Sometimes the simplest questions are the most simplistic. Like this one:

 

Hey, Urban Ohio reader/contributor/troll: how did you get interested in cities and urban issues?

 

(Sorry admins if this topic's been out there. If so, I'll bake you a batch of Snickerdoodles for your trouble. If not, Lemon Squares).

^Martha Stewart's lemon squares?  Absolutely to die for...

 

I only got interested when I came to Cincinnati and fell in love with its beauty...and I'm not really a city guy, per se - I just love how the city nestles in the hills, along the river...so I guess, I got into cities via the Ohio river!

 

I used to look at a lot of maps, and statistics about cities. I don't know why I found it interesting. I'm just a big fan of the density, architecture, politics and the culture. I don't really know many people outside this forum that feel the same way so this site is good because it's full of people that all like discussing it.

when i moved to cleveland and everyone was like "cleveland is the greatest city on earth", so I had to educate them.

Cleveland's not so bad as long as you don't drink the water!

My interest probably stems from maps in some way, like pretty much everything else in my life.  Oh, and I've always enjoyed a nice city skyline.

Interest in travel. I not only got to appreciate what a nice city Columbus is, but also saw how it could be better. Spain really opened my eyes. Then I saw End of Suburbia and read Suburban Nation which got me more and more interested in where this city is headed in the future. So lot's of things incrementally.

Probably architecture...of course there was Hamilton too...and then this website...

When I was about 5 years old, my parents took my brother and I to Youngstown to sort out some paperwork for my grandmother. The office was located on a high floor of the Stambaugh Building (a whopping 12 stories) - I spent the entire time gawking out at the downtown cityscape. That next year, we took a short roadtrip to Cleveland, and to a 6 year old from a small town of 11,000 people - downtown Cleveland from the Valley View bridge (I-480) looked like the Emerald City in 'The Wizard of Oz.' I've always been drawn to cities for as long as I can remember.

And how about you, Mr. Kingfish?

 

I find visiting cities interesting because of their cultural uniquities.  Each city has it's own districts, attractions, history, sports, skyline... etc...

 

To me each city is like a bundle of secrets waiting to be discovered.  The discovery part is what I enjoy. 

 

I like living in cities because of the activity and convenience.  I like being able to walk to the grocery store, restaurants, bars, clubs, and sports events.  I also enjoy the vibrance of having people active doing different things all around me.

 

 

I like living in places with a little character and in close proximity to many amenities, so that got me to buy a place in Downtown Columbus.  The thought of purchasing a Dominion Home made me gag a little. 

 

I grew up in the 'burbs, but once I moved downtown, I was able to see things from the inside out, and I guess that's what really got the ball rolling.  It made me want to figure out what made some cities so great, and others so awful.  I read everything I could about transit, new urbanism, European city models, density, walkability, etc...  This site has really helped in that regard. 

 

Now I'm onto reading as much as I can about the energy industry and how our society can feasibly adapt to the changing scene.  I see the two topics as being intertwined due to our land use patterns. 

When I was very little, my favorite book was "Whose got the apple?".  In it, this guy walks around his urban neighborhood. I thought it was neat. 

There's the stew of childhood artifacts and memory flashes: Sesame Street in its gritty early 70's hey day; my Fisher Price VILLAGE Playset (SEE NEXT PAGE FOR PHOTOS) (exemplifying the principles of a centralized, highly walkable, mixed-use 24-hour live/work district); trips to Hamtramck with my mom to deliver Avon to her nursing school roomate (who to this day still lives in the same duplex). Growing up in Birmingham, MI--an older, Woodward Ave. corridor suburb of Detroit--meant hours roaming streets and alleys, and once you had your license, exploring Royal Oak, Ferndale and straight on down Woodward to downtown Detroit and Jefferson and Belle Isle. I eventually went to school and lived downtown, and after a 5-year sojourn in the near 'burbs, moved to Hamtramck. There, I would get heavily involved in citywide development and planning (and politics), serving on the DDA and ZBA and Plan Commission, helping to craft and implement a pedestrian-centric and urbanist Zoning Ordinance that effectively reversed the sloppy attempts at suburbanization of this vital old city. Throughout many battles--and a few victories--I developed a great respect for urban planners and the possibilities for cities (and the lack thereof for newer suburbs and developer-driven sprawl).

 

And that, folks, is as un-long-winded as I get.

My father was Finance Director of Hamilton when I was born and he eventually was City Manager and I just grew up interested in local politics and urban planning issues and architecture.  On Saturday mornings my favorite show was "This Old House" and not cartoons and in their second season (about 1980 I think) they did an H. H. Richardson designed house outside Boston.  I was immediately fascinated with all things Boston.  I have just always loved buildings (and legos, maps, etc.) for as long as I can remember.

When I was very little, my favorite book was "Whose got the apple?".  In it, this guy walks around his urban neighborhood. I thought it was neat. 

 

Another awesome urbanist kids' book is "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.

Growing up in a suburb of Akron, my father never liked malls and always took us shopping for anything in Downtown Akron and I always loved it.  I also realized around 4th grade that my Mom would loosen up and buy name brand merchandise if I got her to go to Downtown O'Neil's because she was nostalgic about shopping there as a little girl.  Going to Brown's/Indians games when I was a child and coming into Cleveland and driving up E 9th was the most awesome thing I had ever seen...so many tall buildings. 

 

Toys...Legos, Girder and Panel building set, Erector, Fisher Price Downtown...loved them all.  Also always liked studying maps and looking at how big Cleveland, LA, Miami and such were on maps. 

 

Going to Atlanta as a child and taking the new Marta train all around.  We came home and I used a wagon to play Marta, and pulled my friends around.

 

Getting my drivers license was all I needed to hop in the car and go to other cities for no reason except to go and be thrilled about going there.  Pittsburgh, Cincy, Columbus, Toronto, Detroit...anything close enough to drive in a few hours without my parents knowing.

 

The final epiphany came when I went to school at Kent and was bored with the small town feel.  I had a lot of friends in Cleveland, and would go up there all the time.  Bored with my major at Kent, I transferred to Cleveland State when someone gave me a class listing and I saw the Urban Affairs College.  Living in Shaker Square and Ohio City during college was the final realization that I hated driving everywhere, and liked walking to get everyday things that I needed.  My goal then was to never have to rely on driving again.

 

 

hmm. to start even as a kid i always hated malls and the destruction of our main streets. i was dragged around to all those early florida malls and hated them too. ugh.

 

today as others have said i too enjoy having the job, shops, grocery and conveniences, etc. right around my home. that always seemed the best way to live in a city to me. funny how neighborhoods in our biggest cities hold some of the last small town values, that is, where you know and say hi to your grocer, your neighbors, your deli guys, your pharmacist, etc. all day long.

 

my early impressions are shopping downtown in cleveland, old central market, relatives in old apts, getting a fake ID in the bowels of the old terminal tower, visits to other cities as a kid, etc. -- however, prob locally the biggest early impression made on me as a kid was heading through the fort pitt tunnel at night for the first time - as we all know - wow! yeah that sure made an early mark.

 

 

As a kid I liked to look at and draw maps and pictures of cities.  I would always gawk at cities as we drove by them on trips, then sleep through the beautiful countrysides my parents loved.  I took one of those aptitude tests in fourth grade and it came back "architect".  I wanted to be a scientist, so I changed it to "archeologist".

 

As a teenager, I began to hate all the sprawl that was consuming my suburbanizing hometown on the fringes of Cleveland.  I had thought it signalled growth and a healthy community, but after learning to look at census numbers and the like I realized the truth- my community was being plowed under for no good reason.  This realization didn't lead me to any useful political or civic activism however, just petty rebellion.  I think I hoped to drive the encroaching yuppies away.

 

It wasn't until college that I put all that together and realized that there was a field of study and a career involved.  Now that's all uncertain, but I still post here.

Maps

Legos, Micro Machines, Maps, moving to Cleveland and away from Detroit, Architecture, Skylines, Geography, Photography, ColDayMan..

 

In that order..

That's like asking "Why do you like chocolate?"  Dunno...I just do.

 

hat's like asking "Why do you like chocolate?"  Dunno...I just do.

 

Yeah I think so for me, too.

 

 

As a six-year-old, I used to take my father's Commercial Survey maps (Clevelanders know them as the red-covered map books) and completely redraw them. Each new map book he bought, I re-drew it. Streets were extended, others eliminated with a dab of White-Out, freeways were built, rail lines connected, islands were built in the lake....on and on. I got so proficient at it that he once drove Cedar Road toward the Chagrin River valley because he thought it went across the valley to reach a short stretch of Cedar Road in Geauga County. Of course, it didn't, but I made it look like it did!

 

A couple of years later, in the mid-1970s, my dad would take my sister and I from our home in white-ghetto, white-bread, sergrated-land-use Highland Heights to visit the family doctor on mixed-use, higher-density Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. While I was in to see the doctor, my dad would take my sister for a walk in the neighborhood. When it was sister's turn to see the doc, dad and I would take the walk. We strolled past storefronts and old apartment blocks along the sidewalk, and ended up at Cain Park -- a truly neat park with an outdoor theater, walking trails and a creek running through it.

 

When we got back to Highland Heights, I realized I couldn't walk anywhere special. Every block was like the other. Richmond Mall was about as good as it got. Even at that young age, I realized there was a difference in land use and one did something for my ethos while the other did not. It has stuck with me ever since.

I don't know, I'm starting to get into corn fields, rusty sheds and wind mills.

Guess what? I like those things too! But I prefer to visit areas that have those features, rather than live in them. Nothing beats a great drive through the countryside in a cool car, with the sunroof open, windows down and the stereo up. But I always come back to the city.

i was always interested in new projects.  I found that old cincy rise or whatever that website was that preceded this one.  Through that site, I was brought into this site when it opened and thus became educated on the great things the city has to offer.  coupled that with the current college experience at osu and youve got an urban lover baby. 

"I don't know, I'm starting to get into corn fields, rusty sheds and wind mills."

 

I grew up in an area that was about a 10-minute drive from all that and "fresh country air" (aka cow patties) - it ain't all it's cracked up to be!

I lived in a rural town in Ohio for six months, growing up. I hated it. The Amish people would ride their horses and buggies 5 miles an hour down the road and you were always stuck behind 'em. Then the horses would inevitably leave steaming piles of crap all over the roads. I'd always catch Amish people buying beer and Doritos and stuff at the corner store. Those Abraham Lincoln looking bastards are cheaters!

Legos, Maps, and Encyclopedias.

^ No Cheesecake Factory in the country.

As odd as it may sound, I believe I got my first love for cities from SimCity.  Throughout elementary school me and my friend would play the game all of the time, and I did further investigating/researching on my own.

 

I then became interested in architecture and how cities function.  Then, I figured out that I wanted to become an Urban Planner.  From there my interest has simply soared and has been heightened thx to this website as well.

 

I am now a full blown city-nerd.  I spend free time photographing/researching cities, I specifically make efforts to spend my money/time only in cities....pretty much my entire life now revolves around cities/urbanity. :-D

 

PS.  I still play SimCity today...SimCity 4 Deluxe is awesome and I cant wait to get home and play it tonite :-D...I know, I'm a big nerd!

For me it was legos, encyclopedias, sim city and I just found the city to be cool.

I didn't even think of Legos, but that is probably on target. I used to build these cities with raised walkways between buildings, which my family dubbed "Jetson Cities." I can remember when I got older, I used the road tiles to build a large circular street, then gave my friends different areas to build their businesses on, kind of like platting. I don't think I ever built a car or robot, just buildings and bridges.

Ok, shameless plug:  For those who like Sim City, I am on the steering committee for Future city Competition - Ohio Region where Middle School students create cities using Sim City, write and essay, and present a model of their city.  We can always use judges for the maps, models & presentations (If you live in Columbus it is easier because that's where we score them.) and essays which I email out.  Competition & judging begins again in December for 2007. 

 

www.futurecityohio.org

 

Take a look at some of the models of the kids' Sim Cities.  It's pretty interesting. (Go to "scrapbook" for pictures)

Hmmm. I guess common experiences all around. I built streetscapes out of legos. I was also a fan of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. And I was a huge SimCity fan, and a little bit later, Caesar (building Roman communities, where you could actually see the townpeople walking around). I also have to credit being a latchkey kid; as a child of the 80s, I was raised by television ... I remember 227 pretty vividly. Others included One Day at a Time, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Gimme a Break, Mary Tyler Moore, Perfect Strangers, Laverne and Shirley ... not all equally urban, but when compared to my semi-rural community, they definitely had a city flair to them. And I was ALWAYS inclined toward The Jetsons; I would hypothesize that most urban nerds favored Jetsons over Flintstones as children (in retrospect, it seems like The Flintstones lived in a pretty dreary suburban subdivision ... just speculation).

Very interesting with the Legos popping up again and again here. I loved Legos as a lad, but counter to UncleRando (and many others, I'm sure), I seldom constructed structures--mainly I built vehicles. But I also lacked the affinity for maps. I think the maps-Legos combo is decisive.

 

Inkaelin's platting exercise? That's just wierd.

 

I never messed around with the SimCity programs when they first come out, but if I had time for them now, I'd be totally into them. I bet you can track a boom in urban planning departments precipitated by the release of that game. It would seem to be every bit the recruiting tool for urban planners as DOOM was for soldiers and violent loners.  

 

I happen to love DOOM.

^i was raised on castle wolfenstein

^Ah, Castle Wolfenstein. Introducing a generation to Nazi fetishism. Good times.

I loved Legos but never used them to build cities.  I liked to build robots, spaceships and "shatterswords" which would smash into a million pieces when you hit someone with one, and hurt like hell to boot.  Ditto Construx, which could also be made to create a variety of throwing weapons (which would also smash into a million pieces when you hit someone with one, and hurt like hell to boot). 

 

I never liked SimCity.  Any city I ever built immediately turned into a ghetto.

SimCity. 1970s Version.

Yall are some lame a#$ nerds.

 

 

*goes back to comparing infant mortality rates by combined statistical areas*

Legos, Maps, and Encyclopedias.

 

I get the Legos and Maps, but Encylopedias?

Encyclopedias usually have a wealth of information on cities.

Castle Wolfenstein

 

Neat name.  But shouldn't it be Burg Wolfenstein, or Schloss Wolfenstein?

 

 

Legos, Maps, and Encyclopedias.

 

I get the Legos and Maps, but Encylopedias?

 

Well, when you learn just about anything with encyclopedia combined with legos/maps, one usually looks towards cities or countries.

That Fisher Price city was the coolest toy I ever owned

i love how we are all so familiar on a lot of fronts in this regard.  where were you people when I was growing up?  I was always into diff. toys than most boys lol. 

When I was a kid Legos wheren't as elaborate as they are today..they were still more "architectural" back then, though they did have blocks with these wheels and tires on them so you could build cars and such.

 

To like cities or to be interested in cities is a minority position, I think, here in the United States.  The cultural preference is for the rural or small town, or even wilderness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And bridge & girders (or something like that)