I thought I might have heard it was because of lack of utilities like waterlines etc, but I am not sure. Indianapolis is almost equally developed on all sides, but Columbus has a much larger northside than southside. One can drive about 7 miles south and be in a rural area whereas it is the total opposite on the northside. The southside is also growing at a much slower rate as noted above. Will growth begin to pick up on the southside once most of Franklin County is develped? Again, if anyone could shed some light on this situation I would like to hear what you have to say. :-)

I think the south side of town is more industrialized than the north side.  They've got landfills, the old trash burning plant, the wastewater treatment facility, Rickenbacker and all it's associated warehouses, scrapyards, junkyards, and I think there's also some sort of smelly gravel processing facility.  None of them are really attractive to live near.  The north side also has all of the highway infrastructure to boot.

 

I will say that the Stringtown Rd. area has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two years. 

There is a glue factory where horses are incinerated at the 104 and 71 at certain times you can see a puff of black smoke come from the smokestack..

You want more sprawl? ;)On a Cleveland trip i took one time. A friend of mine told me how amazed he was when it took longer to go from kings Islands to Downtown Cincinnati, than through all of Columbus.

I have often wondered about this, too.  I vaguely recall a geology professor once mentioning that something about the geology of the south side is different and makes water less accessible, but I've never verified that (or attempted to).

 

Even if that's true, the things Brewmaster said are undoubtedly a big reason, too.

Generally speaking (though we can find hundreds of case where the following isn't true) you want your industry down stream from your residential as to not spoil their water and air.  Thus residential has moved north in Columbus while industry has (sort of) moved south (at least south from the Short North).

 

Urban Geography 102 (from Ret. Geography Prof. Henry Hunker from OSU)

 

    The upstream / downstream argument is valid. Development tends to start near water and move uphill. In Columbus, north is slightly uphill.

 

    In addition, the northeast side of Columbus is closer to Cleveland, which in turn is closer to New York City.

 

    Similarly, Cincinnati more developed on the northeast side. A businessman told me that he located his branch office on the northeast side because it was closer to the home office in Columbus.

There are several reasons.

 

The upstream/downstream argument is very valid but also add in the fact that many parts of the southern metro are watersheds, industrial zones, and for agriculture.  Grove City is one of Columbus' fastest growing suburbs, though.

I think people on the south side of Columbus are very lucky. Though there is traffic, it is nothing like it is in New Albany, Westerville, Northeast Columbus, Worthington, Dublin, etc... It is also much closer to the country side, which is quite nice if I might say so myself! Who knows, the south side may be poised for big development, but if so, I hope they can keep it under control and not let it get out of control like here on the north side.

 

 

    In addition, the northeast side of Columbus is closer to Cleveland, which in turn is closer to New York City.

 

 

I dont think it has anything to do with this. 

 

 

    Similarly, Cincinnati more developed on the northeast side. A businessman told me that he located his branch office on the northeast side because it was closer to the home office in Columbus.

 

Again, I don't think Cincy's sprawl has anything to do with its location to other cities.  If this were true, you would see sprawl to the south of Columbus because of its proximity to Columbus and you would see more sprawl in the south of Cincinnati because of its proximity to Louisville and you would see more sprawl on the west side of Cincinnati because of its proximity to Indy.  The reason Cincy is more developed in the northeast is because of I-71 & I-75.  They both take a northeasterly track through the Cincy metro.  Having 2 main highways go through a geographically concentrated area is sure to have more people move there than, say the west side of Cincy, which only has one thoroughfare (I-74).  When it comes to Columbus, it is a mixture of better transportation up north with 315, etc. and the whole upstream downstream thing, I think.

 

 

^ oh btw, the only exception to what I said about sprawl is the suburbs of Cincy and Dayton.  A lot of those suburbs have cropped up because of their proximity to the two cities. 

So proximity to New York City is why Columbus sprawls north?  interesting...

Ohio State

Thanks for the info guys. :-)

Wait until the Norfolk-Southern Railroad's Rickenbacker Intermodal Yard gets up and running.  That's going to create a lot of jobs, development and traffic ... and growth into Southern Franklin and Northern Pickaway counties.  Southsiders are going to wake up one morning and suddenly find out they've become Northsiders.

 

    Just to clarify about the New York City comment:

 

    Being closer to Cleveland is one factor why the northeast side of Columbus is developing faster than the south side. Say you had a business in Cleveland, and you wanted to open a new branch in Columbus. Which is better, the northeast side, or the southeast side, everything else being equal? If you chose the northeast side, you would minimize transportation cost between your sites, while maintaining one site in each city.

 

    New York City is the dominant city in eastern North America, so everything tends to develop toward New York City just a little bit, including transportation routes.

 

    By no means is this the only factor, but just one factor. All of the points in previous posts are also valid.    :-)

 

 

 

   

 

   

 

   

Wait until the Norfolk-Southern Railroad's Rickenbacker Intermodal Yard gets up and running.  That's going to create a lot of jobs, development and traffic ... and growth into Southern Franklin and Northern Pickaway counties.  Southsiders are going to wake up one morning and suddenly find out they've become Northsiders.

 

Yep.  Does anybody have a guess at how many people 70,000 jobs could support?  If the average worker has a 3 person family (assumption) that's 210,000, but there will be support service jobs for all of those people as well. 

I was going to mention that Grove City is growing pretty rapidly, but CDM brought that up already.  I think faster growth along the southern side of Columbus is occurring to the southeast of the city along US-33, especially Pickerington.  Soon, growth is going to converge from both the US-33/Hamilton Rd. area and from Groveport and meet at Canal Winchester.  And then the Lancaster Bypass isn't that far away....