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Most of the insurance companies are long gone too. However, Wellpoint is a notable exception. Conseco is still in business too if you can believe that.

When I'm in Chicago I regularly experience the sardine can experience on the L at rush hour.

Nice work. Indy is low in finance because it lost all of its hometown banks. Indiana long had restrictive branching laws, largely designed to keep Indy's banks bottled up in Indy. When the laws were changed, Indy's banks were minnows and swallowed up by out of state banks rapidly.

Jeff, there actually isn't that much office space north of the river, though that is starting to change a bit. It is mostly residential, hotel, and entertainment. The real office boom has been the West Loop along Wacker and beyond. There's almost perpetually a 1.5 million square footer going up in that area. The draw: proximity to the main commuter rail stations. I think the preference for locations close to the commuter stations vs. the L shows an interesting shift. Chicago's CBD has over 100 million square feet of office space. But there are many other uses as well. I read somewhere that about 200,000 people go to school in downtown Chicago. There are many, many colleges there - DePaul, Northwestern, U of C, SAIC, Harrington, Columbia College, Roosevelt, Harold Washington College, and many more - I'm constantly discovering schools I'd never heard of before. There are also huge amounts of tourists of course, and an increasing number of residents. These things give downtown Chicago a life its office base could never sustain.

Well, Mr. Urban Surfin, if you get your way, then those of us who live in Columbus' competitors say Thank You. It's odd. Columbus has a full 360 degree inner loop, which isn't that common. One would think that might be an asset, but it is unfortunately so poorly designed that it is sucking up a huge portion of the transportation funds that might go to other critically needed highway projects. If not for the safety issues, I'd probably say the debate is properly one around can the city afford to do the innerbelt when I-270 needs big upgrades that likely can't be funded?

David, I'll admit to not being that up on the prices in downtown Cincy, but from what I've seen of Indy and Louisville, most downtown condos are luxury units that are at a significant price premium to the rest of the market. In fact, they are often marketed as pieds-a-terre. The prices on many units in Indy aren't that much cheaper than Chicago. I'd love to see some dirt cheap condos in downtown Cincy. If you've got a link to some, please send my way as I am definitely looking for undervalued properties to purchase.

The innerbelt Columbus reconstruction is a critically needed project. It is congested, unsafe, and I-70 goes down to one through lane. Not good. The idea that the interstate is responsible for inner-city ills is not reasonable. Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Lexington, KY were bypassed by the interstate and have had the exact same problems as anywhere else. Speaking of Ft. Wayne, that also illustrates that people will not take a bypass route that is longer in mileage even with signage directing them to. People are going through downtown regardless of the through route signage on the south part of the I-270 loop. What's more, as previously noted, on the south side parts of I-70 are only two lanes each way. That road would require major upgrades to handle through routed traffic. The Columbus MSA is increasing in population by 200,000 people per decade. Think of your favorite city of 200,000 people and think about all the infrastructure it has. Columbus has to provide that every decade just to keep up with its growth in population. I'm all in favor of in-city revitalization and living, and better transit options. But the radical anti-highway views of so many urban activists is off the mark. High quality of life - largely low housing costs and low congestion vs. urban amenities - is what Columbus is selling. People are not going to move to Columbus if it has horrible traffic congestion if there are other regional cities with a broadly similar value proposition (Cincy, Indy, KC) that are taking care of business on the infrastructure front.

Keep in mind, anything Obama would put into cities through his programs could easily be sucked back out again through his tax increases on high income earners. I can't imagine Mayor Daley is looking with enthusiasm on the idea that tends of thousands of upscale city residents in Chicago now have less in their pockets to spend, especially with the ill winds of recession already blowing (home sales down 21%, prices down 9% - worse than the suburbs, many restaurants and stores closing, etc.) Real estate prices in say Cincy type cities in the downtown are very high compared to metro area medians, and require significant free cash flow to afford.

The 2nd St. bridge is the only one that allows non-motorized traffic presently. It has the bike route chevrons painted on the lanes, but I think you'd have to be crazy to try to bike in the extremely narrow traffic lanes. Walking your bike across on the sidewalk as you did is by far the best solution.

Right. If SF and San Jose aren't considered the same MSA, then Cincy-Dayton surely won't be, though there's a definite tighter linkage between the two day by day. A lot of this is driven by the outward suburban expansion and the relative decline of Dayton however, two factors I doubt most people are that happy to see.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4220931/ DL/DL Connection filed with OAG the termination of 4 CVG routes beginning in January. CVG-AVP/AZO/MHT/PWM will end. They did show CVG-SAT reinstated at the same time. These should appear in GDS by Monday.

Power centers were basically the retail fad concept prior to lifestyle centers. Presumably, in a similar way, lifestyle centers will end up obsoleted by the next gen retail concept.

Great news about the city's finances. Lots of places are getting whacked and hard.

Here's a list of corporate HQ's in Michigan. Obviously they aren't all in Detroit, but most of the big ones are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_based_in_Michigan

The Detroit terminals are no longer the newest complex. IND just this week opened an entire brand new terminal complex. It's not a hub operation by any means, so there's a bit of apples to oranges here, but it is newer. The jury is still out on functionality, but from what I've seen (and I've seen a lot), the new IND is the best all around terminal in America. It's not groundbreaking architecture, but it is very, very good. I have a lengthy seven part review on my blog with tons of photos if you are interested.

While Detroit is obviously the sickest metro in the country and is terribly auto-dependent, there are a lot of other corporate headquarters. Way more than Cincy or any similar sized city. Just population alone dictates a far larger traffic base than Cincy. BTW: Airlines don't just care about the profitability of the route, it is about their company as a whole. If they can put that metal to work better elsewhere, they will.

CVG's O&D traffic is anemic. If the corporate community of Cincinnati wants to save the hub, they should do what the corporate community of Minneapolis has done: buy lots of airplane tickets. I believe about 45% of MSP's traffic is O&D. There are precedents for corporate subsidies (such as the Pfizer subside for London service from RDU), but in this economy and industry, industrial logic is going to come first.

I think some cities like Chicago were able to get federal money for their Deep Tunnel project. But I think the key to those places is that they were able to sell it as flood control, which the feds will give money for. Plus Chicago has long had political clout in DC for its pet projects.

Detroit is not going to be a Cincy class sized city any time soon. Detroit also has some of the absolute best facilities of any airport in the country. They have the brand new WorldPort and the brand new North Terminal. The "Aerotopolis" strategy has the airport being the centerpiece of the area's future economic growth. I think DTW is just fine, though obviously the Detroit region is a complete basket case right now.

I'm not sure it is a good thing, but I don't think it has to be a particularly bad one either. The CVG hub has not helped Cincy grow faster than Indy or Columbus or Kansas City. For every loss from a direct Paris flight, you gain in everyone else's lower fares. I think it could end up as a wash.

I have to say the CVG hub is on the chopping block, just like STL and PIT before it. Detroit is a metro of 5.5 million with air traffic demand that drawfs Cincinnati. Cincinnati probably has the lowest O&D of any hub out there, probably due to its extremely high fares. There's no real demand for air service levels in CVG above those provided to IND and CMH. CVG is one of the smallest market hubs in America and lack the geographic characteristics of other small market hubs like SLC or DEN. I think it is only a matter of time before CVG shrinks to focus city status. That won't necessarily be a bad thing.

Almost every city in America has a billion+ dollar mandate to fix sewers. Indy is saving about $300 million via green approaches, but I haven't heard of anyplace that has gotten away with not having to do anything. The complaining I hear in the article is a waste of time. The Clean Water Act is a huge unfunded mandate on our cities, but there's nothing you can do about it. Tell Obama to fix that one, if he's Mr. City Friendly.

IIRC, Richard Florida's hypothesis is that traditional fine arts aren't an economic driver. Rather, it is the indie arts that provide more direct engagement opportunities for the young and creative. I suspect he'd lump high class orchestras in with convention centers and stadiums. I'm not always a Florida true believer, but I think there's a big of AND logic going on here. It helps to have both.

I spent some time reading through that old Quiet Crisis series today. I actually thought it was quite good. Not everything was negative, but I think they pretty much told it like it is. I'm not that familiar with Cleveland I'll be the first to admit, but many of the suggestions they made for the city seemed like good advice and much of it is not dissimilar from what I've told Indy and other places. The metrics are Cleveland are just plain awful. I agree the "storyline" of decline is probably overplayed. Why not pick on California about foreclosures for example? But the evisceration of the local economy, the lack of immigration, the population implosion, low educational attainment, etc. are all real and easily verified by consulting the standard sources. I happen to think Cleveland and Ohio and can turn it around. Unlike, say, Detroit, Cleveland does not suffer the twin problems of being single-industry dependent and so big that there is just a gigantic mouth to feed. Cleveland's got assets like the lake, the Cleveland Clinic, and it's transit infrastructure (which is probably one of the best for any city its size in the country and probably the best in the Midwest outside Chicago). But there is a huge amount to be done. Cleveland doesn't just have a marketing problem.

I figure there are still about 1-2 million jobs in aggregate that will be lost directly or indirectly as a result of auto industry restructuring.