Hey everybody, I thought this was a cool idea.  I don't know if anyone has done it before but I thought it was neat to compare the 3 downtowns of the 3 C's.  I don't know if this is the right section or if it should just go in City Discussion but hopefully this will work.  Check it out.

 

Cleveland:

 

Cincinnati:

 

Columbus:

 

It's cool how different the landscapes are so I just figured I'd put a side by side comparison of images that everyone has probably already seen before.  Enjoy!

 

:wave:

Gotta love the rivers...the Cuyahoga just rocks, with all the bends and turns...

Good idea. I found some differences of the downtowns...

 

1) You can definetaly tell Cleveland & Columbus have bigger buildings then Cincy...

 

2) Columbus & Cincy have straight downtown streets and intersections where as you can see Cleveland has more angled streets. You can see alot of square shapes from the street intersections in CIN and CLB...

 

3) I kind off looks like CLE has a bigger downtown then CLB...

 

4) CLE has less highway then CIN and CLB around the city...

Aha!  Finally, we have proof that rivers are brown and not blue when viewed from above!  Time to change all those pretty maps!

I was very suprised to see that it almost looks like Cleveland is more dense than Cincy which I wasn't expecting.  It could be an illusion though.  Also, I find it very cool that Cincy and Columbus have American grid style layouts and Cleveland has a more European, almost Parisian style street layout. 

I agree with above post. Cleveland looks most dense of the three, which surprises me as well based on the overall posts of this forum.

 

My opinion is that the comments about density in reference to the three C’s are based on the angles/locations that the city of Cleveland is most photographed.

 

For the most part, photographs I’ve seen on this site are taken from the west (the least dense area of downtown) or the flats. The west end of downtown is also where the tallest buildings are located and they tend obstruct the views of the smaller buildings to the east.

 

Any views of downtown from the flats are very common and misleading in respect to density as well. The buildings to the east appear small, and few and far in between. This is because of the lower elevation of the flats compared with the higher elevation of the downtown area. Actually the buildings are no more than seven or eight relatively short blocks away, all though they appear much farther away.

 

The entire downtown skyline can only be seen in the photographs that are taken from the near/far east or the due south/southwest. Examples of this are the observation deck of the Garfield Memorial (Lakeside Cemetery) to the east, or the Broadview Heights/ Parma areas to the south/southwest.

^ Agreed...the Big three (maybe 4) make the other buildings to the East look smaller than they actually are.  The residential density in the Cincy picture to the North is definitely worth noting.  It is just different types of building...in Cleveland you have more large condo or apt buildings, while from the pics I have seen in Cincy, there seem to be more smaller buildings packed closely together.  This gives the impression of a very dense area.  Unfortunately Cleveland lost many of those same type buildings throughout not just the downtown area, but even throughout the city, long ago.  Since we are only really talking about downtown, I would have to say Cleveland is a very "angular" city....from certain aspects, it looks kind of spread out...like views from the West (except maybe going into the city from the Main Ave bridge), but when you stand at E 9th and Euclid or E 9th and Prospect...looking in any direction the buildings go quite far.

* My personal favorite is the view from UH to downtown following Euclid Ave at dusk.   ( can be seen on this site in the Cleveland skyline page  5th column, 8th row down)

I like Cleveland when coming in east bound on the I-90 bridge. You can see all the buildings from the Justice Center to Rhodes Hall at CSU and it looks very nice. I also like coming in on I-90 West bound and it looks real dense. Columbus I like the view coming in on I-70 east bound seeing the talls line up along High and other downtown Aves. I like CIncy entering on I-71,75 North seeing the skyline through the hills-nice.

Yes, I actually love all three cities skylines from those locations. But I don't live in Ohio and I don't get to see them very often :x Also, I love the Pittsburgh skyline from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, one of the best.

Columbus appears to be the only city that didn't decapitate the key body of water from downtown.

Well, capping the highway through downtown is in Cincinnati's plans...but we've got a river that's probably at 26' in that picture, a flood stage of 52', and a river that hits the mid-50's probably every 2nd or 3rd year, hits the mid-60's every 30-50 years, and could probably hit 80 again if everything went wrong at once.  A little decapitation is just wise design!

 

 

Good idea. I found some differences of the downtowns...

 

1) You can definitely tell Cleveland & Columbus have bigger buildings then Cincy...

 

 

Well, depending on the time of day that the sat flew over the city would determine the shadow length. I would bet that Cincy was taken around Noon, while Cleveland was early morning and Columbus, well I could careless.

 

True. But shadows or not the 3 tallest buildings in Ohio (and between NY & Chi-town) are located in downtown Cleveland.

 

Key Tower 947 ft  - 57 Stories

Terminal Tower 708 ft - 52 stories

BP Tower 658 ft - 45 stories

 

The tallest buildings in Col, Cin are below clev's 3rd tallest. I'm not dissing either city, I'm simply stating the facts.

 

 

It seems that Cincinnati and Cleveland are both equally dense in the core (though Cleveland's shadows makes it seem more complete, though it's an optical illusion), yet Cincinnati's northern residential area is much denser than the other two (as the area east of downtown Cleveland and almost all of the perimeter of downtown Columbus is horrendous).  Though the highways that surround all of those cities is pathetic.

Good idea. I found some differences of the downtowns...

 

2) Columbus & Cincy have straight downtown streets and intersections where as you can see Cleveland has more angled streets. You can see alot of square shapes from the street intersections in CIN and CLB...

 

I really love how Cleveland's streets wind like this. It gives the illusion of a denser and easier-to-get-lost-in downtown when you're walking through them.

 

And even shadows aside, you can definitely tell Cleveland's downtown looks more packed together and tight (if you ignore the Public Square parking lots).

Ah, aerial photos, my best friends!

 

I've looked at these particular images so many times that I ought to have something interesting to point out about them, but it isn't so.

 

And even shadows aside, you can definitely tell Cleveland's downtown looks more packed together and tight (if you ignore the Public Square parking lots).

 

Well hell, ignore Broadway Commons and Cincinnati wins the "dense" card if we are ignoring blatant parking lots lol!

 

And even shadows aside, you can definitely tell Cleveland's downtown looks more packed together and tight (if you ignore the Public Square parking lots).

 

Well hell, ignore Broadway Commons and Cincinnati wins the "dense" card if we are ignoring blatant parking lots lol!

 

Actually I think Cincy's spread-out sections are more glaring than either Columbus or Cleveland's. Especially to the north before that dense housing starts, yuck. Maybe it's just the way the aerial shot makes it look. They could really do a lot with that and make it look pretty nice!

 

Columbus looks a lot better than I thought it would. I never realised how it's built right up to the river.

Actually I think Cincy's spread-out sections are more glaring than either Columbus or Cleveland's. Especially to the north before that dense housing starts, yuck. Maybe it's just the way the aerial shot makes it look. They could really do a lot with that and make it look pretty nice!

 

Er...which area are you talking about?  Here's a shot ColDay took (Cincinnati Aerials Part I & Cincinnati Aerials Part II) from the north looking back at town:

 

 

The "spread out area" is to the left in this shot:

 

 

...and to the right:

 

 

...Cincinnati's not got a lot of things, but density in the basin, that it does fairly well...could have even fewer surface lots, no doubt, but that's true everywhere...

 

Having been to both cities, Cincinnati is definitely more dense and that's not because I'm biased either ... I could be from Zanesville and I'll still think this.

Cleveland:

 

Ughh-even from space, you can't get away from those hideous orange seats at CBS. I'll bet NASA uses them as a navigation point.

And to all of those who slam the Cuyahoga River for always looking brown-ALL rivers "appear brown". It has nothing to do with how clean or dirty it may be. Get over it.

Yes, I agree that being dense is one thing Cincinnati does well ;-) In all honesty, Cincy's CBD is more tightly packed if for no other reason than its topography.

I guess this little debate is civilized enough; adding some fuel can't hurt too much.  So I might as well dig up these maps I threw together for another thread a while back.  The discussion spurred from a similar map of Columbus on some web site.  For the record, official CBD boundaries were a factor, so that's why the Cleveland map below seems to address a larger area, though I can't recall if the maps are at the same scale.

 

Cleveland downtown area surface lots:

 

Cincinnati downtown area surface lots:

Yes, I agree that being dense is one thing Cincinnati does well ;-) In all honesty, Cincy's CBD is more tightly packed if for no other reason than its topography.

 

MayDay, I was hoping you would come through with a well-balanced honest opinion. ;)

"And to all of those who slam the Cuyahoga River for always looking brown-ALL rivers "appear brown". It has nothing to do with how clean or dirty it may be. Get over it."

 

If I had a dollar for every time I had to explain that the riverbed is mud (rather than sand/sediment) and THAT'S why it always looks brown...

Those are great!  They really demonstrate that there is room to grow in both CBDs.  Also, Cleveland appears to have more "full block" surface lots in the CBD than Cincinnati.  Thankfully, there are plans on the near horizon for several of these (Avenue District & Stark's "Pesht").  How about Cincy?  I'm not up-to-date there.

The Banks, when completed in the next millenium, will clear out all the red between the stadiums in Cincy.

what about the spot just west of Cinergy---errrr...GAB?  Are those being primed for something?

 

We've got big ol' chunks of land just west and north of Browns Stadium that aren't marked as surface lots, but they behave as such on a few select Sundays every year.  Otherwise, they're Port of Cleveland facilities.  We're working on a master plan to move them to the west side of the river...that's our "next millenium" plan!

agree the shadows in the cle shot are misleading, but in a good way.

 

this is getting away from the cbd and generalizing but there is no question that cleveland was at one time by far the most dense. but clev took the worst clear-cutting hits of them all and we have been crying over that stale draft erin brew beer for the last 40 yrs. and we should too! shame on our city leaders of all three c's for all the teardowns.

 

now what we do with the tabla rasa empty lots? that's on all of us, thats for today and the future. we all must do what we can to make sure developers and city leaders use the opportunities wisely and stay on their backs like pitbulls.  :whip:

 

ok, i'd say despite all it's losses too, cinci remains more intact than cle or cols so it wins in reality. aerial photo or no photo i don't care. yes the hills help so what. not to mention it's prettiest of all three. not that its a contest, but there i said it.

 

the big buildings, big apt buildings & big wood double houses, etc. of clev vs the tight downtown, intact side-by-side brick and row stuff in cinci? well, like the ohio river and lake erie, that's just apples and oranges to me. i like'm both.  :clap:

 

 

 

 

I don't wanna make this into a pissing contest or anything but it seems to me that becuz Cleveland lost so much of its historical architecture,core buildings,neighborhoods etc(and becuz Cincinnati has the nearly intact over-the-rhine and a few areas downtown) that it has become fashionable to say without question that Cleveland lost the most.Many people don't realize that nearly the entire basin area of Cincinnati was built up and occupied. And not only that but the entire riverfront as well.In the 1880's Cincinnati was the densist city in America with over 300,000 people all of them crammed/packed into this comparatively tiny area for a whopping 37,143 people per square mile. Then the migration up the hills began and also the diffusion of the populace into those areas,and then the cities land area increased as well. So as far as historical density goes, top that.Btw, nearly all of these residences are gone and only portions of it remain. Thank GOD we still have that tho.

^ it's not fashionable, cincity it's reality. cinci topped out around 500k at its pop peak w/in its city limits and clev about 1m within a slightly smaller square milage. but i can't show you any inkling of that from today's aerials. why do you think clevelanders bemoan so much on here and in general? we grew up being told how big it used to be in our own parents lifetimes.

 

 

I'm talking about historical density,before both cities were 70 square miles or so. Cincy's residents were literally packed into the basin area,with the hills surrounding it acting as a veritable fortress on all sides.The city was about 10 square miles with a population at 370,000.

ok, but does it matter if it was 1880 or 1950? what happened with both sucks in any century.

too true.

Just as a reference regarding Cleveland, our city's current density is a little less than 2,400/km2. If we had retained our peak population, our density would compare with cities like Montreal (4,327), Boston (4,640) and Chicago (4,923). That being said, we're still comparable to Seattle (2,626) and St. Louis (2,225) and blow Houston (1,302) and Atlanta (1,221) out of the water. FYI, Cincinnati stands at 1,498/km2. Granted, population density does not at all equate to building density in CBDs, but I thought the digression was worthwhile.  :-D

I was simply trying to point out that becuz Cincy still retains some of its historically dense character this leads to the perception that most of the city remains intact. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

8shades where did you find that? heres what i found on wiki and posted it in a recent similar thread on ssp:

 

 

"i have no idea how perfectly on the money this is since i got it off wiki, but since ohio is the most representative state and cleveland has the most density here it is: 6,166.5/mi². that's not for a 25mi radius, but for the whole city area of 77.6 mi². that's all i could find."

 

 

The figure of 37,000 per square mile and the claim of densest city in america comes from Ohio history central web site.(sorry, i'm new to computers and don't know how to post a link.yes i'm a complete idiot I know)

wow that would be more than parts of chicago or los angeles today! cleveland's peopel per sq mi density would have topped out at like 12.5k at it's pop peak, maybe a bit more as i am not sure of the city limits in those days.

 

for comparison's sake today some peak pop density area codes of chicago and los angeles are in the lower 20k people per sq mi range. manhattan is in the 66k per sq mi range and brooklyn in the 40+k range.

 

i got that info from the "densest city" thread over on ssp.

 

What does all of this have to do with downtown density? Mrnyc, all I gotta say ... you need to visit Cincinnati.

Since the topic has shifted a bit more toward residentail density, the city of Lakewood and the Edgewater neighborhood of Cleveland has to be one of the more dense areas of Ohio.

 

In Columbus, based on the number of students at OSU, I would have to guess that the campus and surrounding area is also quite dense.

 

From the previous posts it's clear Cincy has the most dense downtown.

Glad to see someone posted a pic of my neighborhood, Lakewood's Gold Coast. I see my building too -- it's the building three houses north of the "Tech" in "Europa Technologies". I once saw a stat that the population in that one-square-mile area represented above is about 20,000.

Cincinatti

Oh no you didn't...

That's blasphemous !

What does all of this have to do with downtown density? Mrnyc, all I gotta say ... you need to visit Cincinnati.

Cincinnati's density is outstanding. Mt. Adams is the perfect example of what inner cities should strive for. The streets are narrow, most of the new buildings have garages as the first floor; saving a lot of space and preserving the density. The reason Cincinnati isn't as dense statistically, as it is visually is because of the geography. Mountains and valleys and such getting in the way. It provides great scenery of greenspace though. OTR use to house what, over 80k people? In a neighborhood of 1 square mile. West End/Queensgate were basically the same before freeways and warehouses took over :[  makes me sad.

Something no one has touched regarding Cincinnati's history in regards to "density" is that Cincinnati had migration to "suburbs" such as Clifton, Avondale, Mt. Auburn, and Cumminsville (Northside) as Over-the-Rhine, Queensgate, West End, and Mt. Adams were regarded as slums.  Thus, the population shift moved from the basin neighborhoods up the hill to the "newer" (meaning, 1870-1890's) suburbs.  Then the shift came again in the 1930's when Hyde Park, Oakley, Carthage, Westwood, and Mt. Lookout became desireable.  Thus, Cincinnati has been shifting population since inception.  The interesting thing is that the structural density (while in some cases, were obliterated i.e. Evanston, Avondale, and Queensgate) has still been relatively intact (thus, Cincinnati today could probably house over a million, but since that whole shifting thing happened, it only has 305,000 or whatever now).

 

Cleveland was completely different, where the entire city suddenly boomed and lands were plotted to house dense, wood-frame housing and grand apartment buildings...then fell.  I'd bet that Lakewood is what Cleveland looked like all over in the 40's and 50's, eh?

 

Thus, I really can't rely on population statistics in terms of "density" as every city has a different historical growth.  Hell, Santa Monica is "denser" than Pittsburgh in population density...yet...umm...yeah...

Cleveland was completely different, where the entire city suddenly boomed and lands were plotted to house dense, wood-frame housing and grand apartment buildings...then fell.  I'd bet that Lakewood is what Cleveland looked like all over in the 40's and 50's, eh?

 

I know Cleveland has lost alot of apartment buildings, but I think its mostly along the avenues where next ot an existing apartment/retail building you see a large grass lot, or some semblence of a parking lot. If we could only fill those in it would make a world of difference. I think Cleveland also lost alot of apartment buildigns where the central Interchange and Gateway now stand.

 

Blasphemy corrected, David. As a kid who grew up on the Reds (I suppose a blasphemy in and of itself for someone who subsequently moved to Cleveland), my parents would be mortified.

 

mrnyc, those numbers are also from our most trusted friend Wikipedia. And according to Wikipedia, Lakewood is indeed very dense - 3,940.7/km2 - the "most densely populated city between New York and Chicago."

 

Sorry to have gotten off topic. Sometimes my mind moves all over the place before I arrive at my point. I suppose I was suggesting that the variables are interconnected - that density of buildings in a downtown area has important implications for redevelopment opportunities, particularly given the 3 Cs' increased focuses on building vibrant residential sections in their downtowns. Furthermore, while having a density of buildings in a downtown area can be a great asset, cities that lack a corresponding density of people are those that feel like ghost towns. Granted, I've oversimplified things a lot: Why stop at city limits? Given Ohio's penchant for sprawl, why not county-level or MSA? What about daytime population v. residential (evening) population? Is there really a correlation between total city population density and downtown population density? Well, what can I say - I'm too lazy to seriously contemplate all that stuff.

 

And now I'm going to try and let the thread get back on its original course. And stop misspelling Cincinnati.   

 

 

What does all of this have to do with downtown density? Mrnyc, all I gotta say ... you need to visit Cincinnati.

Cincinnati's density is outstanding. Mt. Adams is the perfect example of what inner cities should strive for. The streets are narrow, most of the new buildings have garages as the first floor; saving a lot of space and preserving the density. The reason Cincinnati isn't as dense statistically, as it is visually is because of the geography. Mountains and valleys and such getting in the way. It provides great scenery of greenspace though. OTR use to house what, over 80k people? In a neighborhood of 1 square mile. West End/Queensgate were basically the same before freeways and warehouses took over :[  makes me sad.

 

lol! cincy-rise, i was just in mt. adams last week  :laugh:

 

only for about an hour w/ the family tho, so sadly i did not get to visit the city this time. i spent a lot of time down there in the past & i even lived in cinci one summer so nver fear i am quite familar w/ it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I guess since you are familiar with both ... I'm not really sure how you could mistake the density between the two cities. Look, I'm not trying to start anything with you, nor am I trying to belittle Cleveland in any way, but the fact of the time difference (meaning the importance of the automobile - or in Cincy's case, no such thing as the automobile yet) and  the time frame of our two respectable cities taking shape. There is no comparison on density. Even the Clevelanders on here that are familiar with both cities will not argue this.

 

For reference: http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0027/

 

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=9178.0

^ yes the first clik on the census link shows that for various decades clev held sixth city status rank for three decades and cinci for two.

 

so you don't think there is a difference bet talking about something noone living today would recall and something your parents and neighbors b*tch and bemoan about constantly? that's were the attitude and all the wallowing in clev comes from. not to mention the sports teams fortunes.... :|

 

the second uo link has your very pretty recent downtown clev pics. you did good work. next time up try lorain, where instead of over half the population only a third of the population has left town in recent history.  :|  we're all singin the rustbelt blues up there....