arenn

buckeye, I believe if you have 200,000 or more people in a county, you can form your own MPO. This is the case in Indiana at any rate, though it requires the governor's approval. I'm not certain what state law says.

I'm totally on board with the idea that the value created by infrastructure improvements should be taxed to fund the community. I'd actually encourage a very strong reliance on a Land Value Tax as the best funding source for government generally. Look, I hate generic subdivisions as much as the next guy. I've chosen to embrace a hard core urban lifestyle that suits my personal values. But we've all got to resist the urge to believe that our values are universal values, or that all people share the same goals and aspirations that we do as urbanophiles. Just because I find much suburban development ugly and not to my liking dosn't mean other people don't like it or that it is some manifestation of purest evil. There are basically two ways to justify something: on the principle of rightness (call it morals, ethics, etc) or the principle of utilitarianism (net positive public benefits). When people claim that both principle and utilitarianism align perfectly, and that this just so happens to also align with their personal lifestyle preferences, it sends up a red flag with me. Many of us just can't comprehend that someone could actually want to live in a subdivision full of kids and cul-de-sacs. So rather than seeking to truly understand what drives people's decisions, we invent external reasons why people are somehow forced against their will (e.g., nefarious government collusion with powerful development interests) to move to Naperville. Now I think Naperville has a spectacular downtown, but most of it is my personal definition of hell. Yet I know several people who live there and love it - and others who actually aspire to live there. Beats the heck out of me why, but I've got to respect their values and not impose my own. Or somehow convince myself that my values are the one true way and the only way to save our cities or planet. Chicago, San Francisco, NYC, Boston, Paris, London, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and many others show that you can have both a thriving city and thriving suburban areas. The two are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. What's really needed in Cleveland is leadership. The type of leadership that people like Jim Brainard, mayor of the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, have brought. He's aggressively adding bike trails, building infrastructure, annexing, densifying, building a downtown from scratch, etc. in a program that is totally transforming his town. Not only has it been a leader - though not without controversy, as any bold moves with generate - it has forced every suburban community to elevate its game and is even having an impact on the city of Indianapolis. Indianapolis proper continues to experience significant problems because of a lack of leadership. Though I don't agree with much of what he does, Mayor Daley of Chicago has been a key leader for Chicago. Look at what Giuliani did in NYC - it was nothing less than a transformation of a metropolis once called ungovernable. Imagine what a Guiliani could do for a place like Cleveland? What is needed in Cleveland is real leadership, not this sort of us vs. them mentality.

I'd say Chicago does need its major suburban centers. Corporate transfers from other cities don't all want to end up in third floor walkups in the city with no parking. Naperville fills a role. I'm sympathetic to part of the argument. For example, I think one of the problems we face is that residents can run up huge unfunded liabilities in one town, then just move to a new place and repeat the same process without ever having to face the bill. Some infrastructure buildout probably counts here. However, this idea that some type of subsidy in suburban areas causes people to want to move out of Cleveland is ridiculous. The real problem is: people don't want to live in Cleveland. That's not unique to Cleveland, but it seems like Cleveland has that disease worse than most older cities. The real answer is to try selling a product people want to buy - and to recognize that the day when the vast majority of people - particularly families with kids - want to live in traditional city neighborhoods is long past. Even in Chicago, with an incredibly thriving city, the suburbs continue to boom. If that's true in Chicago, Cleveland doesn't have a chance of stopping it. To say that you can stop suburbanization by denying infrastructure funds to suburban areas is hopelessly naive. It's like thinking you can stop globalization by passing law to ban all imports. The cure is far worse than the disease.

Actually, I'm saying that Cuyahoga County and Cleveland trying to hold onto business by choking their suburban regions is crazy. Avon actually is willing to pay for the interchange. What is needed is real regional thinking. Too often "regionalism" means nothing more than propping up the central city. But it needn't be like that. Great cities need great suburbs. Trying to force everything into the central county by shutting off transportation improvements outside of some growth boundary only means that business will pass you by in favor of other cities that don't think this way. Trying to choke off your own suburbs is myopic thinking. Much like the leg deciding the best way to keep blood flowing to it is to chop off an arm.

Wow - talk about unclear on the concept. It is now easy for me to see why Cleveland is one of the great all time decline stories in the United States. Grade F- for leadership from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County on this one.

I was really surprised by the low Hispanic numbers in Hamilton County. That's one area where I do think it is difficult to get good estimates because of rapid changes and the desire of many illegal aliens not to be counted. Contrast with Jefferson County, KY (Louisville) which had about 18,000 Hispanics. Marion County, IN (Indianapolis) had about 56,000 Hispanics. Milwaukee County, WI had over 103,000 Hispanics. A good chunk of the population growth disparity between Indy and Chicago appears to be explainable by higher levels of Hispanic immigration. Obviously both Indy and Milwaukee are bigger draws to Hispanics because of their proximity to Chicago. What was the Hispanic population in Franklin and Cuyahoga counties?

Well, Jeffrey. A lot of those Louisville people live in real cities like Jeffersontown, St. Matthews, and Shively. It isn't just 6th class cities. The point is, every other consolidated municipality gets treated the same way by the Census Bureau. Even the ridiculous "included cities" of Indy's Unigov are counted separately. Louisville is lying about its standing. If it wants to count county population, then it should say where it stands on the list of top counties nationally, not cities.

I think having Cincy and Dayton being close helps in some regard. For example, one reason IKEA is probably opening a Cincy store before Columbus, etc. is that it has not only a large base MSA, but also draws from the Dayton area as well. This cuts both ways a bit, because it really puts a "northern bias" into location decisions in the Cincy area. Cincinnati is already an unbalanced metro area. The center of gravity is not downtown already, and to the extent that Dayton becomes part of the metro area, it will only shift the center of gravity further north.

Rando, what's more, Louisville is actually the 25th or so largest city, even if you go by raw Census numbers. The city-county merger left intact all existing municipalities in Jefferson County, and the Census Bureau always excludes these from the city population. Yet Louisville's leaders constantly count the entire county population as the city population. That's actively deceptive.

Cincy-Rise, you do realize that the vast bulk of Europeans live in suburbs, not the quaint city centers we Americans visit when we go there. They shop at gigantic hypermarkets, etc.

Maybe while all these people are getting together, they should be talking about how they can collaborate and work together more, as opposed how they can just jointly complain about the Census.

Just to give you a sense of how the numbers can vary, Grubb and Ellis says that the Indianapolis office market is 46 million square feet. That clearly includes some outlying areas such as Delaware County. CB Richard Ellis says Indy has about 30 million square feet. Colliers also has Indy at 30 million square feet.

Interesting. I've never looked at the Grubb and Ellis number before - they are significantly higher than CB Richard Ellis which is my usual source. Keep in mind that most of these surveys only include leasable space, so owner-occupied buildings don't get included.

I don't believe the focus should be on retaining talent. Rather, the focus should be on attracting it. There's a big difference. As Morton Marcus at the Indiana Business Research Center pointed out, Indiana's brain drain problem isn't a question of too much outflow, it's a result of too much inflow. While I'll admit freely this is my own value set here, I think it is a good thing for people to grow up and move away from the old home town. Some can return, some won't. But a city full of people who've never lived anywhere else isn't a recipe for progress.

There is also the question of whether a city should want to have a few, very high quality flagship institutions (for example, the Cleveland Orchestra) or many smaller institutions and individuals of variable quality. Obviously one would ideally prefer quantity and quality, but when it comes to, for example, doling out precious funds, people need to make choices. For comparison's sake, orchestrafacts.org lists the annual budget of some regional orchestras: Cleveland: $36 million Cincinnati: $32 million Indianapolis: $24 million Columbus: $10.5 million Louisville: $7 million

Rando, you raise an interesting point about the city and inner ring suburbs making common cause. I've observed the same point in Louisville, where there is also a patchwork quilt of municipalities. Just recently the city and county finally voted to merge. My view is that the county residents finally woke up to the fact that they are soon to be "inner city" residents themselves as growth shifts to the collar counties. Hamilton County troubles is actually good news in a sense for local cooperation.

grasscat, it is amazing that you are able to remember all these old threads and keep showing how a story develops over multiple years. That helps put things in context to say the least. Great stuff.

Won't ODOT have to pay this farmer guy for not only the land they take, but also the diminished economic value of the rest of his property which will lose highway access? That could get real expensive.

Somebody should take a defined district and do a special census to try to find these people. Again, if a neighborhood is really having its population underestimated by about 50%, it should be easy to at least find say 25% more actual people just by looking. I'm always skeptical of these statistical analyses, which can be tweaked to make the answer come out like you want it to. What's more, if Cincy is legitimately undercounted, it's likely all of its peer cities were too, thus the census would accurately portray its relative standing. Social Compact should publish details of their methods and make their raw data available for independent inspection if they expect their study to be taken seriously. I did a quick google for it but couldn't find anything, so if anyone has a link, let me know please.

Does anyone know exactly how the compiled their property list and exactly how they calculated their occupancy percentage? If Cincinnati is like most cities, it has a large amount of vacant housing and vacant lots, so it would be easy to inflate the rates for either of these through some sort of miscounting. I'm particular skeptical of what they called "utility usage rates". What does that mean exactly?

I took a look at that Social Compact report. Much the bulk seems to be repeated information for various neighborhoods. I only really looked for the methodology they used for their population estimates. It wasn't very detailed and so I can't give a real assessment. But there seemed to be plenty of wiggle room in it. I also find it ironic that they are willing to take the Census Bureau's word for average household size when they don't believe any other figure. I would say, however, if there are really 47% more people than the Census records in some neighborhoods, it should be easy enough to create a list of names that exceeds the Census total by some more than nominal amount.

I feel like a celebrity. I'm happy to correct any factual mis-statements I've made. Obviously you can disagree with my conclusions derived from them. Indianapolis and Columbus can be dismissed as state capitals if you want. But Kansas City is right there with them, and it is neither a state capital, nor the largest metro in the state. What's more, it is also on a river and is a multi-state metro. Social Compact is an activist lobbying organization. I see no reason to believe that their figures are any better than the Census Bureau's. It's also not clear to me what Cincinnati gains from challenging these figures. By the way, I don't think Indy, Columbus, or KC are perfect. In fact, I'll be the first to say that I think Indy is in a precarious position. It's job market has struggled recently and the city is suffering from a financial crisis, out of control crime, and suburban decay. The old central city of Indianapolis has been hollowed out just like Cincy has. And the amount of downtown development is only a drop in the bucket compared to what has left and compared to suburban growth, where one subdivision could have more homes than every condo being built downtown put together. Still, I think that for the Midwest, Indy, Columbus, KC, and Minneapolis have found a way to distinguish themselves. While all cities suffer from boosterism, these places didn't get where they are through complaining about Census figures and otherwise arguing about data.

Every one of these stats cuts both ways. For example, Cincinnati isn't central in its region. That actually helps its central population. Like almost all river cities, Cincy has unbalanced growth with the bulk of the population on the Ohio side. "Sprawl" went mostly straight north and only to a lesser extent south. Talking about density is a red herring. (We could have a separate discussion on that point, but I don't think anyone disputes that Cincinnati was originally built out in a far different style than most Midwest cities, has dense development patters, great architecture, and wonderful neighborhoods and topography). The facts are: - The Cincinnati metro area is growing, but more slowly than the national average. - The main factor that has driven Cincinnati's metro area population up over the 2 million mark is adding counties to the MSA (now up to 15 or so I believe), not organic growth. - Even in the Midwest, a number of other metros are growing faster than Cincy (KC, Columbus, Indianapolis, Minneapolis). - This means that regions that were formerly much smaller than Cincinnati have closed the gap, and continue to close it in population, economic growth, etc. just as Cincinnati has closed in on declining Cleveland. - Outside of the Midwest, Cincinnati's growth is dwarfed by the likes of Charlotte, NC and many other places in terms of population growth. - Yes, Cincinnati is growing faster than Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. But those are low hurdles to jump. - Central Cincinnati has been in a population decline for many decades. - Even if this has reversed (which is not borne out by the figures), it is really just stabilization, not real growth. - It's true in Cincy and true even in the other places I've mentioned (Indy, Columbus, etc) that while some downtown condos have been built, the totals are typically vastly inflated in media reports (e.g., "thousands of condos" implying some dizzying building spress) and the actual number built would not add up to the number of housing units in one decent sized suburban subdivision. - Even the city of Chicago, which truly is throwing up thousands of condos every year and which has experienced perhaps the greatest urban condo building boom in America because of land availability and pro-development policies, is losing population. Downtown districts represent only a small subset of a city's geographic area. The city of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, and the metro area as a whole continue to be relative decline. The correct way to look at yourself is not just to measure yourself against your own past, but against what is going on out there in the world. That doesn't mean mindlessly imitating others. But it does mean understanding your competitive standing, not just celebrating because someone built a few condos downtown. Even projects like the Banks, if it ever gets off the ground, are unlikely to materially move the dial. I think it is telling that it is cities like Cincinnati, St. Louis and Detroit, paragons of American decline, that are challenging estimates. Cities that are actually going somewhere don't feel the need to do this. I happen to think Cincinnati has simply the best collection of assets of any city/metro its size in America. I believe it could become a premier city again, though the days of it being a top ten place are almost certainly gone forever. But that takes hard work and working together for common projects, not just working together to complain about the Census Bureau. Cincinnatians should ignore the Census estimates, roll up their sleeves, and get to work.

Cincinnati is clearly in relative decline. Any way you slice it, other regional peer cities (KC, Columbus, Indy) are growing faster. Keep in mind, Hamilton County peaked at 924,000 in 1970 - that's a higher value than Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis) as ever had. Now Hamilton County has less than Marion, with only 815,000 people - a drop of over 100,000 since its peak. Projections call for nearly another 100,000 in further declines over the next two decades. Even if this is reversed and Cincy actually grows, the region will continue to decline in relative standing on all measures.

If only Cincinnatians put as much effort into actually building their city as they do into fighting about every factoid that doesn't support the local entitlement mentality, it really would be one of the great American cities. Cincinnati has experienced one of the greatest urban collapses in the United States, going from one of the nation's premier cities to an also-ran. But this doesn't seem to have dawned on anyone locally. They'd rather talk about how once the Census Bureau combines them with Dayton, they'll be over 3 million population. I've never seen a city whose boosters are so aggressive at arguing facts and figures, but so passive in actually going anything to build a city. That's why former backwater towns like Columbus and Indianapolis are now nipping at Cincy's heels. They are actually out there doing something, not complaining about the Census Bureau. By the way, note how the Census Bureau/OMB is suddenly the source of gospel truth when it comes to adding all those counties to the Cincinnati MSA.