arenn

Hi - I thought the city council voted to approve street cars already. Was that just a symbolic move? The WLWT video made it sound like they still don't have the money. Bring back the subway, baby! :)

There are a heckuva lot of pages in this thread and I didn't see it in the last few. Is there a map of the proposed route posted? Is this going to be a city-funded project, assuming it gets approved?

I seriously doubt that you still huge increases in transit simply by switching from bus to rail. You can bet your bottom dollar that there was more than a vehicle shift, including: - Turning the bus system into a feeder for rail - Increased capacity - Shorter headways - Inclusion of signal pre-emption or other technologies - Better maintenance and cleanliness of the rail Also, how long is it sustained over the long term and what does it cost. Even in Chicago, with its extensive and famed L system, the bus system actually carries more riders. And often the bus service provides better door to door times.

Right - the banks want pay day lenders fees for making _unsecured_loans_ to be lower than what banks charge to take your own money out of an ATM machine. Something's not right there.

No matter what the problem - global warming, high gas prices, subprime, etc - the culprit and the cure is always the same: stop "sprawl", rebuild cities, etc. This has been going on for 20 years now. It's post hoc justification of a previously desired result. Here's another way to deal with the gas crisis: move more jobs closer to the suburban fringe to reduce the number people with long commutes. Actually, this has been going on for some time now with most job growth in addition to population growth happening in the burbs. Also, it is just as easy to build more small homes, apartments and condos in the burbs as it is downtown. Actually, it is easier in many respects.

I was in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago for the first time in about a year. I am always amazed by downtown Cincy. Even when one would have said it was in bad shape, I always loved the narrow streets and more or less intact streetscapes. The riverfront engagement to downtown is a thousand times better than when I used to go to Riverfront Stadium as a kid. The problems in Cincy aren't downtown - but get even a short distance away and the blight is obvious. I spent some time listening to that Cunningham fellow. Wow, he is over the top to say the least. In fact, he featured prominently in a blog post I wrote up about the trip and city, if any of you are interested in reading it. http://theurbanophile.blogspot.com/2008/05/cincinnati-midwest-conundrum.html Obviously I'm not a particular cheerleader of Cincinnati as many of you know, but hopefully you'll give me credit for all the positive things I say at least, since there's a lot of it. Every time I visit Cincy and tour around its neighborhoods I am absolutely blown away.

How many sick kids are there in Cincinnati? I just spent some time there last week and was amazed at how many different facilities Children's Hospital has. I think I must have seen four or five scattered around.

Well, banks have long effectively been in the payday loan business through the extremely high fees charged for overdrafts, low balances, etc. Then there is the pawnshop route, etc. If I were a regulator, I'd focus more on the financial system as a whole, not one particular segment.

A cab from O'hare to downtown is probably about $40.

Nashville must be doing something right, given that it's population and business growth and tourism revenue is leaving Columbus in the dust. The are about to build a new $1 billion downtown convention center, for example. I personally don't care for Nashville all that much. The downtown music establishments are all strictly cover band joints, which I find anathema. They are still building even upscale subdivisions without full sidewalks. But they must be doing something right. Check out the state and trajectory of the Nashville Symphony and their very nice Schermerhorn Center venue compared to the sad state of the Columbus Symphony.

Put down the crack pipe and slowly move away. Yes, Detroit had its Motown sound and electronica and some rappers. It's definitely a town that is a force in music. But the indie rock scene in Chicago today is second to none, IMO. Go check out the listings for the Empty Bottle, Schuba's, the Hideout, the Metro, and the numerous other venues, many of whom are local acts. Check out the roster on local labels like Thrill Jockey, Drag City, and Bloodshot Records, again, many of whom are locally based. There's nothing in the Midwest remotely like Chicago in terms of putting out quality rock music.

So what methodology did Columbus use when it branded itself "the indie arts capital of the world" - not just Ohio or the US mind you, the whole world?

The reactions here and at Columbus Underground are typical of what we see of the average Midwestern city, blinded by its own press. Cincinnati can't believe the Census figures, Columbus can't believe the arts figures. I happen to agree that any survey of the arts which is purely quantitative is of dubious merit. But for things like the arts, unlike population, there's no good way to do it. Still, when the main reaction to something is to attack the surveyors and not engage in legitimate self-reflection and examination of the world at large, I think it shows an unhealthy outlook. Does anyone in Columbus have enough knowledge of the arts in Kansas City or Charlotte or any of the other places surveyed to really state definitively how great Columbus is compared to those cities? Columbus residents know their assets inside and out. It would be easy to overlook what other cities have to offer in a cursory scan. Saying you are the indie art capital of the world doesn't make it true. So by all means I do think the survey should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, perhaps some level of asking whether or not Columbus is as great as it is ought to be asked. The traditional fine arts, such as the symphony, do not appear to be particularly distinguished in Columbus.

I don't know why anyone would think the Social Compact methodology is better than the Census Bureau, particularly as they are an advocacy group with a point of view to promote. The key is to focus on getting everyone properly counted in 2010. This is a person by person count and it is critical not to miss anyone.

By the way, we're talking about Chicago, not New Yawk or Philly. That makes it the `L', not the 'el'. The Orange Line is the best way downtown from Midway. Right now the Blue Line to O'Hare is having intermittent construction and is slow zoned to death. I don't recommend it unless you are really pinched for cash, but if you do, budget at least an hour. Aaron.

I can't say for Ohio, but I do know that Marion County, IN (Indianapolis core county) was markedly higher in the census than the estimates indicated. I think it was close to 50K or something.

There is a heck of a lot of positive spin in that Cincinnati article, which should cheer up those of you who think the media always focuses on the negative.

Official totals are out, with corrections to my errors: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/011671.html

There are no more CMSA's. Rather, there are MSA's and CSA's. CSA's are sort of roughly like the old CMSA's, except that they are much larger entities in most cases. MSA's can be made of metropolitan divisions, but no one really appears to pay attention to that. There is also a new concept of a "micropolitan area" Cincinnati has way more counties, but in fairness, most of them have negligible population (e.g., Ohio County, Indiana). The OMB trend of adding lots of very rural counties to MSA's, is not one I'm a fan of. As I said, urbanized area is probably the best apples-to-apples comparator of city population. Another measure I quite like is the BEA Economic Area, which is effectively the functional economic unit. It is generally more expansive than even the CSA, but I believe gets the CSA concept more right.

If that map is accurate, I think I made one error in my calculations by not including Bracken County, Kentucky in the Cincy area. However, that's a tiny county with a nearly immaterial population.

They are completely separate MSA's now.

The urbanized area population doesn't follow a political jurisdiction boundary, which probably makes it a bit difficult to get the information. It's a shame, because this is the most useful measure of city size. It would be nice if more data were available sliced by urbanized area. Even that has its faults. As with the MSA definitions, local requests can tweak the rules. Two examples here. The Indianapolis MSA used to include Madison County (home of the city of Anderson). But Anderson wanted to be their own MSA, so the Census Bureau ejected them from the Indianapolis MSA at their request. Also, parts of Marion County, Indiana are clearly still rural, and so should not be in the urbanized area. However, since Indianapolis is a consolidated city, they petitioned to have all of Marion County included in the urbanized area, and they succeeded in that as well.

The Bay Area is a great example of how things break down a bit. The Bay Area consists of two MSA's: the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA and the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA. The San-Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA has two Metropolitan Divisions: the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City division and the Oakland-Fremont-Hayward division.

If you see a number you don't think looks right, let me know and I can double check and/or post the raw data I used. I created the list using the most recent county level population estimates from the Census Bureau, along with whatever MSA definitions I could find. The most likely source of an error would be incorrectly including or excluding a county from an MSA. However, the total numbers look broadly correct to me.

Interesting. Unfortunately, I don't get paid to research population statistics. So I'm only able to do a limited amount in my spare time. I'm sure there are a lot of good nuggets out there, but really analyzing the data requires more time than I have available. Do you have any hypotheses about drivers?