arenn

I would not characterize Indy's growth as "explosive". Most of the cities at the top are clustered in a narrow range. Indy is not a high growth city by any means. It isn't hard to notice that three of the top four cities in the Midwest for growth are state capitals, which has to be a factor. The development pattern in Indianapolis is for all practical purposes identical to Columbus.

I don't have that information handy, sorry.

However, Cincinnati-Hamilton was a CMSA, which at the time was the most commonly used measure, if a city was in a CMSA. There was not as great a distinction between a CMSA and an MSA as there now is between an MSA and CSA.

Between 2005 and 2006 Cleveland's MSA population declined by 13,592, or -0.6%.

It is true that Cincinnati is bigger. On the other hand, Cleveland has a five county MSA whereas Cincinnati has something like 14 counties in three states in its MSA.

I calculated them myself based on the just released county level population estimates from the Census Bureau as of 7/1/07.

I originally posted this at skyscrapercity, but someone asked me to repost it here, so here you go. I don't have Ohio's smaller metros with it, but anyone should be able to quickly add them. I just did a quick analysis of the county level population estimates to calculate MSA population growth for Midwest metros of 1 million plus population (plus Louisville). Here are the results. Change in MSA population 2006-2007 (in percentage rank order, total change in parentheses). For ties, broken by ordering in decreasing absolute change. 1. Indianapolis - 1.5% (24,705) 2. Kansas City - 1.2% (24,087) 3. Minneapolis - 1.1% (36,200) 4. Columbus - 1.1% (19,774) 5. Louisville - 1.1% (13,311) 6. Chicago - 0.7% (66,231) 7. Cincinnati - 0.6% (12,553) 8. St. Louis - 0.4% (9,627) 9. Milwaukee - 0.3% (4,347) 10. Cleveland - (0.4%) (-8,848) 11. Detroit - (0.6%) (-27,314) The United States as a whole grew by 1% last year. So you can see that about half of these cities exceeded the national rate. The following cities added more people this year than they did last (or lost fewer people): Columbus Louisville Kansas City Minneapolis Cleveland Chicago Of course that means the following cities did worse than last year: Indianapolis Cincinnati Milwaukee Detroit St. Louis If the trend continues, Kansas City would pass Indianapolis in total adds next year. Here is the list sorted by raw quantitative change. 1. Chicago - 66,231 2. Minneapolis - 36,200 3. Indianapolis - 24,705 4. Kansas City - 24,087 5. Columbus - 19,774 6. Louisville - 13,311 7. Cincinnati - 12,553 8 - St. Louis - 9,627 9. Milwaukee - 4,347 10. Cleveland - (8,848) 11. Detroit - (27,314) And lastly, here are the metro areas ordered by total population 1. Chicago - 9,524,673 2. Detroit - 4,467,592 3. Minneapolis - 3,208,212 4. St. Louis - 2,707,885 5. Cincinnati - 2,125,104 6. Cleveland - 2,096,471 7. Kansas City - 2,004,680 8. Columbus - 1,754,337 9. Milwaukee - 1,739,497 10. Indianapolis - 1,695,037 11. Louisville - 1,233,735 Congratulations to Kansas City for breaking the 2 million barrier. Also note that last year Columbus passed Milwaukee. I calculated this myself, so info is not guaranteed, YMMV, etc. In particular, if I got the county list wrong, the numbers may be off. I can try to investigate if someone flags an error.

Another hatchet job on Cleveland. Well, I supposed what they say is true. But if there were a real "ground zero" for foreclosures it would be California, which has a higher percentage than Ohio and worse home price declines to boot, but that doesn't fit with the preferred narrative of Midwest decline.

I'm sure it was harder for Cincy and Cleveland. First off, they grew larger in a different era. Also, when you're next to a major body of water such as the Ohio River or Lake Erie, it makes it much easier for people to get their own water without relying on the central city.

Ok, I mean I get it that Cleveland has a foreclosure problem and other problems, but why is the city consistently chosen as the poster child for this? Arguably the problems in general in cities like Detroit are far worse. Yet it always seems that publications have to choose Cleveland to talk about. Just again today the Journal had a front page article talking about local homebuilders going out of business - in Cleveland or course. I think enough is enough. Cleveland has been covered to death, why not look at other places for a change?

Did I say Indy was great? I did not. I merely cited a Census stat, and one that could be seen as supporting Cincinnati's claim to be under-counted. Indy has its own set of challenges, and they are very big indeed.

The study appears to be based on patents, which is why the prevalence of cities with US government labs on the list. This isn't the only predictor of tech success, but it certainly bodes well for Columbus and the press sure can't hurt, especially since they are #1.

Columbus continues to impress.

At least I don't try to deny the facts.

Cleveland has been hit harder than most by trends affecting the entire Midwest. The foreclosure crisis is the latest blow. One thing I can say, and it is clearly in evidence in this thread, is that the people of Cleveland still have a fighting spirit about their town. That's certainly a positive. The most important change that is needed in Cleveland is a mindset change that sees the region as linked and a reciprocal view of city-suburb relations. That doesn't mean what you think it does. Today, most "regionalism" concepts seem to be about forcing outlying areas to pay tribute to Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Until Clevelanders wake up to understanding that a great city needs great suburbs, and their prosperity can't be achieved by choking off outlying growth, I don't see a material change. The mention of Chicago is very appropriate. Neither Cleveland nor any other Midwest city has experienced anything like the Chicago condo boom, which is arguably the biggest in the United States, with literally thousands of units constructed every year. Yet despite this, the city of Chicago as a whole is flat to declining in population. The influx of the "creative class" can't make up for the exodus of everyone else. Any city vision that is founded on a monolithic appeal to upper classes is doomed to fail.

Get ready for the annual "Cincinnati protests the Census estimates" headlines. You can believe if the estimates were telling people they wanted to hear, they wouldn't be complaining. Cincinnati is the most Census protesting city I've ever seen. I think this reflects an essential part of its character in that its residents just can't accept the fact that the rest of the world doesn't think they are as great as they think they are. Cincinnati still thinks this is the 1840's for some reason. There's an incredible solipsism in the local environment that's not healthy. Also, let's assume Cincinnati is right for the sake of the argument. The Census is vastly undercounting their population. Ok. Now, let's ask ourselves, why would Cincinnati be the only city that was a victim of this? If the Census methods are poor, you'd think they more or less affect every city equally. What this would mean is that if Cincy's population is really higher, then Columbus' is higher as well, Kansas City's, etc. Thus Cincinnati's relative standing in the world would be unchanged by revisions to the estimates. Query: How did Hamilton County and Cincinnati's population vary in the actual 2000 Census versus the previous estimates? Was there a large increase? I won't discount the possibility. For example, Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis) saw some crazy 50K or thereabouts increase in its population that hadn't been reflected in the estimates.

As a non-Cincinnatian who has read a lot of city boards over the years, I can say that my personal experience is that Cincinnati boosters take top prize with over the top proclamations about how great Cincy is and how lame other peer cities are. In fact, a common theme is people in Cincinnati talking about how they should really be compared to St. Louis and Atlanta, etc. instead of against Indy and Columbus, whom Cincinnatians seems barely to deem worth consideration. Cincy is an awesome city with the best collection of assets of any similar sized metro in the entire United States. It is a city I believe has enormous potential. But it is also indisputable that Cincy is one of the handful of all time greatest decline stories in US history. Along with St. Louis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, it was a one time top rank city - #5 in population in the US at its peak I believe - that has fallen to third tier relative status. Whatever their faults, Indy and Columbus are at the peak relative importance as cities in their history and still on an upswing. And more people are voting with their feet to go to those cities. That says a heckuva lot about them. I don't suggest Cincy should wallow in woe is me, but a little humility would certainly be in order. Other than the remnants of its once golden past, largely under-exploited, I don't see why Cincinnati would feel so superior other other 1-2 million population Midwestern metros.

Sounds like yet another grandiose plan in the continuing "how great we are" vein. Also, don't let anyone fool you, Charlotte is hurting. They are having big time foreclosure problems. I personally know people who work in the housing business there, and all is not rosy.

Chicago has horrific traffic congestion, a decrepit transit system, crushing taxes, and significant industrial pollution. The weighting put on those items in the study probably led to the city scoring so high on the list.

I love airliners.net too - small world.

Ohio ought to reconsider the Turnpike lease. The same consortium that leased the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road would almost be forced to overbid to get it. Toll increases on those roads will continue to depress Ohio Turnpike traffic levels. Better to get it all under unified ownership, then there would be more rational systemwide pricing.

Here is the actual report http://usmayors.org/uscm/news/press_releases/documents/mortgagereport_112707.pdf

I think that's a good analogy, except maybe it goes a little more like this. Little Loraine grows up and moves out of the house as most kids who grow up want to do. But Ma and Pa Cuyahoga had gotten hooked on federal tax deductions and other subsidies dependent on keeping children in the house. What's more, they hadn't ever changed the furnace filter or otherwise done much of any maintenance on their home, which became a dump. Feeling this was unfair, Ma and Pa cry to the government that Loraine, now grown and trying to raise a family of her own, ought to be forced to move back in and fix up the her parents' run down shack. Or, barring that, be forced to pay to replace the avocado green appliances that Ma and Pa are still using. If you ask me, that's a little closer to the truth.

The price tag on the Louisville bridges project is $4.1 billion and rising. It includes a lot of gold plating, including a $200+ million tunnel under one historic home in Prospect. Opponents of an eastern bridge realized they could never outright kill the project through opposition, so they pursued an alternate track of linking an eastern bridge to a new downtown bridge, Spaghetti Junction reconstruction, and other gold plating such as the aforementioned tunnel to in order to jack the price tag so high the project would collapse for lack of funding. One of the participants in this was Mayor Jerry Abramson, who long opposed an eastern bridge or anything that would allow traffic to bypass downtown Louisville. Also, the $4.1 billion does not include replacing the Kennedy Bridge downtown (I-65). That bridge would be retained under the plan and converted to one way operation while a parallel span carries the opposite direction. The problem is that the Kennedy Bridge is classified as structurally deficient and will need to be replaced in 20 years. While repairs could probably keep it going indefinitely, a bridge plan that doesn't produce a long term strategy for the Kennedy is a ultimately a failure. Cincinnati is in a much better position because it has a parallel downtown interstate crossing (I-471), as well as several other bridge crossings. More importantly, the replacement of the Spence bridge is not encumbered by local politics regarding a bypass.

A previous poster said it best: the Big Dig fiasco has basically made it impossible for any city to replicate what Boston did. Even far less ambitious projects are tarred by opponents as "big digs". If anyone ought to be going to prison for this, it is the state officials who deliberately misled the public about it.