Best Hometowns 2025: Green

Evenly divided into nine squares, the quilt hangs near the top of a wall inside Sue Spargo’s shop. In one square, a hedgehog rests underneath a mushroom. In another, bumblebees hover above a rabbit. Yet another depicts an owl perched on a tree branch. Floral embellishments connect the bright-eyed and vibrantly colored animals that stand out individually but make a stronger impression when stitched together. 

The owner of Sue Spargo Folk-Art Quilts humbly admires the work she’s created while showing us around her shop on a warm summer day. The native of Zambia and self-taught embroiderer started her business out of her basement in 2002, specializing in highly embellished wool patterns and quilting kits. Next to her critter-themed quilt hang similar works: 36 multicolored birds pack one, while nine tree varieties adorn another. 

“I became a single mom of four children. There were three of them still in school, and I had to provide,” Spargo says of her move to Green in 2000. She had always sewed, so the idea of a quilt shop appealed to her. “I said to my dad, ‘I think I could do something like this.’” 

A quilt sample at Sue Spargo Folk-Art Quilts (photo by Rachael Jirousek)

Although Spargo’s business would be perfectly at home in a quaint cabin or century home, her shop shares a commercial plaza with a hardware store and sits west of a Giant Eagle Market District. This is part of what makes Green unique: unexpected finds tucked within a patchwork of communities that had their own histories before being united as a city in the 1990s. 

“We’re stronger together, and we mean much more when we work together and create this larger pattern,” says Mayor Rocco Yeargin, who took office in 2024. “That’s what community does. It’s interlocking fibers that basically take care of each other to create this whole.”

Although Pennsylvania Dutch brothers Andrew and John Kepler founded Green Township in 1809, the city was not incorporated until 1992. Prior to that, Green was composed of five individual hamlets with long histories that each carried their own distinct identities. 

The Lichtenwalter Historic Schoolhouse at Boettler Park was renovated and now houses the Green Historical Society. (photo by Rachael Jirousek)

At the time of its founding in 1809, Green Township sat in what was then considered Stark County. When Summit County was formed in 1840, the township became part of it, much to the dismay of some residents. There were concerns whether the German farmers who held land patents in Stark County’s Congress Lands — rural property owned and sold by the United States government — would mesh with the more refined East Coast settlers of Summit County’s Western Reserve. 

The hamlet of Greensburg was founded in 1828 and was largely known as a stagecoach town thanks to tavern owner Abraham Wilhelm. The other hamlets that became what is now Green were formed throughout the 19th century: East Liberty in 1839, Aultman and Comet in 1870 and Myersville in 1876. Over the years, though, what once operated as unique neighborhoods lost their identities, with much of the area simply being recognized as Green Township. 

Eventually, township leaders wanted Green to become a city, which would allow them to form their own charter and establish their own rules. To be considered, the state of Ohio required the township to first create a 3-square-mile village in its center. It did so around the hamlet of Greensburg and formally established the area as Green Village in 1991. After door-to-door campaigning organized by a dedicated group of citizens, locals voted in favor of the village becoming a city in 1992.

Volunteers at MAPS Air Museum, an attraction that actively restores and houses historic aircraft and houses a museum paying tribute to those who served. (photo by Rachael Jirousek)

Today, Green covers 33.5 square miles and has 27,475 residents, with most of the city’s housing located near Interstate 77’s Massillon and Arlington Road exits. The Akron-Canton Airport; Surgere, a software company with 53 employees; Direction Home, an aging and disability nonprofit with 261 employees; and RTX Collins/Aerospace, an aviation and defense technology company with 1,100 employees across its Green and Troy, Ohio, locations, are among the city’s key employers. As is Green Local Schools, which serves 4,200 students across a primary, elementary, middle and high school. 

Although some may be prone to write the city of Green off as merely a bedroom community for those who work in Canton or Akron, visitors who spend a day exploring uncover spots rich with character. 

The MAPS Air Museum pays tribute to those who served our country with its historic aircraft and exhibits honoring  military men and women throughout U.S. history. 

A former one-room schoolhouse on South Arlington Road now houses The Industry Kitchen + Bar, a chef-driven gastropub. Co-owner-operator Ben Myers and his team transformed the building that served as a school from 1890 to 1927 over 18 months, preserving elements like the original trim, and building the host stand from former basement beams. The restaurant’s menu is upscale, from small plates of crispy onigiri and deviled eggs to entrees like lobster gnocchi and pork loin. 

Cocktails at The Industry Kitchen + Bar (left); crispy shrimp at The Twisted Olive (photos by Rachael Jirousek)

“I bounced around a couple places all up and down the East Coast, rehabbing their restaurants, and I just wanted to do a culmination of that. That’s why I call it The Industry,” Myers says. “I’ve tried the best of the service industry, so no freezers, no microwaves; we come in at seven in the morning and scratch-make everything.”

Husband-and-wife duo Rachel Bellis and Justin Turner co-founded Southgate Farm, located next to Southgate Park along Massillon Road. Situated on the site of the historic Levi J. Hartong Farmstead, which was established in 1883, the diversified sustainable farm offers a Community Supported Agriculture program and a self-serve farm shop. 

Southgate Park and Farm are adjacent to the 82-acre Boettler Park, which is home to the Lichtenwalter Historic Schoolhouse, a renovated one-room structure originally constructed in the late 19th century. It is maintained by and houses the Green Historical Society in its basement. The Willadale Trail, a nearly 1-mile loop with a boardwalk that meanders through scenic wetlands along the south end of the park, opened in 2025.

About 2 miles north of  Boettler Park, at the intersection of Greensburg and Thursby roads, Kleckner Park prioritizes features that serve those with special needs. Its all-turf, adaptive sports field is ADA compliant and was created in collaboration with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation in June 2025.

Kids play at the splash pad in Green’s Central Park. (photo by Rachael Jirousek)

Central Park sits west of the city’s Steese and Massillon roads roundabout and serves as a community gathering space, hosting events like the city-sponsored Halloween trick-or-treat trail. Akron artist Bob Yost created the “A Change of Art” mosaic in the park’s Community Hall. Some tiles in the work were made by locals, including children, by pressing pinecones and sticks to make patterns in wet clay. Yost crafted other tiles, incorporating uplifting statements from residents like “You have value” and “I had a feeling that I belonged” on them. To Yeargin, much like Sue Spargo’s quilts, that patchwork mimics the evolution of the community, which adds up to something more than its individual components. 

“There’s every color, every pattern represented,” he says. “It makes this whole that, when you stand back and look at it, is this beautiful thing where everybody is taken care of.” 

More Best Hometowns 2025-26: Ashland | Barnesville | Green | Mount Vernon | Yellow Springs

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