jbcmh81

Columbus has had a TON of Downtown development in the last 10-15 years. People seem to forget that the Arena District IS a part of Downtown and that land has always been included in the CBD census tracts for as long as census tracts have existed (1920s). A good chunk of that happed around 2000, but it's been steadily adding more since then. As far as the rest of Downtown, there has been a lot of other projects as well, and the pace is only increasing. Between 1500 and 2000 new residents have moved there since 2010, and the area around Downtown in adjacent neighborhoods have probably added at least double that. I can provide a list of recently completed, current and planned development in the area if you want. The view that Columbus is smaller or low density or only suburban largely seems to come from those who simply don't like Columbus or may be jealous of its relative success in a state that hasn't seen a lot of it in recent decades. With recent population estimates out, Columbus is as dense as Cincinnati now, if not even a bit higher, despite being 3x larger. To be able to accomplish that feat, it has to have high densities near the core, and it does. Given that the city is virtually not annexing at all (less than 0.3 square miles since 2010) anymore, and growing at a rate over 12,000 people a year, it's density is going to go up pretty quickly.

We're going to be stuck with HP for a long time to come. That's why it's so important to get it as best as it can be the first time. The design of the LC and Two25 projects will only make HP all that much worse. Carter should've stayed in Atlanta.

Yes. Natural growth is typically well over 50% of the total growth rate for a metro, so when it's poor or in the negative (like Youngstown), that will automatically cut into whatever migration is occurring. Cleveland has decent international migration, but its negative domestic migration and poor natural growth continue to hurt it. I've been reading how it seems to be attracting more young people, so we'll see if that eventually translates, but that will take years.

County densities, 2014 (land only) Cuyahoga: 2,756.7 Franklin: 2,314.6 Hamilton: 1,986.8

Aside from Cincy and Hamilton County, and Columbus of course, the rest of the state did pretty poorly on this estimate round. For Columbus, 2013 estimates were actually revised upward, indicating greater growth there than originally thought. Hamilton County has seemed to accelerate its own recovery as well.

July 1, 2014 Estimate, Change from July 1, 2013 and Change since 2010 Census Cleveland Cuyahoga County: 1,259,828 -4,009 -20,294 Geauga County: 94,295 +236 +906 Lake County: 229,230 -404 -811 Lorain County: 304,216 +1,210 +2,860 Medina County: 176,029 +1,237 +3,697 Metro Area: 2,063,598 -1,730 -13,642 Cincinnati Brown County: 44,116 -119 -730 Butler County: 374,158 +2,647 +6,028 Clermont County: 201,560 +1,306 +4,197 Hamilton County: 806,631 +2,202 +4,257 Warren County: 221,659 +2,081 +8,966 Dearborn County, IN: 49,506 -293 -547 Franklin County, IN: 22,934 +5 -153 Ohio County, IN: 6,035 +0 -93 Boone County, KY: 126,413 +1,878 +7,602 Bracken County, KY: 8,406 -34 -82 Campbell County, KY: 91,833 +448 +1,497 Gallatin County, KY: 8,589 +85 +0 Grant County, KY: 24,875 +299 +213 Kenton County, KY: 163,929 +562 +4,209 Pendleton County, KY: 14,493 -86 -384 Metro Area: 2,149,449 +10,913 +34,869 Columbus Delaware County: 189,113 +3,911 +14,899 Fairfield County: 150,381 +1,584 +4,225 Franklin County: 1,231,393 +17,559 +67,979 Hocking County: 28,725 +117 -655 Licking County: 169,390 +887 +2,898 Madison County: 43,918 +646 +483 Morrow County: 35,152 +114 +325 Perry County: 35,812 -120 -246 *****way County: 56,876 +410 +1,178 Union County: 53,776 +396 +1,476 Metro Area: 1,994,536 +25,504 +92,562 The CSA Cincinnati: 2,208,450 +10,716 +34,340 Cleveland: 3,497,851 -1,749 -17,795 Columbus: 2,398,297 +25,493 +89,788 Other MSAs Akron: 703,825 +615 +625 Dayton: 800,836 -809 +1,604 Toledo: 607,456 -974 -2,545 Youngstown: 553,263 -2,866 -12,510

Did that guy just say that no one wants to live in a walkable community with an easy commute to work and amenities? And that such communities are just for rich people? This is the dumbest thing I've seen in quite a while. Those communities aren't expensive because only the wealthy demand them, but because so few communities are built this way that the demand for them constantly exceeds supply.

I call BS on this study for a couple of reasons. For me, "Car Free" means not only not owning a car, but not using one either. Car-share only fixes one of those standards- car ownership, but you're still basically relying on a car to get you around. Truly car-free is using public transit (buses, trains, bikes, walking), and in that measure, Columbus is going to rank way lower unfortunately. None of them have great public transit, but Cleveland does have the most, so they should realistically be ranked higher if we're talking about being able to truly be car-free. In Columbus, you could around the High Street corridor and Downtown, but not many other places.

The metro populations were within about 180,000 people from highest to lowest position in 2013, so really they're not that far apart, especially considering the differing growth rates. Columbus is almost guaranteed at this point to not be in 3rd place come 2020, or possibly even before that. And how are we measuring what's important culturally, historically or with architectural significance? This seems completely arbitrary to me. But this is an example of the problem within Ohio. People are so insecure that they can't talk about one city without bashing another or trying to downplay anything positive about them. We'll lie or fudge the truth or stereotype just so we can feel better about where we live. It's terrible and so counterproductive. I don't even know if people realize they're doing it all the time, it's just become second nature.

"CinDay" doesn't exist as a metro, though. If you want to maybe have it be a region, like SWO, similar to NEO, that might work as a description, but officially, there is no such thing otherwise. The combined metro has been talked about for many years, and it's never happened. It may in the future, but at least through 2013, it didn't meet the requirements.

Oh, I really disagree about OSU's influence on the urban core post 2000. I just think Columbus, like almost every city, is seeing the results of changing tastes and development patterns. Keep in mind that almost all of the revitalization has taken place off campus and even outside of the adjacent neighborhoods. With the exception of the South Campus Gateway, there was virtually nothing else going on until very recently. The Short North is far more responsible. Campus was pretty crappy long after the Short North was in relative upswing. The fact that the Short North has matured and become expensive has pushed development northwards. That's why Weinland Park is starting to see a lot of development. It's going south to north rather than south from OSU. Also, college kids aren't exactly known for their funds, so they're probably the least likely group to be a big part of revitalization efforts, which don't come cheap. Instead, its young professionals, say 25-35, who seem to be the big group. Columbus may benefit from having college-educated people stay in the city after they graduate, though.

Eh, I'm not so sure about OSU. The core of the city still lost tons of people during the suburbanization years, and OSU was growing throughout that time. Neither the university nor being the center of state government prevented the same suburbanization processes from occurring. It was only annexation that masked it... at least through about 1980, and then the annexation rate dropped significantly. Incidentally, one of Columbus' highest rates of annexation occurred during one of its slowest growth decades, the 1970s. Without annexation, it's entirely possible the city would've lost population that decade. The perception of decline is a hard stigma to get rid of, and who knows if that would've affected Columbus' long-term growth patterns. Luckily, it didn't have to find out. Today, the city is having a relative boom, with the highest annual total growth of any decade in its history, all without virtually any annexation at all.

Same for Columbus suburbs. Hilliard has a walkable old downtown, but it's also surrounded by sprawl. I think the terms "walkable" and "dense" go hand-in-hand, because an area can't be walkable without a denser development pattern. Dublin is urbanizing its entire Bridge Street Corridor, by building tons of infill and rebuilding infrastructure to be more walkable. To do that, buildings will automatically be far more dense in terms of population per square mile, than before. Your average exurban neighborhood named Hollow Bend or Briar Cliffs is not going to have either walkability or density... hence sprawl.

That could explain some of the perception issue, but density actually typically plays a role in the "sprawl definition". It's almost universally considered to be low-density. In any case, if Columbus' city boundaries were the same size as Cincy or Cleveland, I suspect more of that perception would be explained too. Columbus 1950 boundaries is roughly 70-80 square miles. Cleveland and Cincy didn't grow much outwardly past 1950, while Columbus did, and its boundaries include much of that later development. If it was still just the core city, I wonder if it would be perceived as it is now. Or if Cleveland and Cincinnati had boundaries out to 218 square miles, would they be considered the same?

What about parks, rivers, vacant lots or farms? How about highways? Once you start going down this route, where do you draw the line?

That's why I think UA is a better measurement because it wouldn't include the lake or undeveloped forests as detractors. I don't like to use metro for density anyway because it's based on county lines, not development boundaries. It's only useful for metro density itself, but not for the core cities. And to those suggesting geographical boundaries are problems, especially in regards to the metro density above, why would they only be counted? It would seem to me that if you can't county some land because it's forested, hilly or has water, then why would you county empty farm fields or otherwise vacant land? Both make up a large chunk of metro land, and while it may be possible to build on it, the fact that it's not serves the exact same issue that a body of water would: It detracts from the density of an area.

1. Urbanized Area would remove geographical limitations because it only looks at land that is continuously developed. 2. No, Cincinnati's density is not centered in Kentucky. The Ohio side not only has the highest density tracks in the metro, but has more of them that are within the higher range of 10K+. The Covington side may be more uniform, but it's a smaller area as well. 3. How are you defining sprawl? If it's total low-density development in a metro, Cleveland has the least, Cincinnati the most. If it's how fast low-density sprawl is growing, Cleveland has the fastest, not Columbus. I'm sure the perception is that Columbus leads in both categories, but it's been studied. There was just a report out last year about this. Or if you think sprawl is the number of square miles that have been developed, again, Columbus is dead last. Both Cincinnati and Cleveland's urbanized areas are much larger. 4. If Cleveland suffers from lots of geographical limitations on density, how does it have the highest in the state? So what is sprawl then?

Well, first we're talking about city, not metro. Second, if you actually look at Cincinnati and Cleveland's density down to census tract level, it's less to do with geography than the fact that individual densities at ground level aren't as impressively different as one might believe, as shown by the graphs below. With annexation in Columbus, the policy was that when townships or surrounding areas wanted to get Columbus water and services, they would have to annex. So basically, Columbus wasn't going to give away city resources if they didn't get the tax benefits of that population. So it wasn't necessarily empty land, and in many cases, was already built up in some way. However, that was back when there was a lot of area to annex that still had decent populations. The land Columbus would typically annex these days is either on the fringe with very little development, or once in awhile, a small part of an already developed piece of land. Columbus kept growth going when it needed to, but with diminishing returns. Every decade during the high annexation years, less population would be added than the decade before it. Annexation only works for population growth if there is an existing population to add. Columbus city attracted about 73% of the population growth of all of Franklin County 2010-2013, but it includes only about 40% of the land within it. This indicates that people are actively moving into the city instead of being annexed in. The annexation numbers above only reinforce that annexation now is virtually nonexistent as a population grower. And even so, we're talking about a city closer to 218 square miles vs. the 75-80 for Cleveland/Cincinnati. For Columbus to even be in the mix density-wise, there has to be some fairly high density across the board, and not just in the central core. Again, this is shown in the graphs below. If Cincinnati/Cleveland began annexing to the point of the same square mileage, they would likely be less dense than Columbus. This is shown in a few ways. First, the Census does a thing measuring population at increasing distances from the center of the city. Density can be worked out in a certain square mileage using these numbers. At Mile 8, which would be about 201 square miles, the densities in 2010 would've been: Columbus: 3,957.4 Cleveland: 3,577.1 Cincinnati: 3,411.7 The other way to tell is by using urban area, something the census also tracks. Demographia has more recent estimates than the census. The latest are: Columbus: 2,700 Cleveland: 2,300 Cincinnati: 2,100 Anyway, perception is typically wrong about a lot of things. In the case of Columbus density, it certainly is.

Yep, it did. And if the annexation numbers are correct, and I don't know why they wouldn't be, with the addition of over 35,000 people to the city between 2010-2013, the 2013 density was likely between 3,750-3,800/ppsm. That's why I am thinking it will easily be over 4,000 by 2020, if not much higher. This would mean it would pass up Cincinnati and be approaching Cleveland's density numbers. For a city everyone thinks is suburban sprawl, and given that it has almost 3x the area size, that's a pretty amazing feat.

Nice link, thanks. I added up all the annexations since 2010, and it represents about 492.1 acres, or only 0.769 square miles. So the city's on pace to add less than 2 square miles this decade. This would be about what was added during the 1940s before major annexation began. The slow growth should also help density jump up. If this continues, I would expect density for the city to be between 4,300-4,500/ppsm. Good analysis. Of those acres added 316.32 were in two annexations in 2011. I think for Scioto Downs and the casino. We may not see anymore annexations of that scale for the rest of the decade. The decade could end with Columbus only adding a single square mile or less! Very true. I keep telling people that annexation in Columbus is more or less over with, at least on a mass scale, but I don't think too many take that claim seriously. They still think the city is growing almost completely from adding population in the outer reaches (which ironically, would have the least amount of population), rather than actually attracting new residents.

Nice link, thanks. I added up all the annexations since 2010, and it represents about 492.1 acres, or only 0.769 square miles. So the city's on pace to add less than 2 square miles this decade. This would be about what was added during the 1940s before major annexation began. The slow growth should also help density jump up. If this continues, I would expect density for the city to be between 4,300-4,500/ppsm.

Kingsdale is basically another wasted opportunity. It could've been redeveloped in an interesting way, but it's just a few new buildings and lots of parking. It reminds me of Northland. A new McDonald's!!

I don't love the layout of the project (a little too suburban-style with too much parking), but the good news is that buildings will front both Edgehill and Norton, so you won't be able to see much of the parking anyway given the orientation of the site. And yes, it's a bit surprising no one noticed this before, since the announcement is from last summer.

I ran across this today in the development agendas. It's from August. 5. APPLICATION: Z14-021 (14335-00000-00269) Location: 1281 EDGEHILL ROAD (43212), being 2.8± acres located on the west side of Edgehill Road, 443± feet north of West Third Avenue (010-063723 and 010-003020; Fifth by Northwest Area Commission). Existing Zoning: M, Manufacturing District. Request: AR-2, Apartment Residential District. Proposed Use: Multi-unit residential development. Applicant(s): Continental Bell, Ltd.; c/o David L. Hodge, Atty.;

Nashville is predicted to grow by over a million people in it's metro area over this same timeframe. Any thoughts as to why Nashville would be growing so much faster than Columbus? I think most studies just assume that what's happened already will continue to happen. In Nashville's case, domestic migration is actually falling, which raises some doubts about its potential future growth.