Ohio’s landscape is a mosaic of disparate land uses. Ohio is one of the most urbanized states in the country, yet retains over half its land base in agricultural uses. As a result, Ohio’s “rural-urban interface” — areas in which both rural and urban land uses are found — is increasingly a setting where concerns and debates have merged concerning the management of population growth and urban development, farmland conversion and loss of rural character.

This report reviews recent changes in population, urban land use, and other land use changes in Ohio and discusses land use policies that are currently in place. This report contains four sections that deal with each of these topics respectively. Each section begins with a list of key findings, which is followed by a more in-depth discussion of the findings, and concludes with a description of the data used to support the analysis.

Download the report or individual sections. (Note: all files in Adobe Acrobat, *.pdf, format)

 FULL REPORT:  GROWTH AND CHANGE AT THE RURAL-URBAN INTERFACE (2.5 MB)

  TEXT ONLY VERSION OF REPORT Easier to download and view online (211 KB)

  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (140 kB)

  Section I:  POPULATION DYNAMICS (1.4 MB)

  Section II:  URBAN LAND USE CHANGE (239 KB)

  Section III:  RURAL LAND USE AND LAND COVER PATTERNS (1.1 MB)

  Section IV:  OHIO LAND USE POLICIES (172 KB)

This report summarizes recent research conducted by The Ohio State University’s Exurban Change Project contained in three previous publications: EX-1: Township Growth & Change: Population Characteristics of Ohio's Townships 1960 to 2000 (2001); EX-3: Land Cover in Ohio's Townships: An Analysis of Township Land Cover and Population Change (2002); and, EX-4: Urbanization Trends in Ohio: Tracking Ohio's Urban Growth and Land Use Change (2002).