PigBoy

There are certain standards to be met in this region, you know... If it doesn't have a giant Jesus crawling out of it, I'm not interested!

I'm certain there is a bus that goes to Polaris, though I have no idea which one. I've just seen the signs for the bus stops. If you want a mall that is not serviced by a bus, you can go to the Fairfield Commons mall in Beavercreek (Dayton).

I don't want to involve myself in the debate, but I am curious: what exactly is the definition of "urban" being used here?

Here is a little (not very exciting) update. I'm really only posting it because I am curious about something. It says that our congress critter procured federal funds for this, mainly for the roads. I'd never really thought about it, but is that commonly done for projects like this? It's about damn time the entire rest of the country started paying for our malls! :-P ---- Beavercreek OKs first reading for $186M incentive Measure would provide for I-675 entertainment center By Amelia Robinson and Anthony Gottschlich, Dayton Daily News The city council on Monday night approved the first reading of a measure that would provide an economic incentive for a $186 million entertainment center to be built on Indian Ripple Road at Interstate 675. www.daytondailynews.com

Interesting... I recently sought the National Geographic issue with that map because I had somehow encountered the accompanying article, which features suburban Cincinnati, among other places. There sure is a lot of yellow on that map!

Nice ghetto tour!

PigBoy is my screen name for almost everything. It's nickname created by my cousin several years ago. Actually, the full name was "Greedy Pig Boy." It arose from a card game where I took a bunch of cards or something. Otherwise I have no particular interest in pigs, and I'm not a big fatso or anything. Given my nickname, it was thrilling a few years ago during Cincinnati's "Big Pig Gig" to find that one of the pigs was called Pig Boy.

Wonderful tour!

They want to use geothermal energy? Would this come from our underutilized Ohio volcanoes? :? Anyway, the alternative to this thing surely is some horrible sprawling place either there or somewhere else in the area, so it sounds nice to me.

I guess I'll agree that Xenia is effectively a suburb of Dayton. This calls for yet another picture (again, I'm sure this is a different scale).

I hate to nitpick, but if the Cin-Day Road example being offered here is from the I-75 overpass, it's really more like 18 miles away from downtown. (75 doesn't exactly follow a straight line from there to downtown.) That's still pretty far away, of course. :-)

All right, I have nothing better to do, and the other day I shelled out money for Keyhole, so: Here is most of the rest of the Dayton metro, i.e. the Greene County suburbs (Fairborn, Beavercreek, Bellbrook/Sugarcreek Township, as well as WPAFB). No Xenia though, which is immediately off the right edge of this photo in the middle, if Xenia even counts as a suburb. This is at a different scale than the Montgomery County pictures (that's probably obvious).

It's not a paper map; it's saved from a GIS orthophoto layer. I didn't look at the Lorain County site, but there are a number of counties that have GIS property information maps online, where you can see aerial photos as well as property lines, etc. Is that what the Lorain County site is? Yeah, there's a bunch of sprawl missing because it's not in Montgomery County. Perhaps I'll try to assemble a picture of the Greene County suburbs.

It's always cool to see things like that from so far away. I remember being surprised once to see the Columbus skyline rising over farm fields just outside the little village of Lithopolis, about 14 miles to the southeast. Granted, maybe it's not as surprising as in Cincinnati since there are no significant hills around Columbus to block the view, but I'd still wager that there are very few places where you can see the Columbus skyline from that far away.

Regarding the Montgomery County one... the old courthouse is still there, so you can pretend it's the real one if you like it better. (Sorry, bad picture I know) And the "new" courthouse wasn't too bad, but I say that based on pictures, since I was not alive to have seen it in person. It was next to the old one, basically where I was standing when taking the above picture.

Okay, here is section of the Ohio Revised Code that clears up a little bit for me: § 503.09. Petition to erect new township excluding territory of municipal corporation. Where a township contains a municipal corporation, either in whole or in part, if a majority of the freehold electors owning land in the portion of such a township outside the municipal corporation's corporate limits, petitions, with a map accurately setting forth such territory, praying to have such territory erected into a new township, and excluding the territory within the municipal corporation, the board of county commissioners shall enter an order erecting such territory into a new township, the boundaries of which need not include twenty-two square miles of territory. Upon the erection of such new township, the territory lying within the limits of the municipal corporation in the original township shall be considered as not being located in any township. So basically, I gather that an incorporated city or village is still part of the township out of which it formed unless the county is petitioned to exclude the corporation from the township. So, to use my county as an example again, Beavercreek city is still a part of Beavercreek township, but Xenia city is not part of Xenia township. I don't know why there are the different arrangements; I suppose sometimes for stuff like fire stations, like Summit Street mentioned.

^ Yes, we vote for city council members and everything else involving the city, but for some reason also some township things (but not all township things, I think). I suppose the township trustees don't have any power over the incorporated areas, but we are still considered part of the township, so I guess we vote for them. The relationship between city and township has always been confusing to me. In any case, I'm pretty sure there are incorporated places that are considered part of the township, even if the township does not have any jurisdiction. Beavercreek township, I believe, contains the following: Beavercreek city, Fairborn city (a small part of it), WPAFB (part, again), and unincorporated areas. I suppose the township offices only have power over the unincorporated parts. (There is also a small part that was Beavercreek Township but is now Kettering city and no longer a part of any township.) So as I see it, you can have a city that is part of a township (even if it really means nothing), but I don't think an entire township can be part of a city. I believe a township ceases to exist if all of it is incorporated in a city. But like I said, it's all confusing to me, so I'm probably wrong about something.

Hmm... well I know I vote for Township officers and some issues despite living in an incorporated place, whatever that implies. Also, a Census page summarizing boundary changes (here) lists a lot of "such-and-such a city became independent of such-and-such a township" along with "such-and-such a township's area reduced as a result of such-and-such a city becoming independent." I don't know what that means in terms of jurisdiction, but there it is.

I was under the impression that incorporated places could be under the jurisdiction of both city and a township, or be independent of the township. For instance, I live in both Beavercreek city and Beavercreek Township (I vote for township trustees and such), whereas other cities are not part of any township. Of course, it would be weird for a large city like Columbus to include a township, but I just thought I'd suggest my understanding, in case it is wrong in some way.

You definitely shouldn't trust an internet poll to mean anything at all.

As a former county seat, does it count toward your total? Or maybe you have to subtract one... Anyway, nice tour. I like all the Columbus stuff we've been seeing here lately.

I live near Shakertown & N. Fairfield Rd. (when not away at school, that is)

By the way, the image here is 25 long on each side, in case anyone's interested in distances and land area. I wish I had one of Greene County, too, so they could be put together to cover most of the metro except Springfield... plus I could see my house! Back when Mapquest had aerial photos, I started piecing together a Beavercreek picture and got mostly finished, so I do have that. At least this photo contains enough of the edge of Greene County to include the future location of "Greene Town Center" or "The Greene" or whatever they're calling it now! :|

Just for fun: That's a reduced size. Click here for a bigger size. (I have a much larger size than that one, too... 8 feet per pixel I think.) It's a bit dated- from 2000 I think. But it's still interesting to see some stuff. Like how only about half the county is urbanized. (A little land visible near the edges is in adjoining counties, but most of the open land here is Montgomery County.) So much more room for sprawl! :jo:

Pretty nice-looking... though a couple places could use some trees, in my opinion.