry creating products from the state’s agricultural sector. The primary metal industry is important in the value of its output, with the bulk of labor devoted to steel and aluminum milling. A growing industry in Ohio is the electronics and electrical equipment sector, with household appliances as one of the leading commodities produced.

Manufacturing is centered in two major areas and in several important cities outside them. The northeast accounts for much of Ohio’s manufacturing employment and industrial income. The Cleveland metropolitan area is the state’s leading manufacturing area. Manufacturing is found within the city proper, especially along Lake Erie near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and in such suburban areas as Parma, East Cleveland, Euclid, Lakewood, and Painesville. Its major industries are the manufacture of transportation equipment, machinery, and primary metals, especially iron and steel. Akron, once the rubber center of the world, is now becoming more important for research and corporate functions. Canton is primarily an iron and steel center. Youngstown is a center for transportation equipment industries. Industry in the Youngstown metropolitan area is found in Youngstown proper, particularly along the Mahoning River, as well as in the cities of Warren, Niles, Girard, and Struthers.

The second major industrial area is in the Miami Valley, in southwestern Ohio, where Dayton, Hamilton, Middletown, Springfield, and Cincinnati have one-fourth of the state’s industrial employees and produce one-fourth of the industrial income. Cincinnati’s major industries are the manufacture of transportation equipment, especially automobiles and jet engines; chemicals, mainly soaps and cosmetics; beverages, meat products, and other foodstuffs; and machinery and machine tools. Refrigerators, rubber and plastic products, and aircraft and other transportation equipment are produced in Dayton. Hamilton and Middletown are centers for the manufacture of iron and steel, paper products, and machine tools.

Two other large Ohio cities are also major industrial centers. Columbus is noted for foodstuffs, automotive parts, and electrical equipment. Toledo is known for the manufacture of transportation equipment and glass products.

Coal-burning plants that are privately owned generate 88 percent of the electricity that is produced in Ohio. Ohio has 3 nuclear power plants in operation, one at Oak Harbor and the other at Perry.

Domestic and foreign trade are important to Ohio. Agricultural and manufactured products are shipped to all parts of the state and nation. Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati are the major trade centers for the state. Many other communities are distributing centers for their own areas.

Ohio’s major exports are nonelectrical machinery, transportation equipment, fabricated metals, iron and steel, and rubber products. Cleveland, Lorain, and Ashtabula are the major ports for these items, although many of them are shipped by rail to Eastern seaboard ports. Toledo is the chief port from which coal and grain are shipped to Canada and to other ports in the United States.

The largest city in Ohio is Columbus, with a population in 2000 of 711,470. In the 1990s it experienced growth while other large Ohio cities declined in population. However, the Columbus metropolitan region, with a population of 1.5 million in 2000, is smaller than the metropolitan regions of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus, located in the central part of Ohio, is the state capital. In addition to serving as an administrative center, it is the industrial and commercial heart of the surrounding region.

Cleveland is the second largest city in Ohio, with a population of 478,403. Cleveland’s population has been declining since the 1960s. The Cleveland metropolitan area consists of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medina counties, with a population of 2.9 million. Cleveland ranks as a principal industrial and commercial center in the Middle West and is one of the most important ports on the Great Lakes.

The third largest city is Cincinnati, with a population of 331,285. It is the leading commercial center in southern Ohio and serves as an important river port and industrial city. The Cincinnati metropolitan area, which extends into Kentucky and Indiana, had a population of 2 million.

Toledo, with a population of 313,619, is the chief port of Ohio and an important industrial and commercial center. Other large cities in the state include Akron, Dayton, Parma, and Youngstown.

The first institution of higher learning established in the Ohio region was Ohio University, chartered at Athens in 1804. The state’s largest university is The Ohio State University at Columbus, a land-grant institution founded in 1870 as Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College. Oberlin College, which dates from 1833, was the first college in the United States to provide college education for women and the first to offer coeducational instruction.

In 1998-1999 Ohio had 63 public and 110 private institutions of higher education. Among the most notable of these institutions were the University of Akron; Antioch University, in Yellow Springs; Bowling Green State University; Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland; the University of Cincinnati; the University of Dayton; Denison University, in Granville; Hiram College; John Carroll University, in University Heights in suburban Cleveland; Kent State University; Kenyon College, in Gambier; Miami University, in Oxford; Ohio University, in Athens; the University of Toledo; Wilberforce University; the College of Wooster; and Youngstown State University.

Ohio is the home of the renowned Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra. There are also symphony orchestras in several other Ohio cities, among them Columbus, Toledo, Youngstown, and Dayton. Each summer the Cincinnati Opera performs, and Cleveland also has an opera company. The state has a number of excellent choral organizations and several fine schools of music, including the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

The Cleveland Play House, founded in 1915 in the early years of the “little theater” movement, is known today for one of the finest resident civic theatrical companies in the United States. Many other communities and most of the colleges and universities in Ohio also support theater groups. In addition, there are numerous summer theaters in the state. The Ohio Ballet performs in both Akron and Cleveland, and Cincinnati also has a ballet company.

Real Estate: Ohio Relocation

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Official Website for the State of Ohio