jonoh81

First of all, I didn't say most of the growth was happening Downtown. I said within the city and greater urban core. Second, the reason Downtown still feels kind of quiet and empty at certain times is because it still has one of the lowest downtown populations of any city in the country, combined with the fact that it is relatively huge in area. There has been a lot of new construction Downtown in recent years, but most of those projects have been 5 stories or less, or they have only involved renovations of existing buildings. This construction has allowed the population to grow from just over 6,000 in 2010 to about 9000 now. Current construction should allow the population to reach 11K-12K over the next few years. Still, that is relatively low compared to peer and other major cities. Residential vacancy rates Downtown are very low, so it's not like they're building a bunch of stuff no one is renting or buying. They just aren't building enough to meet demand, so people move elsewhere. You can't fill what doesn't exist, which is why getting larger projects is so important to building density, walkability and urban vibrancy. The Short North is directly connected to Downtown and literally across Goodale from the convention center and Arena District. I'm not sure why you think it's so far away. Maybe if you're measuring from Broad and High, but again, Columbus' downtown is pretty large. And I would argue that's still very much within walking distance. I've walked that many times. As for why the Short North feels so different, its population density is now more than 10K psm. Downtown's is about 3K.

Yet the new Hilton will go up pretty quickly by all accounts. Besides, a lack of workers would only mean a slower build, not necessarily a smaller project unless there is some kind of time this has to be built in. I’m not aware there is a rush. Second, the steel issue seems overblown. What was the reduction excuse before steel supplies were lower?

Sorry, but none of that is true. Virtually every single one of Columbus' peers nationally are seeing at least one or more residential or mixed-use residential towers under construction right now. Even several smaller cities have big projects in the works. So again I question if this is as common an issue in other places as it is in Columbus. Furthermore, the city all by itself attracts 52% of the entire metro growth, higher than almost every other major city in the country, including its peers and those with bigger city limits. Columbus grew several times faster than any suburb and faster than every single other metro community *combined*. The only thing holding up urban growth is crap like this, where developers either can't build larger due to opposition (the recent Vic Village fiasco) or continuously reduce the scale of proposals for other asinine reasons, like saying there isn't any market for bigger (as was said when the Commons project was reduced to 12 stories from 17). These are excuses, IMO, because all these realities simply don't make sense together. How can you have a rapidly growing city with massive urban demand, but zero demand for large-scale mixed-use or residential buildings? How can Columbus be building at a fraction of the rate needed to satisfy population growth, but project reductions are citing a soft market? These statements are contradictory, which means there are highly localized conditions that are stopping urban development, let alone large-scale development.

I thought about that, but then you still see multiple similar or larger projects going up in countless peer cities. This suggests that the problem is unique to Columbus. Also, construction costs certainly don't seem to have affected the new planned Hilton, which is one of the very, very few examples of proposals that got larger in size before construction begins. What makes that project different?

Sorry, but "good enough" is exactly the problem I'm talking about. Columbus leaders, developers, etc. seem to always view things from that angle, that it's "better than nothing" or "good enough for Columbus". That is not going to solve the lack of transit. That's not going to address the rapidly growing housing crisis. That's not going to stop Downtown from having one of the smallest resident populations of any city in the nation and having a distinct lack of vibrancy. That's not going to stop people from putting "OH" after the city's name. If this was just one project, sure, it would matter a lot less, but this has been a decades-long expedition into mediocrity, where we have seen the exact same situation play out time and time again. Because of that, frankly, Cow Town attitude, very real problems are emerging and there is seemingly no one in any position to affect change that has any plans or ideas to do anything about it. As for MT, we don't even know f that will ever be built.

What a shocker. They even went out of their way to promise the project wouldn't be reduced, only to see more than a quarter of its proposed height vanish. As much as I like Columbus, sometimes it's such a lame *** city. Can't wait to hear the excuses behind this, if they bother giving one at all. I don't get it. Columbus is one of the nation's fastest-growing cities with massive housing demand it's not even close to meeting, and developers there act like it's Lima. There are no height restrictions at this location, and there are no development commissions telling them to reduce the scale. There are no zoning regulations holding them back. Parking concerns are addressed. So the only thing that's going against it seems to be that the city has small-time developers with either a lack of vision or too few resources to do things right. Or hell, maybe they didn't want to overshadow the new Hilton. Who knows at this point. Ridiculous.

As I said, the North High Corridor does in Columbus. If I added all of Clintonville's area to it, the density would still be 11,800. Even if I added all of Linden, which would take the area near 13 square miles, the density would still be 10,200. So I could easily find an area in Columbus 3x that of Lakewood with an equal or greater density, and it is all contiguous. There may not be a lot of examples of this in Ohio, but Lakewood isn't the only one and isn't the most dense of the comparable areas.

And Cleveland and Cincinnati and Toledo and Dayton and Youngstown and Akron and... But none of those places are 5 square miles, so the comparison is a little suspect. You'd have to compare 5 square miles of those cities to truly be making an honest comparison. The Short North, Italian Village, Victorian Village, Campus, Weinland Park and Old North Columbus combined are about 5 square miles, and in 2017 had a density of about 13,600.

True, but I didn't mean to suggest that those numbers were anything but the maximum existing density. Lakewood overall is pretty dense, but it's also a pretty small city in area, so perhaps that's not surprising. And as 500 people have already said, the radius numbers aren't perfect, either. There are so many ways to measure density that we can pick and choose the ones we like.

I was attempting to make a direct comparison because I used block groups with the 3-Cs as the way to measure the highest possible local density in an area. All census block groups are small. However, I didn't suggest that was the full picture of Lakewood's density, only that that was the absolute maximum it reaches there. Meaning that it's not the full story, only part of it. As for your numbers, I question them. Not that long ago, I looked at every single census track within the 3-Cs using city boundaries only, not counties. I found the size of each of their census tracks, got the density and checked what the total areas were for specific densities, seemingly what you just did. The numbers don't match your county figures at all. For example, here were the breakdowns I have, again just based on cities alone. Notice the differences. Area in Square Miles Under Specific Density in 2017 Cleveland 20K+: 0.0 15K+: 0.1181 10K+: 4.91214 7.5K+: 16.5765 5K+: 35.6895 3K+: 69.7195 Cincinnati 20K+: 0.0 15K+: 0.0958 10K+: 1.3845 7.5K+: 3.010 5K+: 20.7678 3K+: 46.2210 Columbus 20K+: 0.7657 15K+: 1.3670 10K+: 3.7065 7.5K+: 16.4313 5K+: 44.3061 3K+: 72.9149 Population Under Specific Density in 2017 Cleveland 20K+: 0 15K+: 2,075 10K+: 58,170 7.5K+: 147,866 5K+: 263,155 3K+: 341,849 Cincinnati 20K+: 0 15K+: 1,494 10K+: 17,289 7.5K+: 35,028 5K+: 142,632 3K+ 240,690 Columbus 20K+: 19,755 15K+: 29,702 10K+: 55,625 7.5K+: 165,038 5K+: 328,798 3K+: 445,380 Not sure how the overall county can have smaller areas and fewer people living in certain densities than just the core city, as you have it. I got my tract information (population, area sizes, etc.) from the census. If I did these numbers for the entire counties, the numbers would be even more drastically different. .

What do you mean, if that’s the only one I use? I just gave the part of Lakewood that showed the highest density. It’s higher than anything Cleveland has, but not as high as some areas of Cincinnati or Columbus. Overall, Lakewood’s density is decent, but still not the highest in the state.

Census data. The most densely populated block group in Lakewood is around 23K.

No one should be using WalkScore as proof of anything. It has several inherent flaws to it that make it an interesting, but pretty questionable measurement of walkability. It shouldn't be used for population density at all.

City limits are just one way to compare of about 5 million. I never made any sweeping declarations that they should be the only measurement of any value. There is no reason anyone should get upset about someone posting any of these numbers.

So here is every designation I can think of that measures population density. I'm only doing this for the 3-Cs. First up are densities up to just the 1950 boundaries. There are some measurements smaller than the 1950 boundary, but I don't have time. Top 10 Most Densely Populated Block Groups by City, 2017 Block Groups are divisions of census tracts. Other than individual blocks, which I don't have numbers for, these are the smallest sections of any city in area size, and therefore have the highest measured densities. Cleveland 1. 1193002: 19167.3 2. 1235021: 19152.0 3. 1011012: 18759.2 4. 1087013: 18572.8 5. 1053004: 17995.4 6. 1051004: 17854.1 7. 1097012: 17784.4 8. 1195013: 16301.0 9. 1011011: 16278.8 10. 1024011: 16185.3 Cincinnati 1. 7001: 26839.6 2. 264001: 21962.0 3. 269002: 18393.1 4. 26001: 18317.4 5. 9002: 17354.4 6. 10001: 16462.8 7. 20002: 15700.8 8. 10002: 15215.1 9. 29001: 15197.8 10. 37002: 14137.7 Columbus 1. 11213: 71531.4 2. 18105: 48855.5 3. 10005: 36166.9 4. 18101: 34804.6 5. 83122: 33530.3 6. 13004: 31167.5 7. 13002: 28027.9 8. 12004: 25482.2 9. 77212: 24605.3 10. 18104: 23637.7 Top 10 Census Tracts with the Highest Density By City, 2017 Census tracts are neighborhood-sized sections of each city, typically smaller than 5 square miles in size. Cleveland 1. 110101: 17568.4 2. 101603: 14044.7 3. 119502: 13599.6 4. 102402: 13308.4 5. 1023: 13153.1 6. 1068: 12591.0 7. 1241: 12437.6 8. 1055: 12437.6 9. 119501: 12392.8 10. 1064: 12001.0 Cincinnati 1. 10: 15595.6 2. 9: 14961.8 3. 26: 14944.3 4. 17: 12070.0 5. 25: 11933.2 6. 264: 11751.9 7. 29: 10685.0 8. 95: 9749.3 9. 22: 9490.2 10. 33: 9466.7 Columbus 1. 1121: 28377.3 2. 1810: 25944.7 3. 13: 22309.3 4. 10: 17160.1 5. 12: 15531.6 6. 1110: 13902.5 7. 17: 12542.3 8. 20: 12532.5 9. 8163: 10633.4 10. 21: 10546.5 Downtowns using census tracts, 2017 Cleveland: 3,160.8 Cincinnati: 3,871.4 Columbus: 2,907.3 Downtowns using radius at Mile 0 (or 1 if you use MCDC), 2016 These may differ some from what was posted before as it depends exactly where you make the center point. I used Public Square for Cleveland, the Statehouse for Columbus and Cincinnati at Fountain Square. Cleveland: 3,919.4 Cincinnati: 4,396.5 Columbus: 3,029.0 1950 City Boundaries in 2017 Cleveland: 4,998.5 Cincinnati: 3605.9 Columbus: 6120.5

One of the problems is the Census only does population figures for them once every 10 years rather than annually like everything else, so they don't stir up discussion as often. Plus, I think people naturally gravitate to the larger designations of MSA and CSA.

Yeah, there's nothing standard because of different development patterns, different types of measurements, different ideas on what makes for a true city (limits, metro, CSA, urbanized area, etc.) It's all interesting to discuss and debate, but perhaps the best thing to do is to look at each metric as part of the greater whole rather than each metric being the end-all, be-all on its own.

Also guys, just a comment about the original radius numbers... the Census version of this starts at Mile 0, not Mile 1, but it is clear that the numbers given used Mile 1 and Mile 0 interchangeably. The other distances seem to be different as well. This has an impact, if you're not careful, comparing changes over time for certain radius markers.

I'm not trying to tabulate regional population statistics. Just looking at a different way to measure density in a city. Instead of everyone yelling how wrong the different measurements are, what is the agreed-upon measurement we should be using? No one seems to agree on anything.

I didn't say density means urban. I'm just giving the overall city densities without water. All we're talking about is population density.

Just for reference, here are the 3-C densities 1950-2017 based on land area WITHOUT water. Cleveland 1950: 12197.4 1960: 11542.2 1970: 9893.3 1980: 7263.6 1990: 6566.4 2000: 6165.0 2010: 5113.6 2017: 4961.7 Cincinnati 1950: 6711.0 1960: 6569.3 1970: 5794.2 1980: 4935.5 1990: 4715.5 2000: 4247.2 2010: 3807.0 2017: 3867.8 Columbus 1950: 9540.6 1960: 5429.9 1970: 4009.5 1980: 3122.5 1990: 3315.4 2000: 3383.1 2010: 3623.5 2017: 4023.7 I think this shows some of the misconceptions on density, past and present. Even at its peak, Cleveland had roughly double Cincinnati's density and about 30% more than Columbus. They all changed, either through population loss/growth or in Columbus' case, annexation through the 1970s. Today, they are all roughly in the same ballpark.

Yes, but I thought the complaint was that radius measurements weren't good because of Cleveland's east-west development pattern plus the lake. That's why I brought up city limits without water. It wouldn't change things as much as some believe.

Maybe, but then again, if you use the city of Cleveland without any water, it is not really all that much more dense than the other 2-Cs at this point. Even in 1950, the density differences were a lot smaller than people think.

The answer lies just to the south in Columbus, which has no significant natural barriers whatsoever. There is little reason to believe Cleveland would've ended up with higher density without the lake. Geographical features seem to only concentrate population, and therefore density, into smaller land areas, but there would very likely be the same number of people without those features, just spread out. That would very likely equate to the same or lower density, not higher. Actually, if anything, the absence of the lake at a time when water transport was super important probably would've meant a significantly smaller Cleveland.

Completely agree. The "geography ate my density" argument is overused and overblown.