Lakewood, Ohio, a Lake Erie suburb of Cleveland, counted 50,942 residents in the 2020 census and has long called itself the City of Homes. It came as a jolt when its own leaders described a stretch of those homes as a problem to be removed. In 2003, a plan to clear one neighborhood for private retail and housing development landed on the ballot, and the result came down to a few dozen votes. The story is worth retelling because it shows how an ordinary neighborhood can end up labeled blighted, and how neighbors with a lawyer, a petition and persistence can undo that label. Here is how it unfolded, along with the national context that shaped it.
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