This I just don't get. You would think that the big cities in Ohio would be throwing plenty of subsidies at artists to move into neglected areas which are a serious drain on a city's economic resources and offer virtually nothing to the local economies. Even Columbus forgot that all of the positive economic transactions being made in the trendy Short North (including all the taxes they receive from expensive, occupied homes) is all thanks to local artists who made an undesirable area desirable. Only this year did this city set aside a decent amount of money aimed at artists for the eastern portion of Franklinton. What about more of the languishing business districts that would be economically favorable for the city if only they gave subsidies today that would more than be returned tomorrow? Do you feel that your city is missing the boat in this regard?

I think Cleveland does a pretty good job supporting artists in the Collinwood area.

I think Cleveland does a pretty good job supporting artists in the Collinwood area.

 

And in the arts district downtown on Superior (east of the PD).

I think it would be difficult for Cleveland to make housing and gallery space for artists any cheaper than it already is.  You can pretty much live anywhere in the city for a very modest rent and find underused commercial space in more marginal areas for virtually nothing.

I think Cleveland does a pretty good job of supporting artists. When I covered Cleveland City Hall for Sun Newspapers, I noticed they seemed to really bend over backwards to accommodate artists. They recognized the artists' positive contribution to stabilizing and improving neighborhoods. The old rule among real estate investors is that, when they saw artists starting to populate a certain neighborhood, that neighborhood became more worthy of attention.

Collinwood seems to be the major artist-oriented neighborhood in recent years. While rent for commercial space is cheap in numerous business districts, that alone isn't enough. Those underutilized spaces usually need renovations after several years of minimal or non-existent upkeep, which many artists can't afford on their own and is where subsidies would really come in handy. This thread from 2009 shows some storefronts on Waterloo that were lacking occupants and if that's still the case it might be a sign that the city could do more to better fill out this area and turn it up a notch.

Collinwood has just gotten a decent amount of press lately.  It is hardly the "major artist oriented neighborhood" in the Cleveland area.  The map posted in the artist pioneers thread demonstrates this point.

Could Cleveland be doing more? I suppose so, but I'd say Cleveland learned a long time ago (well, the 80s when the Warehouse District was an "artists' neighborhood"):

 

http://www.cpacbiz.org/business/CreativeCompass.shtml

 

In a more general sense, they are often overlooked because artists generally do not create the type of income that is so often desired in revitalization efforts. When people speak of redeveloping Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati - under 3CDC, the general targeted resident is a young professional, high wage earner or those who are retired. To that, their properties are often for rent in the $800+/month range, or sell in excess of $150,000 easy. You can't afford that if you are a painter all too often.

 

But there are bright spots. A developer from Minnesota is proposing a $20 million artists colony in Over-the-Rhine - outside of 3CDC, which will be blocks from the Art Institute of Cincinnati and a block from the new School for Creative and Performing Arts. I am unsure on their funding, however.

That leads to my main point; low-income artists themselves are not the ones buying homes and rehabbing them or renovating a commercial space to open a businesses, but they're the enablers for such activity to even occur. If artists didn't move into the Short North, for example, the neighborhood would still be suffering economically while also burdening the city with the need to demolish far-gone Victorian and Italianate homes along with numerous unused commercial buildings. Without artists moving into these places you have no yuppies, empty nesters, or DINKS spending their money in these neighborhoods, let alone possibly gentrify them.

 

I was definitely off about Collinwood; I was fooled by the kinds of businesses on dense Waterloo Rd. It looks like Tremont would be the main one in Cleveland proper while Cleveland Heights is up there too. Of course, you also don't want to spread them too thin. In the case of Columbus a new artist oriented district is overdue since rents have been high in the Short North for years since gentrification made some huge inroads. Any serious efforts to get artists into OTR would yield positive results for sure and it's easily the best candidate. There are few other takers who would be willing to make inroads into the neighborhood, as evidenced by how empty some of those buildings have sadly stood.

^OTR has been a haven for artists for years.  Main St in the 90's was mostly the result of artist revitalization, even if the ground floors of many of the buildings held night life.  The Pendleton Arts Center is a 7 story warehouse entirely consisting of artist's studios, and has been around for a while.  The Art Academy is in OTR which has some dedicated student housing, and there are many theatres, galleries, and arts institutions located in and around OTR.  OTR is a really large neighborhood, and to expect artists to entirely turn the area is asking a little too much, imo.  Artists help lay the foundation for further investment in neighborhoods, which I think we are seeing played out as 3CDC is making such huge inroads a good 2 decades after the artists ventured in to OTR.  I think the arts scene is really taking off in Northside, and that is where the up and coming artist neighborhood is in Cincy (and it's already well on its way).

I was definitely off about Collinwood; I was fooled by the kinds of businesses on dense Waterloo Rd. It looks like Tremont would be the main one in Cleveland proper while Cleveland Heights is up there too.

 

I don't think Cleveland Heights fits the model you are talking about.  Cleveland Heights always has been and always will be a magnet for eclectic types like artists.  It is flush with artists in neighborhoods that really don't call for the type of 'revitalization' you are advocating for. 

 

I believe what you are thinking of is represented in Tremont and Ohio City to an extent, and moreso in the arts district along Superior.

I think the arts scene is really taking off in Northside, and that is where the up and coming artist neighborhood is in Cincy (and it's already well on its way).

 

Yes, I was going to mention Northside. Gays and artists, I would argue, have been the main forces behind Northside's revitalization. (They kind of go hand-in-hand, traditionally: the gays have money and no kids, so they fix up buildings without "family-sized" living quarters, then the artists (who are historically more tolerant of gays than the general population) come and live in those buildings and take advantage of the low rents of a transitional neighborhood.)

 

Artists certainly are an element in OTR, but OTR's proximity to the CBD and corresponding higher rents (generally speaking) make it more suitable for those making a more money than your typical artist.

 

I think hippies and artists were responsible for turning around Mt. Adams, which is now definitely too pricey for artists. Hopefully OTR, given its size, will remain affordable for artists. There's a fine line between a "safe" neighborhood and one affordable to artists. That may be part of the answer to your question: artists are overlooked because their role is temporary and short-lived.

 

Northside is, again, illustrative of this. Its position on the crime scale is at a bit of a sweetspot, where it is safe enough where most people don't fear to hang out there, but shady enough that the rent is still relatively cheap. I think it will stay that way for the foreseeable future, because OTR, and to a lesser extent the university area, are keeping Northside's transition at a slow pace. Also, it's a little far from the urban core to capitalize on the mainstream side of the back-to-the-city trend, which the census seems to show is currently focused sharply on city centers.

I don't think artists are overlooked.  Read just about any article about neighborhood revitalization, it will mention artists prominently.  Read just about any plan for a neighborhood needing to be revitalized, it will mention the (supposed) need for artists to spearhead that revitalization.  If anything, it's the opposite- regular middle income people are overlooked in the neighborhood revitalization literature and in planning efforts.

I think the title of this thread is a little misleading....  you ask why artists are overlooked in revitalization...  as opposed to whom?  Are you indicating that artists should be a major stakeholder early on when cities are targeting areas for redevelopment?  Maybe the city should partner with artist groups and give them incentives to locate there?  Don't mean to speak for you, just trying to understand your point...

I work pretty specifically on this issue in Cleveland, so I'll admit I have a pretty skewed view on the topic :) That being said, I do think we're doing a decent job of incrementally increasing support for artists, and there's a lot of focus right now in Cleveland on artists' role in neighborhood revitalization (check out http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,25429.0.html for examples).

 

In terms of explicitly linking artists to revitalization efforts, the big thing we're doing locally (in addition to CDC-led efforts like in Collinwood, Asiatown, Buckeye and Gordon Square) is Artists in Residence. This initiative is just getting off the ground, but it's going to be investing $500,000 in one Cleveland neighborhood in an effort to get artists more engaged in revitalization. After a two-year pilot, hopefully we'll be able to expand to other Cleveland neighborhoods. $150,000 is for micro-loans for artists who want to buy property in the neighborhood and another $150,000 is for micro-loans for artists to carry out community projects within the neighborhood. We're also kicking off a local and national marketing campaign to let artists know about this initiative and what's happening in other Cleveland neighborhoods, too, and working with other organizations to make local homeownership services (savings programs, individual development accounts, homeownership courses, etc.) more artist-friendly. We had 13 neighborhoods apply to host the pilot program, and we've cut it to five finalists ... We should have the neighborhood selected by July 1.

 

We also launched an annual conference called Rust Belt to Artist Belt that tackles this very topic ... the role artists can play in revitalizing industrial cities. It's been held three times (twice in Cleveland and then in Detroit in April), and in three years, it's attracted more than 600 attendees from 18 states (plus Canada, Germany and the Netherlands). Finally, we also just did a MASSIVE study (like 300 pages) of where artists live in greater Cleveland, plus surveys, housing stock analysis and even regression analysis to predict where they're most likely to live in the future, which should hopefully help us leverage our resources into the places where they're most likely to work.

So that's what we're doing specifically on the revitalization front. But that's fitting into a larger community effort to make Cleveland as artist friendly as possible on numerous fronts, with offerings like: 

 

- Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute. 24-hour business training course specifically designed for artists, with the intent to help them build their businesses and make contacts in the business world. The program was started in Cleveland, and to date, it's been taken by more than 650 artists from Cleveland, southern Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and the Kyrgyz Republic.

 

- COSE Arts Network. A division of Cleveland's small business chamber specifically designed for artists and small arts businesses and nonprofits. More than 500 members. Gives artists access to affordable health insurance, discounted utility and electricity rates, discounted office supplies, discounted meeting space, training and networking events, etc. To the best of our knowledge, it's the only chamber of commerce in the country with a specific division for artists.

 

- Arts Business and Innovation Awards. Annual awards given out by COSE for artists, arts businesses and arts nonprofits that showcase great business sense. $4,000 and additional support services (accounting, marketing, etc.), plus free Arts Network memberships.

 

- Creative Workforce Fellowship. Each year, we give out 20 $20,000 awards to Cuyahoga County artists. It's one of the largest artist grant programs in the country, and our research suggests it's THE largest that's publicly funded.

 

- Cleveland Arts Prize. The oldest local arts prize in the country. Annually gives out $25,000 in awards to artists of various different disciplines.

 

- Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This group gives out approximately $15 million to arts and culture organizations and organizations doing arts and culture projects within Cuyahoga County. While artists can't get this money specifically (except for the $400,000 worth of Creative Workforce Fellowships), this supports the employment of a lot of artists through permanent jobs, residencies, etc. Among the 50 largest cities, Cleveland used to have the lowest level of public funding for arts and culture; after our tobacco excise tax went into effect in 2006, it rose to among the highest per capita funders nationwide. I've been told that even if Cuyahoga County was a state, it would still have the third highest level of public funding for arts and culture in the country (!).

 

- Percent for Art and other Public Art. Both the Regional Transit Authority and the city of Cleveland have percent for art programs that open up public art commissions for artists at a pretty healthy rate. In the past few years, you've seen major permanent pieces added all over the city - along Superior, Euclid, the Quigley Roundabout, the Tubbs-Jones Transit Center, Morgana Run, Buckeye, Gordon Square. And there's a ton in the pipeline right now, too - in Asiatown, Tremont, Ohio City, Slavic Village, E. 116th transit station, Fairmount Pump Station, etc.

 

- Other funding sources. Cleveland Colectivo, the Civic Innovation Lab and Neighborhood Connections all give out grants to a variety of sources, but a lot of artists get funding from these three each year. Then you have the Cleveland Design Competition awards, the Cleveland International Film Festival awards, the Ohio Independent Film Festival awards ... A savvy artist could secure a lot of funding in Cleveland!

 

- Foundation Center. Cleveland is home to one of five Foundation Center Libraries in the country, a great resource for anyone looking for assistance in finding out what grant opportunities are out there. They do a lot of grant education work for artists year-round and particularly every October, as part of Funding for Arts Month.

 

- Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Division of the Cleveland Bar Association that does pro bono work on behalf of artists. Pretty common around the country, but we have a pretty active chapter locally.

 

- Artspace Cleveland. Organization that assists artists in locating studios, live-work, homes, storefronts, etc. throughout the city.

 

- Discipline-focused services. A ton of organizations (Zygote, Cleveland Public Art, RED DOT Gallery, The Lit, Art House, Roots of American Music, SANKOFA, etc.) provide additional classes, funding, exhibition, etc. for artists working within a particular discipline/genre.

 

- Artist-centric zoning. The city has a huge live-work overlay district covering about three miles on the east side, mainly in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood, that tries to make it easier for artists to live and work in industrial buildings. Unfortunately, state housing and building code still requires features like modernized elevators, sprinklers, etc., so there's not much we can do about that, short of lobbying the state legislature.

 

- Centralized website. So there are a lot of resources out there for artists (and this is just the tip of the iceberg), but they're being offered by dozens of organizations. Right now, we're working on launching a "one-stop shop" website for artists where they can find all of this info in one centralized place. Check out Chicago Artists Resource for an example of the type of site we're talking about going live in Cleveland within the next year: http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/

 

Sooooo, I would say that yes, Ohio cities, Cleveland included, could be doing a lot more to recruit and retain artists and would be smart to do so. But I think we're on the right track. Almost none of this stuff existed a decade ago. In 2001, there was no $400,000 in grants (nor most of the smaller grant programs either), no percent-for-art, no live-work overlay district, no business chamber offerings specifically for artists, no business training program and definitely no program specifically at getting artists into (and more engaged with) neighborhoods. And for that matter, there weren't a ton of efforts to think about artists in neighborhoods at all. There was the Warehouse District in the 80s and Tremont in the 80s to today, but now there are 13 neighborhoods strategizing around this. Think it's definitely in the Cleveland zeitgeist right now.

Are there enough artisits to go around  for this?  It seems that this is becoming a somewhat commonplace strategy?

^ Obviously, the number of artists is finite, and not everywhere has equal opportunity on this front, but I think there is still a ton of opportunity to engage artists in this way, with a few caveats:

 

- We use a really big definition of "artist". When people think "arts district", they're often picturing a gallery row representing painters and sculptors, etc. Maybe some design-oriented boutiques. If you're talking about painters, photographers (commercial included), architects, planners, filmmakers, animators, dancers, musicians, actors, furniture makers, potters, writers, etc. Some would even include chefs or other makers of artisan products in the mix. And people also think about 20-somethings living for dirt cheap in converted warehouses. But artists are also empty nesters, raising families, living in cross-generational arrangements, etc. When you start to think of artists more broadly, the opportunity to find a niche within a particular neighborhood becomes astronomically larger. Can the market absorb 20 Tremont-type strategies? Probably not. But if neighborhoods are savvy about understanding what their particular niche is, they can start building a unique value proposition.

 

- You are investing in places that have strong value propositions but may not have had much investment in the recent past. Honestly, I think this type of thing relies on strong storytelling ... Giving people a sense of what you're trying to build. The stronger the assets in a particular neighborhood, the easier it is to tell that story convincingly. Paying attention to what assets artists say they want, and the types of housing and neighborhoods they gravitate toward now, hypothetically puts you in a better position to build a case. At the same time, if assets are strong, but it's a neighborhood that's expensive to live in, it's going to be harder to do anything around attracting or retaining artists. When we survey artists (and in other surveys around the country), two huge factors seem to be a) how affordable space is in the area and b) how much additional financial support you can provide artists. For many artists (although definitely not all), the sweet spot is the "diamond in the rough" ... moving into neighborhoods that have something special or unique about them but that are still really inexpensive. I think this is a great advantage of the industrial Midwest ... We have a kind of epic backstory, a lot of unique, authentic neighborhoods, a lot of historic philanthropic support of the arts and a very low cost of living. That gives us a value proposition opposite expensive cities on the coast, and it gives us a different value proposition for cities in the Sun Belt and many cities in the southeast.

 

- You do a good job of recruiting. This is where I think we fall down in a lot of Rust Belt cities. We either don't market at all because of a prevailing attitude that no one will want to move in, or we market in this really watered down corporate kind of way. We don't embrace the quirkiness of our cities. We don't embrace our industrial past. We don't reach out to art institutes and give graduating seniors a reason to stay. We don't aggressively recruit new hires at arts organizations into the city proper. We don't strategize around who the best prospects are to tap (Is it artsy kids living in rural Ohio and planning their escape? Is it more established artists getting priced out of Brooklyn?). I could go on :)

 

- You're investing in some form of existing culture (jargon being indigenous culture, native culture, intrinsic culture). I think another huge mistake is just saying, "We're starting an arts district", and then having a campaign to plop them down in the community. Some of the best initiatives I've seen (Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, Project Row Houses, the Asian Arts Initiative) are really thinking hard on the front end of what the history of the neighborhood is, what are its cultural traditions, etc., and then thinking about what artists will be most interested in that particular culture and what artists can help amp up that story's visibility. It could be a Latino music scene or it could be a district of local furniture-makers. Or it could be the revival of a historic garment district. Or it could be artists working in themes of sustainability getting recruited into an "ecovillage". Just depends on the story.

 

- You've got both an internal and external strategy in place for engaging artists. Another common mistake is going external right away, trying to recruit artists in. But many of the neighborhoods we're talking about already have artists living in them, so activating them, raising their visibility, getting them invested in community affairs, can really increase the likelihood that other artists will want to live there. We need to do a better job of thinking of a continuum of engagement ... Getting artists to move into a neighborhood, getting them creating work, getting them to display or perform within the neighborhood, getting them engaged with their neighbors, providing them with opportunities to engage visitors in a coordinated way, getting them opportunities to own space if they want to, getting them to serve on committees and boards, etc. We both need to recruit people and get them involved in the most passive ways, but also motivating and empowering artists to get more engaged. Arguably, just like with any group, 20 active and highly visible artists could have a greater impact on perceptions of a neighborhood than 200 artists just passively living in a neighborhood and not interacting with anyone.

 

- You're not positioning artists as a silver bullet. Finally, we have to have realistic expectations of what artists can do. Just as a casino or a convention center can't save a neighborhood, neither can artists generally save a neighborhood. And just like casinos, the more commonplace strategies are to leverage artists in revitalization, the more diluted the benefit of those efforts. Which is why it's so critical if you're going to do this sort of thing to really serve artists' needs and to engage them in neighborhood affairs, rather than to treat them as a passive resource. And it's why it's so important to be building arts strategies into a broader revitalization effort that looks at increasing quality of life more broadly and to recruit other potential groups of residents (immigrants, people looking for intergenerational housing, people looking for co-housing opportunities, students, etc.). 

In the case of Columbus a new artist oriented district is overdue since rents have been high in the Short North for years since gentrification made some huge inroads.

 

Today's Dispatch article would lead on to believe that Franklinton is where the city is putting the most effort in drawing in the artistic community in Columbus...

 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/05/17/work-begins-on-latest-hot-place.html?sid=101

 

Developers plan to use part of the former factory to build condominiums and apartments aimed at younger residents. They also plan work space for artists and space for businesses designed to lure what they refer to as "the creative class."

 

Nearby, on Rich Street, the Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority plans to demolish the Riverside Bradley housing project to build a mixed-income neighborhood. The city also purchased a warehouse on State Street, which the Franklinton Development Association plans to turn into condos and more artists' work space.

 

Artist studios will be available in coming months in the Eickholt Glass Factory just east of the former metals plant, he said, and officials will be seeking a restaurant or bar operator to occupy the front of the building.

 

 

That's what I was alluding to in the OP: Columbus waiting decades before handing a real incentive over to artists well after they had proven themselves in the Short North without such incentives. Aside from that, Columbus is more than willing to go all out for big business, ie the Hiltons, by using a large portion of parking meter revenue to build their hotel, which they could clearly afford to build without if their daughter is any indication. The city of Columbus also gave subsidies to developers like Edwards in the form of tax abatements plus footing the bill for the two-way conversion of Gay St plus streetscaping and traffic calming, but in this case it's to add hundreds of residents Downtown. Columbus, by and large, is much more willing to throw money at big names/big business, but as for artists and the small business/local entrepreneurs/prospective urban business owners that would be attracted to the area where artists set up shop, the contribution is long overdue and a drop in the bucket in comparison. It's a good baby step to show that they're starting to be serious about artists' role in revitalization, but the city needs to continue down this road and prove itself with a more favorable ratio of the $ amount given in subsidies to artists vs. big business.

 

Sounds like Cleveland is also getting on the ball much more so than Columbus (visit Experience Columbus http://www.experiencecolumbus.com/ for our "image"/"outreach" which works more effectively as artist repellent with its bland, oppressively corporate logo and layout compared to Cleveland's http://www.positivelycleveland.com/ which has an LGBT guide right on the front), but unfortunately it sounds like our efforts are rather last-minute and need to be tweaked to take into consideration that while Great Lakes cities are only now really starting to woo artists, that other cities, like those on the coasts, are years ahead in efforts to both attract and keep artists in their cities, which makes it harder, not impossible, for cities here to capitalize. Even Minneapolis, which is decades ahead of urban revitalization efforts in the 3 Cs, sees artists feeling stiffed by the city after making the Northeast an artsy neighborhood worth visiting in recent years with successful small businesses that contribute taxes to the city along with an increase in homeowners.

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SNxZcUJwf6UJ:www.therepublic.com/view/story/2b824de96d854b5bb34d52bf53666969/MN--Exchange-Art-Revitalization/+minneapolis+artist+neighborhood&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

Keith, just curious... Has Columbus ever done anything you agree with?  You seem to be the epitome of someone who believes the grass is greener everywhere else.  I love this city.  I think that's why we don't seem to get along.  I see most of your posts, quite honestly, as a constant bashing of Columbus, and I don't get it, and definitely the reason that I come off so strongly in my exchanges with you.  I know Columbus is FAR from perfect, but I choose to live here because there are also far more good things to it than bad.  I respect your opinion, I really do, but I just can't feel that negative about a growing city that, despite all its many flaws, continues to improve.  Maybe we will just never agree on that. 

People here, you're not alone, tend to forget about anything positive I've said about this city (Gay St, Short North, etc) just because I point out its flaws. The grass is most certainly not greener everywhere else. I would never move to Indianapolis, Detroit, the other Cs, or Milwaukee (too much like Columbus) and I'm on the fence about Chicago which seems to be either too high-end/gentrified or way too hardcore ghetto. The only places that are on the up and up urban-wise to my liking in the region are Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. That's it, two, count 'em:, two cities. Columbus could have been a great city, but we don't want the essentials of what makes a city great (like good mass transit) and this past decade made it clear that we're happy with putting in as little effort as possible and are happy with being a pleasant enough surprise for visitors. High St is great, but High St is only one part of Columbus, not the end all and be all of Columbus and when you take into consideration how much of the urban core outside of High St looks the same or worse than it did a decade ago, you have to be honest, it's a stagnant city with very little interest in making other parts worthy alternatives.

 

I'm glad that the city finally woke up and is investing in East Franklinton by attracting artists, but even then that's not going to be up and running for a while. When I rode down W Broad today to the Tour de Highland West bike ride (did I miss you there?) the one change from a decade ago in Franklinton is that there's now a bike co-op there next to The Florentine. That took ten years. In that time Portland turned their driveby shooting central, Alberta St, into a worthy destination and Pittburgh turned down and out Lawrenceville into a must visit: in both cases these were off the beaten path of already revitalized urban areas. Artists led the charge in both and those cities have something to show for it today. Today, we don't have anything off the main strip that comes close.

 

Back in the early 90s, Milo-Grogan at least had Skankland (closed around that time), then there's the ongoing gentrification of IV next door , an artist colony there with Milo Arts, the crime is notably lower than Franklinton, it's basically a no-brainer. Yet the neighborhood is now just dead in the water after Skankland closed, since that was really the only reason to go there and no one else picked up the torch. This is an extreme example of how the survival of one business can make or break a neighborhood. That's just plain ass-backwards when you consider all of the factors in its favor, but surprise: it's Columbus. Even Milo-Grogan should be at least where OTE is with a few places worth visiting in the handful of commercial buildings that are (barely) still standing. That Summit Grill space on the tranquil intersection of E 2nd and Cleveland is just begging for a pre-gentrified Short North style establishment that caters to the eclectic set that used to have more of a presence in the now gentrified Short North, but this isn't a cool city like Portland where people move into much worse neighborhoods and take much bigger risks and today have plenty to show for it. Artists are in the neighborhood, yes, but the problem here, despite the rant I got from one of the owners at Milo Arts saying otherwise, is that it hasn't improved the neighborhood because it's just too insular. Milo-Grogan has simply fallen back into obscurity since the one successful destination that was here closed about two decades ago and now people only stop by to pick up some fried chicken at one of the numerous fried chicken joints. Could it capitalize off of the success of the Short North and Italian Village which is literally just next door? Of course it could have, but once again, it's sadly located in Columbus and that alone means it won't happen.

 

I mean, how do you expect me to get excited over the other 80% of Columbus that doesn't revolve around N High? I have a roommate who moved here from San Francisco and we did a late night tour of Off High Columbus: Cleveland, Livingston, Sullivant, Parsons, and W Broad. Aside from Hal & Al's which opened two years ago, what else would you have felt was worth a stop? There is objectively much more "bad" than "good" here. Yes, there is a lot that is good is on or near High St: Gallery Hop, North Market, the homes in VV and IV, The Cirlces, Bodega, Short North Tavern (the Short North in general), Late Night Slice, the pedicabs, new businesses filling in the gap between 4th and South Campus Gateway, the sharrows on High, various pockets of the University District and Clintonville, this is all stuff I've already spoken about in a positive light.

 

Change, however, is just way too slow in the rest of the city and even after something is proven to be a huge success there is no attempt to repeat it elsewhere, such as the artist-led transformation of an urban business district. But hey, if you're happy with waiting til you're 60 before there's another block of W Broad/Parsons/etc that's worth visiting, that's all you. Plenty of local urban dwellers seem to have a child-like perspective of N High: it never gets old to them, but you know what? I've grown up and for me it's the same old thing over and over again.

I mean, how do you expect me to get excited over the other 80% of Columbus that doesn't revolve around N High? I have a roommate who moved here from San Francisco and we did a late night tour of Off High Columbus: Cleveland, Livingston, Sullivant, Parsons, and W Broad. Aside from Hal & Al's which opened two years ago, what else would you have felt was worth a stop? There is objectively much more "bad" than "good" here. Yes, there is a lot that is good is on or near High St: Gallery Hop, North Market, the homes in VV and IV, The Cirlces, Bodega, Short North Tavern (the Short North in general), Late Night Slice, the pedicabs, new businesses filling in the gap between 4th and South Campus Gateway, the sharrows on High, various pockets of the University District and Clintonville, this is all stuff I've already spoken about in a positive light.

 

 

I sort of feel the same way about Louisville, but I do notice that things are happening beyond the "usual suspects" of the "Highlands" (Bardstown Road cooridor) and Crescent Hill/Clifton (Frankfort Avenue cooridor).  Now we are starting to see things happen in Germantown (which used to be fairly blah) and on East Market.

 

But this is ,ultimatley, bourgouis bohemian lifestyle consumption stuff.  What Louisville remains strong in is generic neighborhood places with character and amentities,  that havent declined but didnt need "artistis" to remain viable (thinking here of the South End mostly, and parts of the West End).

 

Or places like Russell and Phoenix Hill that are good examples of reconstruction and infill without relying on bourgois bohemian gentrification.

 

It could be that the quality of the city, the urban environment (parks, boulevards, architicture, the urban fabric) is so good that it causes peopel to want to keep it good. or not let it get as sucky as Ohio cities seem to get,

 

I guess being down here for an extended visit makes my appreciate the place even more...

one general rule is guard your decrepit big warehouse neighborhoods around the cbd, they are a goldmine for attracting the artists/gentrifiers. artists tend to need giant-sized space to work/live, a tiny old apt building 'garret' just won't do anymore. 

 

it seems to work out best when the warehouse buildings have passive owners and the renters/occupiers/freegans? (lol!) can DIY and redevelop the building any way they chose. at least in the very early going stages of artist gentrification.

^

This is what is happenign in Dayton.  The places arent "live/work" but just old factory or utlity buildings that the owner will rent very cheap.  Cheap is the operative word here....there are guys in Dayton who own buildings  who think they are cashing in on a trend and kill off possible reuse by jacking up rents or wont deal on things like code issues (the city plays a role in this, too..."Inspector Gotcha".

 

The ones not doing this, and keeping in on the down-low (or who have connections keeping the inspectors at bay) are the ones seeing artists and musicans move in. 

 

The latest isnt evena warehouse.  Its the old Yellow cab garage and dispatch space, built in the 1960s in Daytons version of Queensgate, but now being used as a gallery, peformance, and studio space by a local arts group.  A dull building buta great location, near their art garden and the Oregon.

^

This is what is happenign in Dayton.  The places arent "live/work" but just old factory or utlity buildings that the owner will rent very cheap.  Cheap is the operative word here....there are guys in Dayton who own buildings  who think they are cashing in on a trend and kill off possible reuse by jacking up rents or wont deal on things like code issues (the city plays a role in this, too..."Inspector Gotcha".

 

The ones not doing this, and keeping in on the down-low (or who have connections keeping the inspectors at bay) are the ones seeing artists and musicans move in. 

 

The latest isnt evena warehouse.  Its the old Yellow cab garage and dispatch space, built in the 1960s in Daytons version of Queensgate, but now being used as a gallery, peformance, and studio space by a local arts group.  A dull building buta great location, near their art garden and the Oregon.

 

you got it jeffery and i see that in dayton -- its as exciting as it is frustrating!

 

your last observation really rang a bell -- the ny ev/soho art galleries finally moved to chelsea exactly because of old taxi cab buildings. the buildings are not as attractive, but the interiors are very, very attractive to gallerists and artists because they have smooth concrete floors and are large and wide and most of all - column free.

 

although they don't always seem like it to most people -- these kinds of building spaces are really crucial near cbd urban assets.

 

one general rule is guard your decrepit big warehouse neighborhoods around the cbd, they are a goldmine for attracting the artists/gentrifiers. artists tend to need giant-sized space to work/live, a tiny old apt building 'garret' just won't do anymore. 

 

it seems to work out best when the warehouse buildings have passive owners and the renters/occupiers/freegans? (lol!) can DIY and redevelop the building any way they chose. at least in the very early going stages of artist gentrification.

 

That's the thing about Columbus -- that there aren't that many old warehouses that are in disuse as compared to other cities. I'm thinking along the lines of The Music Building in NYC. A lot of the ones here either still being used, are somewhat newer, have been rehabbed (Smith Bros.) or have been destroyed. We really do have a ton of warehouses in this city, though.

^ i know, reading this thread i thought of columbus and of course that is an even better situation. the buildings are in use employing people. in that case no wasting away structures and no need to worry over revitalization. i'd rather have eddie bauer & that massive warehouse employing tons of people than empty and supporting a few miserable artists!

but the interiors are very, very attractive to gallerists and artists because they have smooth concrete floors and are large and wide and most of all - column free.

 

...another good example is the Contemporary Art Center in Detroit.  It used to be an auto dealership but was converted into an exhibtion space.

 

I have to say, MRNYC, you do keep tabs on whats happening in Dayton!  I dont want to make the place seem more than it is, but it would be nice if we had the support for arts based revitalization the way they are dong in Cleveland.  8SHades of Grays' posts are some of the most heartening ones I've read here at UO.  I feel I should send them to people in Dayton to show them how its done.

 

About the only initiative I've seen is a pretty conventional one to put galleries in empty storefronts in the Oregon...while a big part of the INDIGENOUS creative scene here is the live  music scene it gets no support or encouragement...pretty much operates on its own and existing in spite of the local movers and shakers.  And there was that C-Space, which has folded and the space they are in is being turned into a nightclub.  And DDC performance space closed due to landlord and code issues.

 

Even that arts group thats taken over the Yellow Cab building operates indepentantly, outside of the arts mainstream here...sort of "Hey Kids, lets put on a show in this barn!" DiY/outsider thing.  Maybe more connected to the music scene in attitude.  Though the city did cooperate with them on that arts park...Garden Station.

 

Anyway. MrNYC, please share more observations on the Dayton scene.  Nice to hear someones at least interested in it.

 

 

 

 

People here, you're not alone, tend to forget about anything positive I've said about this city (Gay St, Short North, etc) just because I point out its flaws. The grass is most certainly not greener everywhere else. I would never move to Indianapolis, Detroit, the other Cs, or Milwaukee (too much like Columbus) and I'm on the fence about Chicago which seems to be either too high-end/gentrified or way too hardcore ghetto. The only places that are on the up and up urban-wise to my liking in the region are Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. That's it, two, count 'em:, two cities. Columbus could have been a great city, but we don't want the essentials of what makes a city great (like good mass transit) and this past decade made it clear that we're happy with putting in as little effort as possible and are happy with being a pleasant enough surprise for visitors. High St is great, but High St is only one part of Columbus, not the end all and be all of Columbus and when you take into consideration how much of the urban core outside of High St looks the same or worse than it did a decade ago, you have to be honest, it's a stagnant city with very little interest in making other parts worthy alternatives.

 

I'm glad that the city finally woke up and is investing in East Franklinton by attracting artists, but even then that's not going to be up and running for a while. When I rode down W Broad today to the Tour de Highland West bike ride (did I miss you there?) the one change from a decade ago in Franklinton is that there's now a bike co-op there next to The Florentine. That took ten years. In that time Portland turned their driveby shooting central, Alberta St, into a worthy destination and Pittburgh turned down and out Lawrenceville into a must visit: in both cases these were off the beaten path of already revitalized urban areas. Artists led the charge in both and those cities have something to show for it today. Today, we don't have anything off the main strip that comes close.

 

Back in the early 90s, Milo-Grogan at least had Skankland (closed around that time), then there's the ongoing gentrification of IV next door , an artist colony there with Milo Arts, the crime is notably lower than Franklinton, it's basically a no-brainer. Yet the neighborhood is now just dead in the water after Skankland closed, since that was really the only reason to go there and no one else picked up the torch. This is an extreme example of how the survival of one business can make or break a neighborhood. That's just plain ass-backwards when you consider all of the factors in its favor, but surprise: it's Columbus. Even Milo-Grogan should be at least where OTE is with a few places worth visiting in the handful of commercial buildings that are (barely) still standing. That Summit Grill space on the tranquil intersection of E 2nd and Cleveland is just begging for a pre-gentrified Short North style establishment that caters to the eclectic set that used to have more of a presence in the now gentrified Short North, but this isn't a cool city like Portland where people move into much worse neighborhoods and take much bigger risks and today have plenty to show for it. Artists are in the neighborhood, yes, but the problem here, despite the rant I got from one of the owners at Milo Arts saying otherwise, is that it hasn't improved the neighborhood because it's just too insular. Milo-Grogan has simply fallen back into obscurity since the one successful destination that was here closed about two decades ago and now people only stop by to pick up some fried chicken at one of the numerous fried chicken joints. Could it capitalize off of the success of the Short North and Italian Village which is literally just next door? Of course it could have, but once again, it's sadly located in Columbus and that alone means it won't happen.

 

I mean, how do you expect me to get excited over the other 80% of Columbus that doesn't revolve around N High? I have a roommate who moved here from San Francisco and we did a late night tour of Off High Columbus: Cleveland, Livingston, Sullivant, Parsons, and W Broad. Aside from Hal & Al's which opened two years ago, what else would you have felt was worth a stop? There is objectively much more "bad" than "good" here. Yes, there is a lot that is good is on or near High St: Gallery Hop, North Market, the homes in VV and IV, The Cirlces, Bodega, Short North Tavern (the Short North in general), Late Night Slice, the pedicabs, new businesses filling in the gap between 4th and South Campus Gateway, the sharrows on High, various pockets of the University District and Clintonville, this is all stuff I've already spoken about in a positive light.

 

Change, however, is just way too slow in the rest of the city and even after something is proven to be a huge success there is no attempt to repeat it elsewhere, such as the artist-led transformation of an urban business district. But hey, if you're happy with waiting til you're 60 before there's another block of W Broad/Parsons/etc that's worth visiting, that's all you. Plenty of local urban dwellers seem to have a child-like perspective of N High: it never gets old to them, but you know what? I've grown up and for me it's the same old thing over and over again.

 

I'm sorry, but you're not being objective if you're seriously suggesting that there are more parts of the city worse off now than before.  There are certainly some parts that have remained relatively unchanged, some areas that have gotten worse, but most of the city?  No way.  I've brought this up before and you brushed it off, but 10-15 years ago, we had no decent downtown core at all.  Any city, no matter how big or where it is, needs a healthy inner core, or you might as well be Dayton.  The transformation of entire neighborhoods take years.  That reality has never changed, and the fact that we have gone through 2 recessions the last decade, including one of the most severe in the nation's history, yet still have been able to change the face of so much of the urban core is pretty amazing to me.  I know it hardly impresses you in any regard, but there are a hell of a lot of cities much worse off than we are.  The focus the last decade+ has been that central core, and the city basically made it clear that the latest round of projects finishing up may be the last for awhile while they focus on other areas, such as Franklinton and the far West Side.  I know you think that the city must have billions upon billions of dollars to reinvent the entire city all at once, but it's just fiction.  It just doesn't, and development is never going to be equal everywhere everytime.  Am I satisfied completely with the pace of redevelopment?  No, of course not, I would love for it to be faster, for more areas to be improving all at once, but I also don't think that's realistic. 

 

And you say that the city does not try to repeat success, such as artist-driven urban renewal... so what exactly is happening in Franklinton, or over at the Wonder factory?  Again, not going to happen overnight, but clearly people see a larger picture here.   

 

You tout a success in Portland... who cares?  Every city has these types of success stories, including us.  15-20 years ago, the SN was that drug-riddled, crime-infested ghetto that Alberta St. was, and that area is far from complete.  You really do a huge disservice to all of the efforts of folks in THIS city who have done nothing but work on improving neighborhoods by constantly downgrading success or improvement because some other city has done something similar, or in your opinion, always 100x better.  Also, you often compare Columbus to cities have have MUCH larger metro populations.  Minneapolis is more than 2x larger.  San Francisco is at least 5x larger.  Same with Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, even Pittsburgh (and Pitt's still losing people, so I guess it's not that great).  You can't expect the same type of development on the same scale and timeframe as those cities.  It's completely unfair.  You might as well be comparing Springfield to NYC, it makes the same amount of sense. 

 

Quite frankly, I hate it that I feel like I have to defend the city so much with you.  I think there are plenty of legitimate complaints with the city and its progress, and I'd love to discuss them.  I always feel on the defensive, though, in these threads as they seem to degrade into threads like, "What do you hate about Columbus?"  I would just like to see more context instead of either a love or bash fest.     

The thing is, other cities already *had* a Short North equivalent and already have a serious alternative to their Short Norths: we don't, as I clarified earlier. Portland, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis are more than fair comparisons. We have a city pop. of over 780,000: well over any of the aforementioned cities. We have an additional 1 million in the in the metro area. With such a large city pop. that should mirror a healthy urban core, but that hasn't happened. As for Downtown, most of it is still a ghost town. You have the Arena District and two blocks of Gay St. It's an improvement, yes, but considering over a decade has gone by, it's an admittedly small fraction of the entire area. Are there other cities worse off? Of course, but that doesn't excuse Columbus from dragging its feet so that it's just one step ahead of those cities when it could be so much more.

 

The pace of development should be faster considering these facts: the city throws several tens of millions for further suburbanization of our roads/adding lanes to arterial streets, the city is throwing revenue generated in poor neighborhoods like the Hilltop and stuffing it in the pockets of the Hilton family instead of improving said neighborhood, the city gives Goodale Park $160,000 for small corner entrance while the entire neighborhood of Linden is expected to spread out $28,000 to pay for revitalizing the whole area, etc. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being wastefully thrown away when the city has the money to spend decent amounts in currently neglected neighborhoods to really make a difference: they just don't want to, nor is there enough interest from the average resident, especially when the city offers zero incentives to open a business in a run-down business district while expecting entrepreneurs to want to pay to fix up these spaces to begin with.

 

It's laughable that you're using the Wonderland project and Franklinton as vindication of the city's ineptitude when such initiative should have been taken a decade ago, instead of ignoring the positive impact of artists until just now. For me to be doing a disservice to this city, I wonder where that leaves individuals who have not promoted our forgotten neighborhoods as much as me, if they do at all. I've done my part and I've spent my money in these areas where they warrant it, but few are willing to follow in my footsteps. And you're welcome for my participation of cleaning up trash on W Broad and my attempt to save the Firestone mansion in OTE, etc, while you bitch and moan about how local residents aren't doing anything to improve their neighborhoods. Pot, meet kettle. I've also gone to numerous city council meetings, neighborhood planning meetings, met with engineers to make Columbus more bike-friendly, got dozens of bike racks installed all around the city, including places they otherwise still haven't touched like Franklinton and Linden. If only as many residents were doing as much of a disservice to this city as I have, it would actually be a cool place overall.

 

Fact is, Columbus was way too slow to go after artists who piloted the real changes in the Short North and surrounding neighborhoods, while other 2nd tier cities that did already have various Short Norths. If the city had provided artists incentives for a revitalized block on W Broad, Parsons near German Village, and E Main, we'd have three more decent up and coming business districts than we do today and would be on the path to being a great city. Instead, it's too little too late and Columbus is too far behind to become a great city anytime in the coming decades.

The thing is, other cities already *had* a Short North equivalent and already have a serious alternative to their Short Norths: we don't, as I clarified earlier. Portland, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis are more than fair comparisons. We have a city pop. of over 780,000: well over any of the aforementioned cities. We have an additional 1 million in the in the metro area. With such a large city pop. that should mirror a healthy urban core, but that hasn't happened. As for Downtown, most of it is still a ghost town. You have the Arena District and two blocks of Gay St. It's an improvement, yes, but considering over a decade has gone by, it's an admittedly small fraction of the entire area. Are there other cities worse off? Of course, but that doesn't excuse Columbus from dragging its feet so that it's just one step ahead of those cities when it could be so much more.

 

The pace of development should be faster considering these facts: the city throws several tens of millions for further suburbanization of our roads/adding lanes to arterial streets, the city is throwing revenue generated in poor neighborhoods like the Hilltop and stuffing it in the pockets of the Hilton family instead of improving said neighborhood, the city gives Goodale Park $160,000 for small corner entrance while the entire neighborhood of Linden is expected to spread out $28,000 to pay for revitalizing the whole area, etc. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being wastefully thrown away when the city has the money to spend decent amounts in currently neglected neighborhoods to really make a difference: they just don't want to, nor is there enough interest from the average resident, especially when the city offers zero incentives to open a business in a run-down business district while expecting entrepreneurs to want to pay to fix up these spaces to begin with.

 

It's laughable that you're using the Wonderland project and Franklinton as vindication of the city's ineptitude when such initiative should have been taken a decade ago, instead of ignoring the positive impact of artists until just now. For me to be doing a disservice to this city, I wonder where that leaves individuals who have not promoted our forgotten neighborhoods as much as me, if they do at all. I've done my part and I've spent my money in these areas where they warrant it, but few are willing to follow in my footsteps. And you're welcome for my participation of cleaning up trash on W Broad and my attempt to save the Firestone mansion in OTE, etc, while you bitch and moan about how local residents aren't doing anything to improve their neighborhoods. Pot, meet kettle. I've also gone to numerous city council meetings, neighborhood planning meetings, met with engineers to make Columbus more bike-friendly, got dozens of bike racks installed all around the city, including places they otherwise still haven't touched like Franklinton and Linden. If only as many residents were doing as much of a disservice to this city as I have, it would actually be a cool place overall.

 

Fact is, Columbus was way too slow to go after artists who piloted the real changes in the Short North and surrounding neighborhoods, while other 2nd tier cities that did already have various Short Norths. If the city had provided artists incentives for a revitalized block on W Broad, Parsons near German Village, and E Main, we'd have three more decent up and coming business districts than we do today and would be on the path to being a great city. Instead, it's too little too late and Columbus is too far behind to become a great city anytime in the coming decades.

 

And again, if other cities already had a version of the SN, it's likely because those cities are much larger than Columbus and have had more momentum earlier to create them.  But I can guarantee you that those neighborhoods in other cities did not happen overnight, but over a period of several years.  All cities in their growth process go through a succession of development.  Depending on the pace of the population growth or size, you are going to see different rates and scale.  Columbus, for all intents and purposes, is still a mid-sized city and has not quite reached the level of major, given the overall metro population.  The kind of overall development we have seen, for the most part, fits into a city of our size and closely matches what other cities have done along our size as well.  Some may be further along, some futher behind.  I do think over the next decade or so we will see more of an evolving major city status, though.  You mention the city proper population, but that is only one standard to use.  The city is much denser overall than say, KC, Indy, etc, but it has a relatively low metro population in comparison to the cities you mentioned.  I'm not sure how you can seriously compare us even with Detroit, which has a lower city proper population but a mentro almost 5x larger.  If you think that 4 million extra people in a metro makes no difference, then you are kidding yourself. 

 

And I fully disagree that most of the DT is a ghost town.  10-15 years ago, absolutely.  But you can't tell me that there hasn't been tremendous change there despite the mostly terrible economy we've had in that time.  And I would agree, it's a small fraction of the entire city, but when talking about DT, I'm not sure if you're really putting into context just how empty the place was not that long ago.  The urban core was not decimated overnight, and it's not going to come back overnight.  It took some 40 years for the population to drop as low as it was in the 1990s, and to have so many of the buildings leveled for surface lots in the national trend of urban renewal.  It's barely been 10 years since things began to reverse.  It is completely unreasonable to expect that the entire downtown will have been rebuilt in that time, or even a majority of it, especially when housing and commercial real estate fell apart. 

 

The city spends tens of millions on roads/bridges/infrastructure downtown as well, not just in the surburbs.  You can't expect the city to simply ignore roads in the suburbs just because you don't like suburbia.  Hey, I'm not crazy about sprawl, either, but a city has responsibility to maintain its infrastructure even in areas we don't like.  The $30 million repaving that is going on this year is spread out all over the city, from urban to suburban.  I have not seen anything to suggest that the suburbs are favored.  You say that roads in the suburban areas are payed for with money from poor areas, but isn't the opposite also true?  You act like the money is only going in one direction.

 

And quite frankly, Keith, you're a defeatist.  You claim to have done all of this, but yet you don't believe anything's going to change anyway.  You clearly don't like it here, you hate the city, and you state that the city will never be at the level that you think it should.  You seem to live in two worlds, one in which you participate and try to build things up, and another in which you tear everything down.  And to be honest, the constant back-patting is just a little too self-serving to take all that seriously given what you actually say about the city.  At best, you're a crusader with no goal, no mission, and you wouldn't believe in it even if you did. 

 

I love Columbus.  It's a fantastic place to live and work.  I have fun every time I go out.  I enjoy all the friends I have here, many from all over the country and world.  I sometimes look around and find it almost unrecognizable from the city of my youth, and the changes I have seen in the last several years are amazing.  And my philosophy will always be that if a place no longer suits you, if you can't be happy with where you are, then make a change.  Clearly you need that change. 

 

I think the thing you don't like about me, the real reason we don't get along... is that you can't stand that I actually like it here. 

interesting -- but imo you guys should be comparing whats happening or not happening in columbus with austin or indianapolis more so than those other cities.

Some people are happy with less. And the fact that you defend the city in adding several unnecessary new lanes when it isn't even maintaining what it's got just shows that you're not willing to take a balanced look at the city, as if sh!tting all over the Hilltop wasn't enough proof. If you love it here, there's nothing wrong with that, but the reality is that Columbus waits til the last minute to make real improvements, whether that is providing incentives for artists to turn around another neighborhoods or get a streetcar line up and running, all while not even bothering to do the next most ambitious thing. Instead, it's just fine to be above average and you've mainly only done a good job of addressing points I didn't even make or just proving my point, like when you say that other cities had a head start when Columbus was revitalizing the inner core back in the 60s right when urban renewal was going on and confused my mention of Detroit which was simply listed as a regional city I wouldn't live in and disprove what you had said about needing a large metro area for several revitalization neighborhoods to exist. What has Detroit's 4 million metro pop done vs. Columbus' 1 million? By your logic, Detroit should be light years ahead of us, but they're not and you forget the fact that we have an inordinately large city population and the consequences thereof. Your bigger metro=better city formula would say that we'd be better off if we kept old city boundaries, leaving Columbus with barely 300,000 city residents and a whopping additional half mil in metro residents. And I was just Downtown the other night: ghost town. Go ahead and walk up and down all the major streets there and see just how boring the vast majority still is. Even High is mostly empty here: a huge embarrassment for a city this size when the main drag right smack Downtown is in such sad shape. They only had a decade to fix that, though. Anyway, aside from your baseless statements which clearly reveal you need to check out some books on urbanism from the library (CML is great) I've already done my part to support this city, what have you done?

Indianapolis is just mired in a suburban mindset with very little urban culture: hence why you have Downtown and Broad Ripple and little else. Austin, well, their downtown is solid, but looking at several commercial streets that branch away from it, it's just amazing how desolate they are with lots of overgrowth, big car lots, and occasional restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. Even searching through the "hip" areas you have a hard time finding two commercial blocks that actually face each other. Neither one seems to have the assets that Columbus has in its urban business districts, yet Columbus doesn't see them as assets even though other cities would love to have the infrastructure that we do. It's too bad they're sitting in idle hands. Austin wins hands down for attracting artists and even a cursory search for "artists" and "Indianapolis/Austin" shows this is the case. "Artsy" is an adjective you would apply to Austin with little thought, while it feels awkward in describing Indianapolis.

Austin, well, their downtown is solid, but looking at several commercial streets that branch away from it, it's just amazing how desolate they are with lots of overgrowth, big car lots, and occasional restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. Even searching through the "hip" areas you have a hard time finding two commercial blocks that actually face each other.

 

I heard something similar last year from a girl I talked to at a coffeeshop in Louisville, who moved to Louisville FROM Austin.  By choice.  She said Austin, even with all that "cool city" street cred,  is a lot more suburban and sprawley and she liked the older character of Louisville (sort of what you are talking about with what Columbus has, or might have), as well as the cost of living.  It was a qaulity of life/urban character issue with her, and Louisville has enough cool city aspect to make it attractive (its not "potential", its already happening).

 

Columbus has a lot of growth and a good economy but the issue is trying to capture more of it to come into the city.  Whats happened so far is pretty incredible (by Dayton standards) and, yes, the place does trump Indianapolis in that regard (though that canal area is pretty impressive in being able to market in-town living in new housing).  Broad Ripple is fairly weak compared to whats happening in Columbus and Louisville...more like what one would expect in a much smaller city.

 

Yet tfor Columbus, there are things like that Wonder Bread project that would never get off the ground elsewhere.  Not sure about Milo-Grogan, maybe its too out-of-the-way? 

 

As for the High Street corridor...AKA Short North and beyond...downtown to OSU.  Thats almost "finished", and when it is Id expect some other area will be "discovered" or places already recieving attention will accelerate.

 

 

 

 

Oh, one other thing:

 

Even searching through the "hip" areas you have a hard time finding two commercial blocks that actually face each other

 

This sounds a bit like German Village.  A scattering of corner store places but no "main street" retail district.  Parsons, maybe?

Some people are happy with less. And the fact that you defend the city in adding several unnecessary new lanes when it isn't even maintaining what it's got just shows that you're not willing to take a balanced look at the city, as if sh!tting all over the Hilltop wasn't enough proof. If you love it here, there's nothing wrong with that, but the reality is that Columbus waits til the last minute to make real improvements, whether that is providing incentives for artists to turn around another neighborhoods or get a streetcar line up and running, all while not even bothering to do the next most ambitious thing. Instead, it's just fine to be above average and you've mainly only done a good job of addressing points I didn't even make or just proving my point, like when you say that other cities had a head start when Columbus was revitalizing the inner core back in the 60s right when urban renewal was going on and confused my mention of Detroit which was simply listed as a regional city I wouldn't live in and disprove what you had said about needing a large metro area for several revitalization neighborhoods to exist. What has Detroit's 4 million metro pop done vs. Columbus' 1 million? By your logic, Detroit should be light years ahead of us, but they're not and you forget the fact that we have an inordinately large city population and the consequences thereof. Your bigger metro=better city formula would say that we'd be better off if we kept old city boundaries, leaving Columbus with barely 300,000 city residents and a whopping additional half mil in metro residents. And I was just Downtown the other night: ghost town. Go ahead and walk up and down all the major streets there and see just how boring the vast majority still is. Even High is mostly empty here: a huge embarrassment for a city this size when the main drag right smack Downtown is in such sad shape. They only had a decade to fix that, though. Anyway, aside from your baseless statements which clearly reveal you need to check out some books on urbanism from the library (CML is great) I've already done my part to support this city, what have you done?

 

Keith, was it my imagination or did a good portion of Broad through the Hilltop just get repaved along with tons of sidewalk work within the last year?  And this before Hilliard-Rome gets anything extra.  Does that count as "sh*tting all over the Hilltop"?  You either have a very selective memory or choose to ignore things like this in your zeal to trash everything the city does.  Oh wait, I do remember you complaining about the bike lanes they added and the parking meters, so I guess you must've just forgotten, right?   

 

And my point about metro size is that the more people there are, typically the more amenities a city has.  Detroit, despite hollowing out and continuing to lose population, still fits that point.  Detroit still has many things we don't have, including more mass transit, another common complaint of yours.  Having 4 million extra people in the metro to draw from IS important.  This is true also of cities doing significantly better in population, such as Minneapolis, which has a smaller city population, but a metro more than 2x the size of Columbus.  The more people there are in a market, the more demand for extras.  It's basic supply/demand.  This isn't rocket science. 

 

And in that decade, they've fixed quite a bit.  Nowhere am I making the argument that they have reached the maximum level of density and excitement Downtown, but it is certainly going in the right direction.  You can't tell me that increases of 40% in population is not a big improvement, and there continues to be more construction and proposals for more.  A good example of improvement is with the new downtown park.  Now, honestly, I thought it would be pretty lame.  I figured what would happen is that they would build it and then it would sit there unused.  I also figured that the 2nd half of the proposal for the park, where parts of it would get built upon, would simply be shelved.  Instead, the park gets built, and suddenly there are schedules in place for constant events, a new stage planned, theater/concert groups moving to the park, etc.  And before the park is even completed, developers went looking for bids for adding new residential/commercial buildings on the site.  So all in all, it's seemingly turning out much better than expected.  All those extra events is just one more incentive for increased residential population.  And in turn, more development, and so on. 

 

But yeah, I know, everything sucks regardless and there is no hope for this city.  Might as well move and burn the place behind us.   

Austin, well, their downtown is solid, but looking at several commercial streets that branch away from it, it's just amazing how desolate they are with lots of overgrowth, big car lots, and occasional restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. Even searching through the "hip" areas you have a hard time finding two commercial blocks that actually face each other.

 

I heard something similar last year from a girl I talked to at a coffeeshop in Louisville, who moved to Louisville FROM Austin.  By choice.  She said Austin, even with all that "cool city" street cred,  is a lot more suburban and sprawley and she liked the older character of Louisville (sort of what you are talking about with what Columbus has, or might have), as well as the cost of living.  It was a qaulity of life/urban character issue with her, and Louisville has enough cool city aspect to make it attractive (its not "potential", its already happening).

 

Columbus has a lot of growth and a good economy but the issue is trying to capture more of it to come into the city.  Whats happened so far is pretty incredible (by Dayton standards) and, yes, the place does trump Indianapolis in that regard (though that canal area is pretty impressive in being able to market in-town living in new housing).  Broad Ripple is fairly weak compared to whats happening in Columbus and Louisville...more like what one would expect in a much smaller city.

 

Yet tfor Columbus, there are things like that Wonder Bread project that would never get off the ground elsewhere.  Not sure about Milo-Grogan, maybe its too out-of-the-way? 

 

As for the High Street corridor...AKA Short North and beyond...downtown to OSU.  Thats almost "finished", and when it is Id expect some other area will be "discovered" or places already recieving attention will accelerate.

 

I don't think it was ever the intention of the city just to have the SN and that was it.  Despite what Keith thinks or says, I do see other areas starting to get more and more interest as the city, for the most part, realizes that High Street is largely a success and will build upon itself for a long time.  IMO, Franklinton is definitely next.   

I used to think Franklintown was sort of non-descript...it's been a while since I've been there so maybe time for a return trip.  I used to go to Cols once a year at least for ComFest and Gay Pride. (as a sidebar ComFest sort of seals the deal for me for Columbus, that it's able to throw a festival like that and not mimimize or remove the activist content), and explore the city a bit during these visits.

 

As for the next hot area I was thinking the next area to take-off would be that area just east of I-71 as it loops east of downtown .  I think this is Old Town East?.  I recall seeing the start of things on some of the north-south streets in that area (Parsons?) and on some of the east-west ones, like, I think, Long Street?

 

This is digressing from the artists-and-cities theme, but I think we all can see certain areas in Cols that could be the next districts for gentrification/restoration.  The neat thing is that there are ALSO opportunities for new infill development in downtown, too.  I always thought the streets directly east of the Capital, between the Capital and the library & hospital to the east, could be a good location for a little "Garfield Place/Piatt Park" style residential infill development...I think this would be Capital, Oak, and State Streets?

 

...as the city, for the most part, realizes that High Street is largely a success and will build upon itself for a long time.

 

...and High is a very long street.  The city grew north quite a bit in the pre WWII era, following High, so you have an exceptionally long urban busy street.  So you can see how there are a lot of opportunities to develope north along this corridor.  Short-North first...then the Arena District/North Market area connecting back to downtown, then the Short North extending north, further and further till...it meest the OSU-related development heading south.  Then, north of OSU is I guess that "Old North Columbus" area and then Clintonville.  It's just a very long corridor that is a sure-shot investment since the momentum is good there.  If High was half the length Id think you'd see other areas start to take off quicker.  But ther WAS German Village before there was Short North, and thats a pretty sucessful restoration effort, but withouth the busy street retail/food-drink/gallery corrdior like High.

 

 

 

 

Jeff, you're definitely right about High.  It runs the entire length of the city and is an extremely important corridor, even moreso, I think, than Broad.  There are definitely many places along it, from Downtown up through Campus, that are not finished, but the momentum is certainly there.  The biggest areas for opportunity are from the northern parts of the SN up through Weinland Park.  There are really only a few empty lots left from 670 to 2nd Avenue, and 2 of them are going to be built on by early next year with the new hotel/parking garage.  The biggest lot, of course, is the Ibiza site, which who knows when that will be completely free of legal battles.  I know it recently changed hands and there are plans in the works for large apartment buildings, but we'll see what happens.  Regardless, once those lots go, the obvious direction to move is north. 

 

German Village does not have a high concentration of retail on High, and I think part of that reason is because it's a historic residential area and it's much harder to get things built when you can't tear anything down or do significant renovations that change the look of the buildings.  South of Merion Village, the density just isn't there for a major push in revitalization, at least not yet. 

 

Olde Town East is another great candidate to be the next hot area, but it's been like that for awhile.  Some things have improved, but it still feels disconnected from Downtown because of 71.  The Short North really felt cohesive after the 670 cap, and it might not be until after caps are put over 71 with the reconstruction that OTE starts seeing more of a rebirth.  Franklinton, I believe, stands the best chance of being the next hot spot over the next 10 years, especially the eastern portions.  Plenty of land to build on, great location near Downtown and the Scioto, etc.  The West Side, from Franklinton through the Hilltop all the way out to Westland is going to be the corridor to be in the coming years.  Revitalization in Franklinton, the casino and the new plans for Westland Mall are really going to turn around that area.  Everything in the middle is going to see improvements as well as the city overall sees Broad as a corridor to both areas. 

Don't forget that one of the main things that cursed Franklinton was flooding. Until Franklinton Floodwall 2000 went up, obviously people weren't going to sink a lot of time, effort and money into the areas that were prone to flooding. Though it has been over 10 years, installation of a floodwall doesn't necessarily translate into immediate revitalization. In Portsmouth, most prewar/pre-floodwall frame houses in the basin are bent, and I'd imagine the situation is the same in parts of Franklinton. People aren't always the ones who want to be first to sort out that situation.

Don't forget that one of the main things that cursed Franklinton was flooding. Until Franklinton Floodwall 2000 went up, obviously people weren't going to sink a lot of time, effort and money into the areas that were prone to flooding. Though it has been over 10 years, installation of a floodwall doesn't necessarily translate into immediate revitalization. In Portsmouth, most prewar/pre-floodwall frame houses in the basin are bent, and I'd imagine the situation is the same in parts of Franklinton. People aren't always the ones who want to be first to sort out that situation.

 

Very good point about the flooding and a huge reason why nothing was going on there before 2000.  It was not just that the city was ignoring the area.  It took a few years after to start seeing more interest, but then we hit one recession 2001-2003 and then the big one 2007 to present.  Plans basically died on the vine there, just like in many other areas.  Now that we are starting to see the economy come back, plans are back on track again. 

Still, the floodwall was installed a decade ago in an inexpensive neighborhood bordering Downtown that has a good number of commercial spaces on the stretch of W Broad from 315 to Central Ave. Looking at what artists did to the Short North and the subsequent gentrification which was becoming ever more present makes this neighborhood and district an obvious choice. The city is going to spend $15 million to accommodate the west side casino/big business, where's $15 million to get Franklinton's and the Hilltop's business districts back in business with artists and local entrepreneurs/small business? The city is too busy reaching out to accommodate big business, while by comparison is doing little to encourage small business to breath some fresh air into our moribund business districts. Penn National didn't have to wait a decade.

 

The bike lanes and meters in the Hilltop were brought up and are a perfect example of the city dumping on a neighborhood short-shortsightedly. Residents had to fight too and nail with the city to maintain parking on W Broad because the city wanted bike lanes in lieu of parking. To remove parking on a neglected, empty district would guarantee it would at best look like N High Downtown: the other major business district that has no on-street parking and look how empty that is today without the higher crime factor to deal with. The meters aren't going to help the neighborhood and it would be difficult to prove that it wasn't punishment doled out for standing up to the city. This street, before meters, was mostly empty and still is on any given day, unlike the busy districts with free on street parking in Clintonville and Old North Columbus. Those are the streets that should have meters installed, not a business district that is already struggling to get more than one decent business, Cycle Co, to open here. To add insult to injury, what little money is being in Highland West's business district is not going to be used to implement the planned streetscape improvements on W Broad, which the city paid to make renderings of and not follow through. Instead, the city is taking money from here, as we speak, and allotting it to go into the pockets of the Hiltons while the business district continues its years long decline.

 

Columbus will continue to improve and I never said it won't, which seems to be lost on jbcmh81 (along with the fact that Detroit pales in comparison with Columbus, since all those people in the metro area are investing in, duh, the metro area/their backyard, not the city of Detroit) it's that steps that can be taken are either not being taken or are moving at a snail's pace, if they are being taken at all, and even then they do a horrible job of communicating with the public. Again, if you want to wait til you're 60 for a few more good urban blocks to pop up on other sides of town, you go on right ahead.

 

Jeffrey - Olde Towne East was the next big thing for fifteen years: only just recently (around a year ago) did the number of businesses see a significant increase of approx. 50% with six new businesses: Yellow Brick Pizza, The Angry Baker, CS Gallery, Voda Emporium, Portico, and Smothered Gravy. Apparently, I'm supposed to be floored at how quickly things are moving here (I'm not), though the last year has finally at long last proven to be promising.

Still, the floodwall was installed a decade ago in an inexpensive neighborhood bordering Downtown that has a good number of commercial spaces on the stretch of W Broad from 315 to Central Ave. Looking at what artists did to the Short North and the subsequent gentrification which was becoming ever more present makes this neighborhood and district an obvious choice. The city is going to spend $15 million to accommodate the west side casino/big business, where's $15 million to get Franklinton's and the Hilltop's business districts back in business with artists and local entrepreneurs/small business? The city is too busy reaching out to accommodate big business, while by comparison is doing little to encourage small business to breath some fresh air into our moribund business districts. Penn National didn't have to wait a decade.

 

The bike lanes and meters in the Hilltop were brought up and are a perfect example of the city dumping on a neighborhood short-shortsightedly. Residents had to fight too and nail with the city to maintain parking on W Broad because the city wanted bike lanes in lieu of parking. To remove parking on a neglected, empty district would guarantee it would at best look like N High Downtown: the other major business district that has no on-street parking and look how empty that is today without the higher crime factor to deal with. The meters aren't going to help the neighborhood and it would be difficult to prove that it wasn't punishment doled out for standing up to the city. This street, before meters, was mostly empty and still is on any given day, unlike the busy districts with free on street parking in Clintonville and Old North Columbus. Those are the streets that should have meters installed, not a business district that is already struggling to get more than one decent business, Cycle Co, to open here. To add insult to injury, what little money is being in Highland West's business district is not going to be used to implement the planned streetscape improvements on W Broad, which the city paid to make renderings of and not follow through. Instead, the city is taking money from here, as we speak, and allotting it to go into the pockets of the Hiltons while the business district continues its years long decline.

 

Columbus will continue to improve and I never said it won't, which seems to be lost on jbcmh81 (along with the fact that Detroit pales in comparison with Columbus, since all those people in the metro area are investing in, duh, the metro area/their backyard, not the city of Detroit) it's that steps that can be taken are either not being taken or are moving at a snail's pace, if they are being taken at all, and even then they do a horrible job of communicating with the public. Again, if you want to wait til you're 60 for a few more good urban blocks to pop up on other sides of town, you go on right ahead.

 

Jeffrey - Olde Towne East was the next big thing for fifteen years: only just recently (around a year ago) did the number of businesses see a significant increase of approx. 50% with six new businesses: Yellow Brick Pizza, The Angry Baker, CS Gallery, Voda Emporium, Portico, and Smothered Gravy. Apparently, I'm supposed to be floored at how quickly things are moving here (I'm not), though the last year has finally at long last proven to be promising.

 

Keith, the area around the casino site is one of the most vacant, abandoned neighborhoods in the NATION, let alone Columbus.  This is the first significant investment project there in many years, so why in the world would this deserve criticism?  The casino is investing $400 million into their development, and now there are plans to rebuild Westland in similar fashion to Easton.  This, by any standards, is fantastic news for that long-ignored area.  Penn National didn't have to wait a decade for what?  Ohio voters didn't even approve casinos in the state until the last few years, so they were not even permitted to build anywhere. 

 

The residents won their battle.  I agree that removing street parking there would've been a bad idea, but that didn't happen, so what's the big deal?  And I'm also thinking that money collected from parking meters across the city goes into a general fund and it not specifically doled out per neighborhood, meaning that money collected in the SN is not automatically used for the SN, and so on. 

 

It's not lost on me.  I know Columbus will continue to improve.  I just think you try very hard to find something negative to say about nearly everything.  A classic example is in the Columbus Commons thread where you said nothing about the grand opening but made sure to comment on how the ugly wall in the back did not get painted.  I mean, come on.  There are significant beautification plans for that wall. 

When the casino became legal is absolutely irrelevant. The city knew about what artists had done to the Short North for over a decade: they got no incentives until just recently in Franklinton and it certainly doesn't add up to the $15 million they're giving Penn National with virtually no delay in comparison. So what about what artists got startedin the Short North and environs and all of the money made there? Why would another Easton/mall be a good thing there? Aren't we over-malled already? What you've been saying just doesn't follow any sort of logic, whether it's that it's no big deal that residents had to scream at the top of their lungs to stop the city which was dead set on removing parking or baseless assertions that large metro areas = great urban cities. Hello, plenty of large cities have large metro populations and they are way behind where they used to be when there was mainly just the city population. Columbus had a healthier urban core in 1950 with just 375,000 residents vs. today with 775,000 city residents + the metro pop. If you want to make such outrageous claims, please provide facts to back them up. My point still stands: artists seemed to be overlooked for what huge changes they can make and that is especially true in Columbus, where changes have been occurring, but much too slowly: see Olde Town East, Parsons Ave, etc.

When the casino became legal is absolutely irrelevant. The city knew about what artists had done to the Short North for over a decade: they got no incentives until just recently in Franklinton and it certainly doesn't add up to the $15 million they're giving Penn National with virtually no delay in comparison. So what about what artists got startedin the Short North and environs and all of the money made there? Why would another Easton/mall be a good thing there? Aren't we over-malled already? What you've been saying just doesn't follow any sort of logic, whether it's that it's no big deal that residents had to scream at the top of their lungs to stop the city which was dead set on removing parking or baseless assertions that large metro areas = great urban cities. Hello, plenty of large cities have large metro populations and they are way behind where they used to be when there was mainly just the city population. Columbus had a healthier urban core in 1950 with just 375,000 residents vs. today with 775,000 city residents + the metro pop. If you want to make such outrageous claims, please provide facts to back them up. My point still stands: artists seemed to be overlooked for what huge changes they can make and that is especially true in Columbus, where changes have been occurring, but much too slowly: see Olde Town East, Parsons Ave, etc.

 

How is it not relevant when you were just complaining that they waited years when that wasn't reality?  And the $15 million is a one time deal because they had to move from their original site in the Arena District.  Columbus will get like $17 million every year in taxes.  If anyone got screwed, it was the casino.  Second, since when did artists start needing incentives to be artists?  Aren't they the types who generally move into low-income, rundown neighborhoods in the first place *because* they are cheap?  The first artists in the SN certainly did not receive kickbacks from the city to move there.  Is it a good idea to give them more reasons to move to Franklinton?  Absolutely, but I also don't like making them into one more dependent group on tax money. 

 

And what city did NOT have a healthier core in 1950, are you kidding?  Columbus only had a Downtown population of about 30,000 back then, or about 3x what it is now.  It was that the city was more compact prior to the interestate highway system coming through and breaking up the area.  But that is true with every major city in the entire country.  This is not news nor is it Columbus-specific. 

 

And it's "especially true" only to someone who either can't or refuses to see the good in anything.   

 

 

Jeffrey - Olde Towne East was the next big thing for fifteen years: only just recently (around a year ago) did the number of businesses see a significant increase of approx. 50% with six new businesses: Yellow Brick Pizza, The Angry Baker, CS Gallery, Voda Emporium, Portico, and Smothered Gravy. Apparently, I'm supposed to be floored at how quickly things are moving here (I'm not),

 

Like I said, the High Street corridor...Short North up into Clintonville....is where the action is and other areas wont really take off until this corridor is more or less 'finished'....until there are no redevelopment or re-use opportunities availble or empty storefront spaces available, or property values/rents rise enough to make people look elsewhere. 

 

At that time youll see things pick up in some of these other areas.

 

 

When the casino became legal is absolutely irrelevant. The city knew about what artists had done to the Short North for over a decade: they got no incentives until just recently in Franklinton and it certainly doesn't add up to the $15 million they're giving Penn National with virtually no delay in comparison. So what about what artists got startedin the Short North and environs and all of the money made there? Why would another Easton/mall be a good thing there? Aren't we over-malled already? What you've been saying just doesn't follow any sort of logic, whether it's that it's no big deal that residents had to scream at the top of their lungs to stop the city which was dead set on removing parking or baseless assertions that large metro areas = great urban cities. Hello, plenty of large cities have large metro populations and they are way behind where they used to be when there was mainly just the city population. Columbus had a healthier urban core in 1950 with just 375,000 residents vs. today with 775,000 city residents + the metro pop. If you want to make such outrageous claims, please provide facts to back them up. My point still stands: artists seemed to be overlooked for what huge changes they can make and that is especially true in Columbus, where changes have been occurring, but much too slowly: see Olde Town East, Parsons Ave, etc.

 

`

How is it not relevant when you were just complaining that they waited years when that wasn't reality?

They and other big names didn't have to wait like Franklinton.

 

Second, since when did artists start needing incentives to be artists?  Aren't they the types who generally move into low-income, rundown neighborhoods in the first place *because* they are cheap?  The first artists in the SN certainly did not receive kickbacks from the city to move there.  Is it a good idea to give them more reasons to move to Franklinton?  Absolutely, but I also don't like making them into one more dependent group on tax money.

 

Yet it's OK to give tax breaks to yuppies to move Downtown when they already make plenty of money? Also note that I suggested choosing just one block in a small number of struggling neighborhoods to provide incentives and why not if you're willing to be one of the very first to step up when no one else will?

 

And what city did NOT have a healthier core in 1950, are you kidding?  Columbus only had a Downtown population of about 30,000 back then, or about 3x what it is now.  It was that the city was more compact prior to the interestate highway system coming through and breaking up the area.  But that is true with every major city in the entire country.  This is not news nor is it Columbus-specific.

 

Glad to see you finally came around and realized that large metro areas don't result in lots of quality urbanism. In fact, I'm sure you know from 1st hand experience like I do that those who live in a city's metro area spend the bulk of their income in the metro area and the city sees very little if any of that.

 

And it's "especially true" only to someone who either can't or refuses to see the good in anything.

 

That remark is demonstrably false as evidenced by many of my own posts. I don't understand what's so hard to understand; High St (the north side) is great...for a while. Some of us will start to get antsy and be ready to move somewhere else where there's more going on. I was hoping others would have seen the potential that I did off of High (a big part of my defunct blog) and while there have been a few, they've pretty much been the only ones over a period of several years and the momentum that they embodied has remained in limbo where it exists with few exceptions.