Economic Development Nonprofit Offering Prizes for Transportation Solutions

By Jay Miller, Crain’s Cleveland Business

The Fund for Our Economic Future is putting $1 million behind an effort to help solve what it calls the Transportation Paradox: “No car, no job; no job, no car.”

The economic development nonprofit has created what it’s calling the Paradox Prize to reward ideas that help Northeast Ohioans stranded economically by geography connect to open job positions. Using a web portal — https://paradoxprize.com — which opened June 3, the organization is soliciting ideas to help more people access or keep high-quality jobs.

Unfavorable land-use patterns and the outmigration of jobs, the organization said, have contributed to a spatial mismatch that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for some people to find or keep a job.

Most jobs now require employees to have a car. Without a car, they face a commute by public transit that can be as long as three hours a day or significantly limited, often lower-paying, employment options.

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