jonoh81

If that includes the 1495 N. High building, they should try to work it in somehow. That's a nice little historic building in good condition. The other 2 are not.

Only 3 or 4 dozen more public meetings to see how every neighborhood Karen feels about density, then another 2 years of paying consultants to create a heirarchy of the responses, and then 3-5 more years of paying consultants to create an outline of a plan based on the heirarchy. Then maybe a decade or so before the tentative implementation of the consultation on a few corridors *just to see*. Then...

Keep the Garden facade, otherwise, it's probably okay.

Was this mentioned and I just missed it? https://columbusohdev.app.box.com/s/2m4fpbeizxfcc6hnmgsuu22zp7hxoxu7 7-stories with 75 units at 520 S. High.

We should keep in mind that Hocking County is within the Columbus metro, meaning that there's at least a 25% commuting exchange going on with Franklin County. It probably wouldn't be that much of a stretch for such a line to be relatively successful.

https://allcolumbusdata.com/columbus-to-be-a-rail-hub/ The new map for Amtrak's ConnectUS has Columbus as the state's main passenger rail hub, with direct connections to 12 state and regional cities across 7 lines.

Real headline: State GOP, seeing citizen-led success stories against their regressive agenda in other states, seeks to limit the power of citizens do anything about it locally. Both of these stories are just more examples of how Republicans are fascists who will do everything they can to limit the democratic process so that they can run the state unchallenged and insert fringe religious and moral viewpoints into more and more people's lives.

Real headline: One of the most anti-education, anti-science, anti-reality political parties in generations wants to remove more control over public education from educators after seeing their power slip through voter results.

Wasn't possible... in terms of the money they were willing to spend. Which is what historic preservation ultimately always comes down to.

A very subjective statement and highly dependent on who you ask. To upper middle class/wealthy white guys, absolutely. It starts to get a lot more gray after that. All of those things can be true, and also exist within a very unequal society. Isn't medical care like the #1 cause of bankruptcy, for example? Great hospitals, though. To be honest, you sound extremely privileged. There are a lot more than 3-4 problems in America. No one is discounting the positives simply by acknowleding the deep well of serious issues the nation faces. The point is not to be all rah rah America f*ck yeah!. It's about making it better, and making it better for all people, not just some.

Could anyone imagine Republicans doing something like this?

Not at all. My argument didn't really have anything to do with the idea that government solves all problems, and I would argue that Democrats are no different than Republicans in using government, just to different ends. My point was that more progressive policy is more beneficial to a fairer, more democratic, healthier, more educated, more diverse and more economically successful society. This idea that progressive=government just gives people money is more Right-wing propaganda, IMO, than reality-based.

But my argument is not that people move to a place just because it's progressive politically. My argument is that Democratic/progressive policies are more likely to create the necessary environment to attract people and economic growth. And, I might add, that such policies are far more effective at helping a lot more demographics than Republican/conservative policy is. Minorities don't get helped by Republicans. Nor do women, or immigrants or poor people, etc. Hell, even the typical Republican voter doesn't truly benefit from Republican policy. But again, they're not moving to rural red areas in those red states just like they're not in blue states. They're moving to cities like Austin or Charlotte or Atlanta, which are far, far more blue than their states as a whole. People like red state weather in the South, but not necessarily the red state politics. Otherwise, states like Idaho or Alaska would be growing just as much, and they're not. What a weird statement. You suggest that the suburbs are in fact the leaders like the tail wagging the dog. You act as if the suburbs just magically grow out of cornfields for no reason. The cities came first, and they drive everything. Columbus added more people the past 10 years than every single suburb and all the rest of the metro area combined. Its economic output blows away everything else as well. Let's not pretend like a few suburban office parks are somehow the economic drivers of a metro. It's nonsensical. Intel's requirements in terms of land use and availability would not have allowed it to go into the city regardless of politics, so it's a stupid point to even bring up. They are using city resources, though, both in terms of educated graduates and experienced workforce, as well as the ability to provide things like water. Aren't you just admitting here that Democrats attract people to places and supporting my point about Republican suburbs leeching off cities rather than creating much of anything on their own? You seem to recognize the benefits of cities, but are also desperate to pin their success on anything but the type of leadership they have or the general philosophies they promote. I haven't failed to notice you have avoided trying to explain why conserative policies haven't benefitted rural areas. Surely, if they were beneficial, there would be some positive things to talk about rather than the steady economic and population stagnation that is now nearly universal. Congrats on it being nearly impossible for a woman to get proper medical care out in the sticks, but I'd hardly call that a win. A truly educated person wouldn't hyperventilate over "indoctrination" based on lies and propaganda, especially when claiming to have received the benefits of such a higher education themselves. They would have the aforementioned critical thinking skills to know better. Which means either it didn't take, or you know what you're saying is a lie to purposefully devalue education itself- though again, just not for yourself. Which is itself classic conservatism. Good for me, not for thee. And yet I'm still waiting on an alternative explanation on why Republican areas perform worse. I suspect I'll continue to wait.

He got Trump's endorsement and had an R next to his name. That's all that mattered to his voters. Only the left of center voters need actual reasons to vote, I guess.

Again, though, that's saying no one has a responsibility to be informed or engaged, and I fully disagree with that. What is the point of having an individual right if it requires someone else to hold your hand to care about it at all? Nope, I am not going to absolve people of their apathy. We need better candidates, but we also need people to step up. That seems kind of unfair, though. Just because local Democratic leadership hasn't solved all problems at all times in every place doesn't mean things wouldn't have been tangibly worse with the alternative. Democrats at the national level have produced better economic results than Republicans across the board, but that doesn't mean there were no economic issues under their leadership, and I think that's not a reasonable expectation. Bad things happen sometimes and there aren't easy fixes regardless of leadership, just like now with inflation. Besides, it's not always about you personally being materially better off. It's about all the other people that may end up much worse with the wrong people in charge. Democrats, for their flaws, won't generally make things worse. Republicans will.

That's an argument for better candidates, and I don't disagree with that. But ultimately, no matter how good a candidate is, every eligible voter must decide to be engaged too, to know the stakes and to make the effort to vote. I don't like the idea that we remove all responsibility from the voters to exercise a right, especially when it's literally being threatened.

Ironically, it is Republican propaganda that is pushing Democrats to run boring, milquetoast moderates in so many places. They're so afraid of being seen as "far left", they're running people no one is inspired by, including the people they need the most. Republicans will lie regardless. Democrats can't keep catering to this kind of BS. Ohio is not lost forever. That's also propaganda. The red places in the state are dying. Blue areas are growing. Turnout is what will make the difference- that and an actually fair district map. Democrats keep ceding when they don't need to and shouldn't.

I had a funny feeling you would make this excuse. "The reality doesn't match my beliefs! Fake!" I actually never claimed politics alone were responsible. But it certainly begs the question why Republican counties have so much trouble attracting people, especially when they don't have a core metro to leech off of. Conservatives love to talk about how "progressive policies" have failed, but yet blue counties- and indeed blue states- generally offer a higher quality of life, more jobs, healthier people, more economic stability and better population and economic growth across the board. Even when looking at red states like Texas, it's not conservative places that are generally responsible for much of the population or economic growth. It's the cities. It's all those deep blue places conservative love to hate. Now, you can just claim that the conclusions are off base, and that no conclusions can be drawn. I would be too if I was in your position. So why don't you attempt to explain it. Give me some logical reasons why blue areas outperform red ones so consistently in so many different areas at the local, state and national level. I'm not going to argue that there aren't exceptions, or that politics alone is responsible, but it clearly plays a role, and arguably a stronger one than you want to admit. And who was offshoring manufacturing jobs then? You think that was progressives? And who has been steadily weakening unions and other organizations that were once the backbone of American labor and the middle class? Huh? Cities were always the places where jobs and people concentrated. Even during the worst times, cities were the economic powerhouses in the state, not rural Shelby County. Nothing has changed in this regard. If it weren't for Columbus and Cincinnati more recently, Ohio would've been hemorrhaging people and jobs. Isn't it curious that Hamilton county's turnaround coincided with it also turning blue? Yes, finally you're getting it. Companies that need a bunch of educated people don't move to the boonies. They go where the talent is, where education is valued and encouraged and promoted enough to support the required labor. They go where the people are. Red areas have never been education leaders. Even conservatives get their higher education in blue areas. Progressive and liberal philosophy wants an educated, productive society for the betterment of all. When's the last time Republicans valued higher education? When's the last time they weren't just attacking it as "woke"? Columbus and Dayton don't have to compete with New York to still have far more finance business opportunities than your average rural town. That's the point. And you know where those people in Youngstown went? To other cities in other states. Or Columbus. They didn't move to rural red areas that offered them nothing more than what they left. Why do you think Red counties are the main source of depopulation? It's all those young people moving away because there is nothing for them. No opportunities, no social life and likely a very regressive, repressive culture deeply stuck in the past, all things that will keep those places dying. Your point is wrong, though. It's cities, even in the South. It's always been cities. And it is the philosophies and views behind cities that are important.

It's not a political party's job to turn out the vote. It's the job of citizens to exercise their rights, and arguably have a responsibility to do so. If Dem voters can't be bothered to turn out, they don't deserve the rights they have. And indeed, they're well on the way to having them taken away by the party they didn't bother to come out and vote against.

By border-crossing migrant caravans who are also responsible for Chicago's and all urban murder rates, rigging the elections by voting without IDs in both socialist California and good-Christian, small-town Kansas, supporting CRT, trans in sports and child litter boxes in elementary schools, working in Leftist clinics that only abort full-term babies, and provide their homes for vampire Democratic pedophiles to traffick stolen children to European Communist CEOs and Bill Gates. All of this utterly stupid insanity is what motivates people to vote Republican. Imagine. Oh, and I guess gas prices they don't know how work.

Apathy and a general lack of critical thinking skills and intellectual curiosity. People anymore don't bother with facts or evidence, they simply regurgitate what they're told. And Republicans are far better at messaging than Democrats. Not just from a standpoint of being louder with a more consistent message, but by providing a more compelling psychological impetus- Fear vs. literally anything else. Fear wins every single time. If you scare people enough, they will give up everything just to feel safe. Their freedom, their rights, their democracy, and ironically, even their safety. Republicans cynically use fear ratcheted up to 11 constantly. It drowns out everything else, but especially a more hopeful, reality-based, non-threatening vision given by a weak-voiced Democratic Party. Historically, this is how democratic empires die, but it's also how fascist empires rise. That transition is well under way in America.

The people you are talking about don't want change then, because real change takes actual effort and even sacrifice. And logically, if the status quo is not giving people the change they want, then the status quo is not working. The conservative belief that all things can be fine if we do nothing and change nothing is delusional, and would only work if such people already had nothing to complain about to begin with- i.e. privilege. Sure. It helps when you have one of the biggest political parties scaring the crap out of everyone with lies about what change might bring. Fear sells far easier than hope, but I sure wouldn't be proud to be selling it. And yet more Ohioans picked far-right candidates, not moderates, and certainly not people who will actually do anything about any existing issues. So we're back to what I said- the people are choosing stagnation and irrelevance because the Right has made them too scared to believe they can have something better. How brave.

None of this is supported by the evidence, sorry. Let's look at population for starters. I looked at population change for all 88 counties 2010-2020. I then broke them down into multiple different categories (Republican vs. Democrat, Urban vs Suburban vs. Rural, Metro vs. Non-Metro, etc.) Urban counties are those containing the 7 largest cities in the state. Suburban are metro counties adjacent to urban counties with at least 100K population. Rural are all counties with less than 100K in population, regardless of metro or non-metro status. I then looked at the historic voting patterns of the counties and whether they skewed Republican or Democratic. Here are the results of the possible combinations for average county growth. 1. Metro Urban Democrat: +19084.8 (8 counties) 2. Any Metro Urban: +19084.8 (8 counties) 3. Any Metro Democrat: +14211.2 (11 counties) 4. Any Democrat: +12,833.1 (12 counties) 5. Metro Suburban Republican: +12,277.5 (13 counties) 6. Any Metro Suburban: +10,203.3 (16 counties) 7. Any Metro County: +9,872.3 (33 counties) 8. Any Metro Republican: +6,926.7 (21 counties) 9. Any Republican: +1,433.0 (76 counties) 10. Metro Suburban Democrat: +1,215.0 (3 counties) 11. Metro Urban Republican +0.0 (0 counties) 12. Any Rural Republican: -804.8 (63 counties) 13. Any Rural: -810.7 (64 counties) 14. Any Non-Metro: -1,116.8 (55 counties) 15. Non-Metro Republican: -1,121.4 (54 counties) 16. Non-Metro Democrat: -2,326 (1 county) 17. Any Rural Democrat: -2,326 (1 county) It's interesting that the only Republican counties to see any kind of strong growth were those located within large metro areas. So they're basically feeding off urban Democratic areas. Total Republican counties of any kind that lost population: 49 of 76 (64.5%) Total Republican counties of any kind that gained population: 27 of 76 (35.5%) Total Democratic counties of any kind that lost population: 7 of 12 (58.3%) Total Democratic counties of any kind that gained population: 5 of 12 (41.7) Republican share of state counties that lost population: 49 of 56 (87.5%) Democratic share of state county loss: 7 of 56 (12.5%) Seems Republicans attract far fewer people overall, especially the further away they get from urban areas. And they account for the vast majority of Ohio's county population losses. So when you talk about "failed" progressive policies, I have no idea what you're talking about. In this metric, it's conservative policy that has failed, and spectacularly. I'm willing to bet that the story is very much the same in most other states. Now, you want me to do economics next?

There's really only one party that's been offering anything to the lower income groups for decades, and it's the opposite party that has actively been working to destroy any kind of social or economic safety nets for the poor, ensuring poverty in America- and all its related issues- only gets worse over time. Part of the reason they can't feed their families is because their own apathy helps terrible, even hostile leadership maintain power. Societies don't change magically. It requires engagement, it requires work. Regardless of one's personal circumstances or hardships, sacrificing one's vote is a self-inflicted wound. At this point though, that apathy (and not just from the poor) is leading to the end of the democratic voice in the US altogether.

Pure projection. Plenty of people want real change with real solutions, but they're pretty much entirely on the Left these days.