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The real problem with cities is the school problem. Until the school systems are a viable option for educating children of the middle class, this will limit their potential. Keep in mind that Chicago, which is building almost 5,000 condos per year downtown and has experienced probably the biggest condo building boom of any city in the US - there are probably more high rise condo towers under construction in Chicago right now that there are total skyscrapers in Cincinnati - is losing population. The influx of the wealthy can't make up for the departure of everyone else. Incidentally, if there is anyplace that might show a path forward for urban schools, it is Chicago. As having kids has become trendy again, Chicago's yuppie neighborhoods are experiencing horrific stroller congestion. Interestingly, a number of people I know there are planning to stay in the city and give the public schools a shot. If a critical mass of educated, affluent people start putting their kids in the local schools, that's probably the best medicine for a turnaround. Those parents will certainly hold the school's feet to the fire. It will be an interesting experiment at least.

Rando, that only applies to the inter-census projections if I'm not mistaken. The actual Census figures are based on physically counting heads.

Thanks for the info. People in Indiana like to cite Ohio as the type of state with the annexation laws they'd like to see since Ohio doesn't allow involuntary annexations. But I do know that Ohio allows a city to force annexation if someone receives water service. That isn't the case in Indiana. (Indiana municipalities can use sewer service as a lever, but it is pretty easy for developers to put in their own sewage facilities to get by. It's harder to do with water). It looks like Columbus really used water to their advantage. Indiana annexations are typically done pre-development in order to get sewer service and/or to obtain rezoing from agricultural. In the case of Indianapolis, city-county consolidation was passed as a special state law during a rare alignment where the mayor (Richard Lugar, incidentally), governor, and state legislature were all Republicans. (Today the city is becoming almost solidly democrat as the republicans flee to the collar counties). However, the "consolidation" was far from a real consolidation. It did not affect schools (12 districts I think), police (just consolidated last year, over 30 years later), or fire departments (9 or 10 of these out there) among other things. It was really annexation in name only. The primary consolidated entities were administration, parks, and streets. However, it also prevented independent city and county governments from fighting over development and such, as you see happening in Cincinnati all time for example. BTW: In Indiana, townships do not fight annexation because townships are an independent layer of government. The township does not disappear or lose territory just because a city annexs territory in it. Indiana townships appear to be less powerful than Ohio ones.

C-Dawg, you mention perhaps the key point people miss in the population decline numbers: average household size fell dramatically in the 20th century. Even if all those old inner city homes had never been abandoned, population still would have shrunk considerably just due to this. How was Columbus able to keep annexing when other areas didn't? I find it interesting that Columbus was able to get ahold of places like Polaris and not lose them to suburban towns. What was different in Columbus?

They define industrial cities as those in decline, a circular definition. Indianapolis is an industrial city, but isn't on the list because it wasn't in decline. Rather than comparing Ohio to the Sun Belt, this study should have compared Cleveland and Cincinnati to Columbus. Why was Columbus successful when the other two were in relative decline? Cincinnati in particular IMO has an almost unparalleled collection of civic assets, which have largely gone to waste. It's easy to point to things like annexation, but those are effects as much as causes. I'd like to see some real, deep, pointed analysis of why some midwestern cities (Minneapolis, KC, Columbus, Indy) have held their own versus others which have suffered (Cincy, Cleveland, et al). Obviously the fortunes of the auto-industry have a lot to do with Detroit's woes. And I can't help but notice that 3 of the 4 fast growing cities are state capital areas. Still, I don't think that's the full explanation.

If a publically traded company paid a consultant money to commission a study that just so happened to bolster the position that company was selling, what would you think of the quality of that study? Everyone is quick to pooh-pooh corporately sponsored research, but this is basically the same thing. Cincinnati may have slowed or stopped its decline. It may even be growing. But it is likely to be marginal at best. Chicago, home to possibly the greatest urban condo building boom in modern day history, is actually losing population. As for the Census "methodology", the method is to physically count people via surveys. If you'd like to suggest a more accurate method (IMO, one that doesn't give latitude to the person doing the survey to introduce their own biases into the equation), I'd love to hear it.

Not to discount Ikea, which I think is a great addition to Cincinnati, but it's probably just a matter of time before those cities get their own Ikea. Ikea and many of these other chains are in expansion mode and are working down the food chain. As Cincy is the biggest among places you mentioned, it logically bubbles up to the top of the list for a lot of these places. Remember when they used to chart the coolness of a city by how many Starbucks it had? Now you can buy Starbucks at a 24-hour drive through interstate exit store in the middle of nowhere next to the truck stop. As these chains move out of the big cities and into smaller towns, their cachet will diminish as their exclusivity does. I should note I've got some Ikea cabinetry that's being used in an unusual configuration to make a long desk and storage unit. I also have some Ikea plates and such. I believe the store offers excellent value for the money with stylish designs to book.

If you want to see more views of the suburbs of European cities, check out Wendell Cox's www.rentarcartours.net site. Even if you don't agree with Cox, his cataloging of the sprawl in Europe is interesting.

Well, if you want to debate whether or not Atlanta is urban, go ahead. But it won't change the fact that Ohio (and most of the rest of the Midwest) continues to fall behind the nation in the area of growth. I salute Columbus here (Ohio's most suburban big city, by the way), which has continued to outpace the national average. Actually, I would suggest taking a drive up Peachtree Ave. and seeing a lot of inner city Atlanta. Yes, it is not the 19th century rivertown form of Cincinnati (nor as good looking either), but Atlanta is seeing significant reurbanization of its core. Seattle is another city that has significantly urbanized its core as well. (I remember being there in the mid-90's and seeing single family cottages demolished to make way for multi-story condo buildings). There's no doubt Ohio's older cities have great urban assets. The question is whether they can figure out how to monetize them.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to make of this. I agree that MSA/CSA probably isn't the best way to look at cities. Urbanized area might be better, but it is difficult to get stats sliced that way, and it is much more difficult to do time series. I'll go out on a limb here (though I know I shouldn't do this) and trust the wikipedia stats on urbanized area. Atlanta is #11 in the US at 3.5 million. Keep in mind, that was 2000 data an almost 900,000 more people moved somewhere in those 33 counties, most of them likely into the urbanized zone. Cleveland is 1.8 million, Cincinnati is 1.5 million, and Columbus is 1.1 million. I don't know what it would take to convince you that Atlanta is both much larger than any Ohio city and growing at a phenomenal rate that is far and beyond any accident of MSA/CSA geography. Have you all been there latetly? The northern arc of the Perimeter is lined with skycrapers. Heck, Altanta's suburbs generally have better skylines than Chicago's suburbs. Fly into ATL and see the subdivisions go on for miles and miles into the horizon. This is a real boom town. Any reasonable way you slice it, Cleveland is the biggest city in Ohio, but is clearly hurting. Cincinnati is catching up, but its own rather modest growth means it won't catch Cleveland anytime soon. Columbus is the Ohio growth champion. (Interestingly, 3 of the 4 midwest million+ metros with above average growth are state capitals).

There's a difference between Atlanta and Cincinnati, for example. In Atlanta, many of these outlying counties are experiencing huge suburban growth. Atlanta is now over 5 million is a gigantic city. The metro area added 890,000 since 2000 - that's more than the entire population of Hamilton County, Ohio. So I don't necessarily think that having Atlanta have lots of counties is awful. I actually don't object to having lots of counties in a metro area anywhere. What I think is bogus is when people try to inflate their city population by adding rural counties to their MSA or combining MSA's to jack things up artificially. Atlanta is legitimately growing fast, Cincy and Cleveland aren't. I personally think the CSA/MSA thing is a bit bogus in some regards. Los Angeles and San Francisco are functionally split into multiple MSA's in a way I don't like, for example.

I never understood this logic of "Hey, if we only combine 75 counties into our MSA, our population will be over XX million and we'll be bigger than YY". Companies and people see right through that. Rearranging the deck chairs with MSA definitions doesn't affect how big a city is really in any meaningful sense.

Here's how the Midwest metros over one million stacked up, as well as comparison metros about Cincy/Columbus sized: Indianapolis: 9.2% Kansas City: 7.1% Columbus: 7.0% Minneapolis: 6.9% Cincinnati: 4.7% Chicago: 4.5% (huge in absolute number terms though) St. Louis: 3.6% Milwaukee: 0.6% Detroit: 0.4% Cleveland: (1.6%) Here's how some (very roughly) Columbus sized metros in other regions did: South: Raleigh: 24.8% Orlando: 20.7% Charlotte: 19.0% Jacksonville: 13.8% Nashville: 10.9% Memphis: 5.8% Louisville: 5.1% Birmingham: 4.3% New Orleans: (22.2%) West: Las Vegas: 29.2% Austin: 21.1% Sacramento: 15.0% San Antonio: 13.5% Portland: 10.9% Denver: 10.5% Salt Lake City: 10.2% Oklahoma City: 7.0% Other: Hartford: 3.5%

Thanks for the informative link. Interestingly, the Columbus Dispatch's take on this is that Columubs is falling behind Indianapolis, which grew by 9%. (Actually, there's a degree of artificiality going on here. Madison County, Indiana was in the Indy MSA but was taken out at the county's request. Add them back in and Indy's MSA population is slightly ahead of Columbus, but the growth rate would slow too - I don't have the figures in front of me, but Madison County has lost population since 2000. My view is that Indy and Columbus are the closest thing to twin cities in the US). http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/local_news/stories/2007/04/05/INDYGROW.ART_ART_04-05-07_A1_JN69TF6.html

I think you are being a little unfair to the Meridian St (US 31) corridor in North Indianapolis. North of I-465 is Carmel, which is a national leader in quality suburban development. Many years ago they put an overlay zoning ordinance in effect for the Merdian corridor that basically mandates quality office parks be built there. Yes, they are suburban office buildings, but there are actually comparatively few "generic strip malls" - or strip malls of any kind - until you get well north into Westfield. There isn't even a Wal-Mart in Carmel. South of I-465 there is only one mile of mixed use development, which then transitions to predominantly single family residential, including, further south, the Meridian St. historic district, with about two miles of nice 20's and 30's vintage mansions.

Cook County is the second largest county in the nation with well over 5 million people. Pratically speaking, it is like its own state. I expect that when the actual Census is done, Cook won't fare as badly because I don't think the Census Bureau does that great a job of tracking foreign immigration. The population decline in Cuyahoga isn't worth panicking over, but it isn't something to dismiss either.

Chicago is an interesting case. It is a huge city and generalizations are difficult. The stereotype may be of fat Polish guys on the Northwest Side cheering on "Da Bears". But if you are in the professional neighborhoods on the north side of the city, it is a very different story. There are large numbers of very thin, very attractive people.

What I'm saying is this: why are there so many creative people in San Francisco? Is it because of all the creative oriented jobs? Or was it that creative people first came to San Francisco, and they were the ones that started the companies that created the jobs? It takes creative people to start creative businesses. I think it is pretty clear that in the case of San Francisco, the people were there first. Obvisouly, there's a virtuous circle going on. Once you've got the jobs, people want to come there, then the people become an asset that attracts more companies. Silicon Valley is a classic example of this clustering effect. So it is good to try to lure companies in creative industries. But I'd argue that the better strategy to get creative jobs is to try to find way to achieve a small but critical mass of creative people. They will be the ones that start the businesses that generate more jobs. A city is better off with five creative entrepreneurs than a floor full of positions generated by an out of town company. Cities spend lots of time trying to figure out how to lure jobs to town, but invest precious little time in trying to figure out how to create an environment that those young, creative, ambitious, educated people want to live in.

Brewmaster, there is a prevalent view out there that one reason a lot of young educated people leave is because of a lack of jobs. I'm not sure I buy that. Lack of jobs is as much an effect as a cause of the brain draing. What is needed is to create an environment young, ambitious, aggressive, educated young people actually want to live in.

Wow, for people who don't like it when others look down on you, you don't mind taking shots at other places. Have you been to all those institutions in both cities to compare? I can tell you one thing, the central city of Atlanta is experiencing a renaissance that blows Cincinnati out of the water. Yes, Atlanta is an auto-oriented area, but over 100,000 people vote with their feet every year to move there. Atlanta went from a cow town to one of America's largest urban areas. Cincinnati went from the 6th largest city to a has-been. Atlanta must be doing something right.

Atlanta's symphony has a $31 million annual budget, comparable to Cincinnati. They are not a flight by night organization by any means.

Those rankings are ridiculous because they measure strictly quantity, not quality. It's like measuring the vibrancy of a city's restaurant scene based on the number of restaurants. One of the absolute top things Cincinnati has going for it is the top quality of its arts institutions. The CSO would be envy of almost any peer city. Don't be so sure cultural institutions always stay downtown though. The Atlanta Symphony is moving to a new concert hall in the suburbs.

The problem facing Columbus is the same problem that faces all these similar midwestern cities. They all tout themselves as being a "great place to raise a family", with a reasonable cost of living and an easy going quality of life. But for young people without families, much of that has no appeal. In fact, "family friendly" is often a code word for "single people hostile". I sure don't spend much time attending "family friendly" affairs. These cities are all targeting a niche that not what the best and brightest want. Until somebody starts selling a product young people want to buy, they are going to continue to leave.

I'd be interested in seeing how the figures would play out if Ohio State's figure's were not included. Isn't that the largest campus in the United States? IIRC there are nearly 85,000 students. Because students are counted in the population that is going to skew the average age of Columbus downwards. It would be interesting to see a comparison of all these cities with students factored out. It also makes the brain drain look worse than it might other wise be. It simply isn't realistic to expect the majority of graduates of any college to stick around in the ol' college town after graduation, excepting places that are commuter college type institutions to begin with.

The Chicago Transit Authority is a 24 hour system. The Red and Blue Line L's (the two busiest in the system) run 24hours. The Red Line has 15 minute headways all night. Numerous bus lines offer owl service with decent headways. Presumably if you are looking to ride transit when you are drunk, and if you already live in the city, then you know how it works.