^Just mainly because the first few times I visited Columbus without actually exploring the city, it felt like a huge suburb and I said I would not step foot in that city again. I have actually grown to really like the city and will probably be the city I move to if I decide to stay in Ohio after grad school.

As a bicycle friendly city, Cbus will always have the benefit of topography over Cincinnati. Cbus is a bit too amorphous and cosmopolitan for my taste. I enjoy the settled, uber-localized nature of Cincy's culture.

^Just mainly because the first few times I visited Columbus without actually exploring the city, it felt like a huge suburb and I said I would not step foot in that city again. I have actually grown to really like the city and will probably be the city I move to if I decide to stay in Ohio after grad school.

 

I kind of agree, I found it always strange that only a few mins away from High Street by car around the university were roads without sidewalks and strip malls.  Here you have this incredibly vibrant street, and in cities that usually have streets this vibrant you expect more city.  Its a cool thing in a sense, but its kind of disappointing, as I'm used to Cincinnati where the real urban area is much larger even if it doesn't have a street like High Street.

 

Chicago has both lively streets and tons of urbanity, then again its Chicago...  ;)

^Just mainly because the first few times I visited Columbus without actually exploring the city, it felt like a huge suburb and I said I would not step foot in that city again. I have actually grown to really like the city and will probably be the city I move to if I decide to stay in Ohio after grad school.

 

I kind of agree, I found it always strange that only a few mins away from High Street by car around the university were roads without sidewalks and strip malls.  Here you have this incredibly vibrant street, and in cities that usually have streets this vibrant you expect more city.  Its a cool thing in a sense, but its kind of disappointing, as I'm used to Cincinnati where the real urban area is much larger even if it doesn't have a street like High Street.

 

Chicago has both lively streets and tons of urbanity, then again its Chicago...  ;)

 

Ummm...last I checked, Cincinnati also has strip malls near its main university as well (Corryville ring a bell?).  And I don't know anywhere near Ohio State that doesn't have sidewalks within Columbus city.  The only area remotely close to that is Clinton Township across the river behind Lennox Square but that's a bit of a ways from the walkable central campus.  Columbus has far more areas of walkable/urbanity aside from the High Street corridor or German Village.  That's like me saying all Cincinnati has is Mt. Adams, the Basin, and Uptown.  Of course that is entirely inaccurate but it works both ways.

Well, the statement was that only a few minutes from High Street "by car" there are strip malls and neighborhoods without sidewalks. The very fact that unincorporated pockets of Clinton Township are right in the middle of the city is testament to the fact that Columbus is not a highly urbanized city. That does not in any way diminish the High Street spine or other wonderful urban enclaves. It just acknowledges the fact that Columbus has a very odd history of development that left some close-in areas to township development and brought vast swaths of suburbia into the city limits in later years.

Sure, I buy that, but you'd have to go kind of out of your way to see Clinton Township, even by car, ala along (what is it) Kinnear?  The majority of the area around OSU is highly-urbanized, sans the *blank* across the river.  I do agree the inner-ring Columbus isn't nearly as fully-developed as, say, Pleasant Ridge/Oakley/Norwood ring outside of Cincinnati but it shouldn't be "strange" to see strip malls near any college campus in this state (or most states not named New York).

I too find it weird how urban Columbus seems to end very quickly past downtown and OSU.  I went to an OSU football game and I swear we parked at a farm (!) and took a bus to the stadium.  It's weird because you have such a great urban stretch of neighborhoods from German Village all the way up to the university, but then it just seems to kind of putter out very quickly in any direction.  One would think that this would be more the case in Cincinnati due to topographical challenges, but you can find highly urban areas in greater Cincinnati as far away from the core as Reading and Madisonville.

Depends on what you mean by "highly urbanized". There are *several* urban corridors where you have an urban business district surrounded by homes on an urban grid. However, these corridors do need to be urbanized, because right now (and for decades beforehand) the only places to walk to are liquor stores, barber shops, crappy local fast-food type joints selling pizza, bars that you fear just stepping into, and decrepit buildings that continue to become empty lots. There's Parsons Ave on the South Side (serves as the main street for quite a few neighborhoods), E Livingston in Southern Orchards & Driving Park, E Main in OTE & Franklin Park, Mt Vernon & Long St in King Lincoln (the commercial for the PBS special on the neighborhood will make you sad with those pics of how dense and vibrant it used to be), W Broad and Sullivant (to a lesser degree) for Franklinton & Hilltop, Cleveland Ave in Linden, and E 5th Ave in East Columbus/Krumm Park. Outside of these older pre-WWII neighborhoods is where the sprawl begins, not just off of High St. All that Clinton Township signifies is that Columbus wasn't able to annex some pockets outside of the urban core and build sprawl on them.

 

Despite how much there is on High St there is nothing that will sour your take on Columbus like COTA on bad winter days where it's too iffy to bike. The fact that this city has had several years to offer decent service in the inner city and still doesn't is a huge strike. Another one is the local take on urban revitalization, which is basically that if it's off of High, it's too far gone, whereas in other cities in the region (Pittsburgh & Minneapolis) locals take the approach that it'll take some time and work, but it's been done before and can be done again, which is why they have so many more vibrant urban neighborhoods with more variety than we do. We basically have the High St neighborhoods and then everything else is a different shade of sad.

I too find it weird how urban Columbus seems to end very quickly past downtown and OSU.  I went to an OSU football game and I swear we parked at a farm (!) and took a bus to the stadium.  It's weird because you have such a great urban stretch of neighborhoods from German Village all the way up to the university, but then it just seems to kind of putter out very quickly in any direction.  One would think that this would be more the case in Cincinnati due to topographical challenges, but you can find highly urban areas in greater Cincinnati as far away from the core as Reading and Madisonville.

 

"Across the river" is telling.  Much like crossing the Ohio River from an urbanized Price Hill/Delhi on the Anderson Ferry to...that place...is quite dramatic.  Different municipalities, different uses.  And that farm you probably saw is owned by the university and it gets even me at times driving down Lane.  It's like "skyline and OSU in distance, cows in foreground."

And of course, highly urbanized means structurally dense.  Sure, commercial corridors in Olde Town East, Franklinton, Hilltop, Merion Village, Driving Park, Linden, blah blah blah are down and out but they are structurally very walkable/intact (aside from obvious exceptions such as a bombed-out Main Street).

What I'm hearing is:

• If High Street were a square instead of a line, Columbus would feel more substantial.
   
  
• The population of 770k is a lie/deceptive.
  

It's like "skyline and OSU in distance, cows in foreground."

 

Sounds like the new license plates!

Don't remind me!

"skyline and OSU in distance, cows in foreground."

 

The Chicago Tribune in 1980 did a series on urban America, and one of the 12 cities featured was Columbus. The front page of the Trib had a picture of Holsteins grazing along Lane Avenue, with the skyline in the background. Columbus mucky-mucks hated it; I love it.

Depends on what you mean by "highly urbanized". There are *several* urban corridors where you have an urban business district surrounded by homes on an urban grid. However, these corridors do need to be urbanized, because right now (and for decades beforehand) the only places to walk to are liquor stores, barber shops, crappy local fast-food type joints selling pizza, bars that you fear just stepping into, and decrepit buildings that continue to become empty lots. There's Parsons Ave on the South Side (serves as the main street for quite a few neighborhoods), E Livingston in Southern Orchards & Driving Park, E Main in OTE & Franklin Park, Mt Vernon & Long St in King Lincoln (the commercial for the PBS special on the neighborhood will make you sad with those pics of how dense and vibrant it used to be), W Broad and Sullivant (to a lesser degree) for Franklinton & Hilltop, Cleveland Ave in Linden, and E 5th Ave in East Columbus/Krumm Park. Outside of these older pre-WWII neighborhoods is where the sprawl begins, not just off of High St. All that Clinton Township signifies is that Columbus wasn't able to annex some pockets outside of the urban core and build sprawl on them.

 

What about Grandview Hts?  That place is somewhat urban its pretty nice and its away from High Street. You can walk to the Drexel (though I  heard it closed).

 

Clinton Township I believe was the area I was talking about, yet it seems you go further north then east and your in a hilly area without sidewalks.  There are places like that all over Columbus its kind of weird - the development patterns in that city are really bizarre.  Oh yeah and to answer ColDayMan, yeah there are strip malls near UC, but they have a much more urban feel than Clinton Township, they have sidewalks around them and the parking lots on them are way smaller.

^Just mainly because the first few times I visited Columbus without actually exploring the city, it felt like a huge suburb and I said I would not step foot in that city again. I have actually grown to really like the city and will probably be the city I move to if I decide to stay in Ohio after grad school.

 

I kind of agree, I found it always strange that only a few mins away from High Street by car around the university were roads without sidewalks and strip malls.  Here you have this incredibly vibrant street, and in cities that usually have streets this vibrant you expect more city.  Its a cool thing in a sense, but its kind of disappointing, as I'm used to Cincinnati where the real urban area is much larger even if it doesn't have a street like High Street.

 

Chicago has both lively streets and tons of urbanity, then again its Chicago...  ;)

 

I think the main difference in urban area comes from the fact that Cincinnati is older and reached its peak long before Columbus.  It has has different topography so the downtown area is closer together than it ever was in Columbus.  Columbus didn't even really have High Street until the last 10-15 years.  It's gentrifying, but it's going to take time to build off the success of High. 

Depends on what you mean by "highly urbanized". There are *several* urban corridors where you have an urban business district surrounded by homes on an urban grid. However, these corridors do need to be urbanized, because right now (and for decades beforehand) the only places to walk to are liquor stores, barber shops, crappy local fast-food type joints selling pizza, bars that you fear just stepping into, and decrepit buildings that continue to become empty lots. There's Parsons Ave on the South Side (serves as the main street for quite a few neighborhoods), E Livingston in Southern Orchards & Driving Park, E Main in OTE & Franklin Park, Mt Vernon & Long St in King Lincoln (the commercial for the PBS special on the neighborhood will make you sad with those pics of how dense and vibrant it used to be), W Broad and Sullivant (to a lesser degree) for Franklinton & Hilltop, Cleveland Ave in Linden, and E 5th Ave in East Columbus/Krumm Park. Outside of these older pre-WWII neighborhoods is where the sprawl begins, not just off of High St. All that Clinton Township signifies is that Columbus wasn't able to annex some pockets outside of the urban core and build sprawl on them.

 

Despite how much there is on High St there is nothing that will sour your take on Columbus like COTA on bad winter days where it's too iffy to bike. The fact that this city has had several years to offer decent service in the inner city and still doesn't is a huge strike. Another one is the local take on urban revitalization, which is basically that if it's off of High, it's too far gone, whereas in other cities in the region (Pittsburgh & Minneapolis) locals take the approach that it'll take some time and work, but it's been done before and can be done again, which is why they have so many more vibrant urban neighborhoods with more variety than we do. We basically have the High St neighborhoods and then everything else is a different shade of sad.

 

I think you're being way too hard on the city.  After all, who even went down to High in 1995?  I can remember it looking like Livingston or Sullivant back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  The vast majority of revitalization has occured only in the last decade or so.  I always thought that the focus SHOULD be on High considering it is the main artery in the Downtown area, with Broad being the secondary.  Broad is slowly getting more attention, but again, I think we are still in the early stages of all of this.  The city has done a tremendous amount of work.  I know that you're frustrated that it hasn't spread further than it has, but I tend to see a lot more accomplishments overall than failures.

I found it always strange that only a few mins away from High Street by car around the university were roads without sidewalks and strip malls.  Here you have this incredibly vibrant street, and in cities that usually have streets this vibrant you expect more city.  Its a cool thing in a sense, but its kind of disappointing, as I'm used to Cincinnati where the real urban area is much larger even if it doesn't have a street like High Street

 

Columbus grew in an odd fashion, so there are or where these fingers of apparently undeveloped land reaching deep into the city.  I'm thinking here of that area along the Olentangy River, the west side of the river, or the open spaces along the Scioto.  This area looks like it has a lot of newer developement, so it must have been  open country before WWII.

 

There's about as much "old town" in Columbus as there is in Dayton (the places were somewhat similar in population during the 19th and early 20th century), it just that the city developed in an unusual fashion. 

 

 

"skyline and OSU in distance, cows in foreground."

 

The Chicago Tribune in 1980 did a series on urban America, and one of the 12 cities featured was Columbus. The front page of the Trib had a picture of Holsteins grazing along Lane Avenue, with the skyline in the background. Columbus mucky-mucks hated it; I love it.

 

I love it too, actually.  It's quite unique!

 

Depends on what you mean by "highly urbanized". There are *several* urban corridors where you have an urban business district surrounded by homes on an urban grid. However, these corridors do need to be urbanized, because right now (and for decades beforehand) the only places to walk to are liquor stores, barber shops, crappy local fast-food type joints selling pizza, bars that you fear just stepping into, and decrepit buildings that continue to become empty lots. There's Parsons Ave on the South Side (serves as the main street for quite a few neighborhoods), E Livingston in Southern Orchards & Driving Park, E Main in OTE & Franklin Park, Mt Vernon & Long St in King Lincoln (the commercial for the PBS special on the neighborhood will make you sad with those pics of how dense and vibrant it used to be), W Broad and Sullivant (to a lesser degree) for Franklinton & Hilltop, Cleveland Ave in Linden, and E 5th Ave in East Columbus/Krumm Park. Outside of these older pre-WWII neighborhoods is where the sprawl begins, not just off of High St. All that Clinton Township signifies is that Columbus wasn't able to annex some pockets outside of the urban core and build sprawl on them.

 

What about Grandview Hts?  That place is somewhat urban its pretty nice and its away from High Street. You can walk to the Drexel (though I  heard it closed).

 

Clinton Township I believe was the area I was talking about, yet it seems you go further north then east and your in a hilly area without sidewalks.  There are places like that all over Columbus its kind of weird - the development patterns in that city are really bizarre.  Oh yeah and to answer ColDayMan, yeah there are strip malls near UC, but they have a much more urban feel than Clinton Township, they have sidewalks around them and the parking lots on them are way smaller.

 

Agreed they have a more urban feel (for a strip mall, it sounds silly but I know what you mean) but I was just simply pointing out you have to go a little out of your way to find "no sidewalks" around campus.

Agreed they have a more urban feel (for a strip mall, it sounds silly but I know what you mean) but I was just simply pointing out you have to go a little out of your way to find "no sidewalks" around campus.

 

Here's an even sillier version of the same thing (a very urban strip mall with apartments/condos on top):

 

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Chicago,+IL&aq=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=25.484783,57.480469&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&ll=41.908745,-87.6774&spn=0.002914,0.007017&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.908625,-87.677385&panoid=CteroEBr_eyv57AZOsU8Jw&cbp=12,257.32,,0,2.97

 

Hmmm because this new board doesn't seem to like streetview links, here is a screenshot, note the bay windows above the 7-11:

 

http://cbswbbm.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/b96-7-eleven-on-damen-in-chicago-0041.jpg?w=600

Good God, it's like Toronto!

Depends on what you mean by "highly urbanized". There are *several* urban corridors where you have an urban business district surrounded by homes on an urban grid. However, these corridors do need to be urbanized, because right now (and for decades beforehand) the only places to walk to are liquor stores, barber shops, crappy local fast-food type joints selling pizza, bars that you fear just stepping into, and decrepit buildings that continue to become empty lots. There's Parsons Ave on the South Side (serves as the main street for quite a few neighborhoods), E Livingston in Southern Orchards & Driving Park, E Main in OTE & Franklin Park, Mt Vernon & Long St in King Lincoln (the commercial for the PBS special on the neighborhood will make you sad with those pics of how dense and vibrant it used to be), W Broad and Sullivant (to a lesser degree) for Franklinton & Hilltop, Cleveland Ave in Linden, and E 5th Ave in East Columbus/Krumm Park. Outside of these older pre-WWII neighborhoods is where the sprawl begins, not just off of High St. All that Clinton Township signifies is that Columbus wasn't able to annex some pockets outside of the urban core and build sprawl on them.

 

Despite how much there is on High St there is nothing that will sour your take on Columbus like COTA on bad winter days where it's too iffy to bike. The fact that this city has had several years to offer decent service in the inner city and still doesn't is a huge strike. Another one is the local take on urban revitalization, which is basically that if it's off of High, it's too far gone, whereas in other cities in the region (Pittsburgh & Minneapolis) locals take the approach that it'll take some time and work, but it's been done before and can be done again, which is why they have so many more vibrant urban neighborhoods with more variety than we do. We basically have the High St neighborhoods and then everything else is a different shade of sad.

 

I think you're being way too hard on the city.  After all, who even went down to High in 1995?  I can remember it looking like Livingston or Sullivant back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  The vast majority of revitalization has occured only in the last decade or so.  I always thought that the focus SHOULD be on High considering it is the main artery in the Downtown area, with Broad being the secondary.  Broad is slowly getting more attention, but again, I think we are still in the early stages of all of this.  The city has done a tremendous amount of work.  I know that you're frustrated that it hasn't spread further than it has, but I tend to see a lot more accomplishments overall than failures.

 

N High has been done for years, yet very little has improved elsewhere while other cities have gone on to revitalize entire neighborhoods in the same time frame. Compared, once again, to other regional cities we're well behind. Where's a real bus system where you don't have the driver sick the police on your for being 50 cents short of the full fare the one time you don't have it in 2 years? Where is the demand for a streetcar system? All of our transportation dollars are still being spent to add traffic lanes to sprawling areas of Columbus with no demand for change from residents or the government. There aren't going to be any real changes to the present-day Columbus because the seeds for change have not been planted. I'm not going to wait til I'm 50 or 60 for a few more revitalized neighborhoods and a decent bus system: it's not worth it. People here just don't want what I want in a city.

 

Go visit Lawrenceville in Pittsburgh and compare it to OTE to see what they've done in roughly the same amount of time and then try to tell me that we're not behind. While you're at it, check out *both* of their Short Norths (Squirrel Hill and Shadyside). Cities like Pittsburgh and Minneapolis in particular, which has revitalized all but a few neighborhoods, have done what can be described as "tremendous work"where even their Livingston and Sullivant equivalents are seeing improvements while ours continue to stagnate. Columbus had a huge advantage over a city like Pittsburgh which was facing a much more dire situation and yet is miles ahead of us today. The answer to that is that we simply don't care that much about taking that next step. In fact, Columbus' inner-city today looks more overall like the run-down image that Pittsburgh has been leaving behind in great strides.

N High has been done for years, yet very little has improved elsewhere while other cities have gone on to revitalize entire neighborhoods in the same time frame. Compared, once again, to other regional cities we're well behind. Where's a real bus system where you don't have the driver sick the police on your for being 50 cents short of the full fare the one time you don't have it in 2 years? Where is the demand for a streetcar system? All of our transportation dollars are still being spent to add traffic lanes to sprawling areas of Columbus with no demand for change from residents or the government. There aren't going to be any real changes to the present-day Columbus because the seeds for change have not been planted. I'm not going to wait til I'm 50 or 60 for a few more revitalized neighborhoods and a decent bus system: it's not worth it. People here just don't want what I want in a city.

 

Pittsburgh and Minneapolis are outliers.  Cleveland is more the norm.  Despite the excellent transit Cleveland has, the city and entire region are facing decline.  Columbus at least is growing and has Youthful energy, I think these two combined has slowly turned the city into something more urban.  The first stage is building more urban on High Street (high rise developments, large brick and concrete apartment/condo buildings), and the other things like better buses in those areas will inevitably follow.

 

Its younger people that are demanding more urbanity and due to OSU's huge influence on the rest of the city, Columbus will be the most likely to develop that for their city.  Yes Cbus isn't getting a streetcar, but Cincinnati has to fight tooth and nail to maybe get one, that is if the old foggies living in the past don't stop anything that would be a positive change for that city :P.

^I was waiting for the Cleveland shot in this thread that has absolutely nothing to do with the city.  So in response I would  say that I would rather live in a declining Cleveland than a growing Columbus any day.  Please don't ask me to list the one hundred reason why.

I would  say that I would rather live in a declining Cleveland than a growing Columbus any day.  Please don't ask me to list the one hundred reason why.

 

Agreed.  But I think Keith M's point stands, regarding Columbus as well as Cleveland.  Ohio cities need to start examining out-of-state successes and applying those lessons at home.  I'm more inclined to view Ohio (and Detroit) as the outliers, and not in a good way.  Anti-density forces are large and in charge here.

N High has been done for years, yet very little has improved elsewhere while other cities have gone on to revitalize entire neighborhoods in the same time frame. Compared, once again, to other regional cities we're well behind. Where's a real bus system where you don't have the driver sick the police on your for being 50 cents short of the full fare the one time you don't have it in 2 years? Where is the demand for a streetcar system? All of our transportation dollars are still being spent to add traffic lanes to sprawling areas of Columbus with no demand for change from residents or the government. There aren't going to be any real changes to the present-day Columbus because the seeds for change have not been planted. I'm not going to wait til I'm 50 or 60 for a few more revitalized neighborhoods and a decent bus system: it's not worth it. People here just don't want what I want in a city.

 

First, what part of N. High has been done for years?  I've seen tons of photos of the Short North up through campus from the '80s and '90s (and remember it growing up) and it wasn't pretty.  They even have those information signs in the area showing old photos and how run down it was.  There was no Arena District before 2000.  On South High, the Brewery District was still mostly abandoned.  The only thing Downtown was City Center, and that died after Tuttle, Easton and Polaris, which all were all built between 1997 and 2001.  These improvements are not decades old.  And I don't see Cincy and Cleveland or Indy well ahead of us in this regard.  As for public transportation, I don't think the bus system is bad here.  As for the streetcar/light rail, out of the 5 cities closest in population, 3 have nothing and 2 have a limited amount, and we have a hugely better highway system than either of them.  Again, if you actually look at the facts, Columbus has made huge improvements and it continues to move forward.  I think you expect things to change overnight or even over the course of a few years, and it doesn't happen that way.  Believe me, as a resident of a forgotten neighborhood (Hilltop), I share your frustration, but that doesn't negate all that has been done so far.  Columbus, by all accounts, continues to grow strongly, and all of these demands will ultimately be met.  I'm not sure what else to say on that. 

 

BTW, you keep comparing Columbus to cities that reached their peaks LONG before Columbus, which has not even reached Cleveland's historical population high.  Minneapolis' MSA is 2x the size of Columbus.  The comparisons are not really fair.

I think ColDay had a really interesting point about this same topic a few years ago.  It was that Columbus as a city definitely has one linear core of urbanity, where all the premier neighborhoods are lined up along High.  Other cities, like Cincinnati, have what I believe ColDay said was the Tokyo model, where premier neighborhoods are scattered throughout the city.  Mt. Adams, Hyde Park, OTR, Northside, Clifton, Mt. Lookout,  are all spread out over the whole city.  Both systems have advantages and disadvantages.

 

A friend of mine from Columbus came down to visit our mutual friend, and stayed at my friends place in Hyde Park.  I asked her what she thought of Cincinnati, and she said that she thought it was cool that there were a lot of different places to go with different character in the different neighborhoods, and she also said she thought Cincinnati just felt like a bigger city. However, she also thought it was weird that you can be driving through a really nice neighborhood, and then 2 seconds later be in a crappy neighborhood, then a minute later be back in a nice one.  When I go to Columbus I'm always impressed by the High St. stretch, and wish Cincinnati had something like that. 

N High has been done for years, yet very little has improved elsewhere while other cities have gone on to revitalize entire neighborhoods in the same time frame. Compared, once again, to other regional cities we're well behind. Where's a real bus system where you don't have the driver sick the police on your for being 50 cents short of the full fare the one time you don't have it in 2 years? Where is the demand for a streetcar system? All of our transportation dollars are still being spent to add traffic lanes to sprawling areas of Columbus with no demand for change from residents or the government. There aren't going to be any real changes to the present-day Columbus because the seeds for change have not been planted. I'm not going to wait til I'm 50 or 60 for a few more revitalized neighborhoods and a decent bus system: it's not worth it. People here just don't want what I want in a city.

 

First, what part of N. High has been done for years?  I've seen tons of photos of the Short North up through campus from the '80s and '90s (and remember it growing up) and it wasn't pretty.  They even have those information signs in the area showing old photos and how run down it was.  There was no Arena District before 2000.  On South High, the Brewery District was still mostly abandoned.  The only thing Downtown was City Center, and that died after Tuttle, Easton and Polaris, which all were all built between 1997 and 2001.  These improvements are not decades old.  And I don't see Cincy and Cleveland or Indy well ahead of us in this regard.  As for public transportation, I don't think the bus system is bad here.  As for the streetcar/light rail, out of the 5 cities closest in population, 3 have nothing and 2 have a limited amount, and we have a hugely better highway system than either of them.  Again, if you actually look at the facts, Columbus has made huge improvements and it continues to move forward.  I think you expect things to change overnight or even over the course of a few years, and it doesn't happen that way.  Believe me, as a resident of a forgotten neighborhood (Hilltop), I share your frustration, but that doesn't negate all that has been done so far.  Columbus, by all accounts, continues to grow strongly, and all of these demands will ultimately be met.  I'm not sure what else to say on that. 

 

BTW, you keep comparing Columbus to cities that reached their peaks LONG before Columbus, which has not even reached Cleveland's historical population high.  Minneapolis' MSA is 2x the size of Columbus.  The comparisons are not really fair.

 

Just about all of it: living here vs looking at pictures are two different things. The OSU-Clintonville area has had plenty of stuff, the Short North was mostly filled in for years, while the Brewery District has been on the backburner for quite some time . And you don't think the bus system is bad because you must not ever depend on it. Try, just for fun, taking one of the last few buses at night in the freezing cold and see how you like it when the bus is way late and you have no idea when it'll arrive. You can think it's not bad, but the fact of the matter is that it *is* demonstrably bad (even when you're not comparing it to other bus systems) and it's embarrassing when compared to other cities. Period. And who cares that other cities next door suck just as much regarding rail? Columbus isn't just competing with those cities, but cities all over. If you're going to cite nice highways as a sign of progress, then there's no point in discussing the matter further, as I'm talking about this from the perspective of someone who loves cities and doesn't want to own a car to get from point A to B. Of course change won't happen overnight, but in a few years you can gauge what progress has been made. Sorry, but a couple of pockets Downtown, a few establishments on Parsons, and one more block of the SN isn't much to show for the past several years and the business districts off High are largely forgotten and unchanged in the past several few years.

 

The comparisons are more than fair, especially considering how Columbus avoided the devastation that hit rust belt cities nearby. Minneapolis' urban population is comparable to Columbus', by the way, which is in the 300,000s and the number of people living out in the metro area/sprawling burbs are not the ones living in the urban city, let alone those who have invested in the revitalization of several urban neighborhoods, including currently transitional ones. You can pretend that Columbus is charging full steam ahead, but other cities have done much more to turn around their neighborhoods than we have in the same amount of time, since all of our cities declined around the exact same time. Minneapolis' and Pittsburgh's equivalents to the Hilltop east of Hague (Northside and East Liberty respectively) have seen entrepreneurs starting to clean up storefronts and offer worthwhile destinations. Both have a good deal more that needs to be filled in, yet they're far ahead us because they actually have more than zero places worth going to, unlike the urban districts on W Broad, Livingston, and Main, just to name a few. Columbus has no excuse: Olde Towne East and the Hilltop should both be much father in the revitalization process due to the number of residents who have plenty of disposable income (especially the Hilltop) to support such a revitalization. I should by all means be able to go and spend this weekend hanging out at places on W Broad and E Main, but I don't have that option (not unless I want to go to Bexley). But hey, you can quickly drive on the highway to any of these places you wouldn't want to visit, so yay Columbus! And no, I would never move instead to Cleveland, which I would see as a step down for a laundry list of reasons.

Keith...

 

I'm sorry, but maybe you are not a native and have no idea what the city was like prior to the late 1990s, but there have been drastic changes.  Almost all of the major projects and gentrification of High, especially the closer you get to Downtown, have come in the last 10-15 years.  And if you want to include Clintonville, why not Worthington, why not all the way up to Delaware County?  Not all of High is going to be developed the same way, and it's a little strange to suggest that since Clintonville exists, that that kind of development should have spread city-wide now.  Even near OSU, which also has seen a developed corridor on High for decades, has also improved markedly lately, and the university has become much more involved in neighborhood revitalization.  The area between the Short North and OSU is probably the least developed and most run down section of the corridor, save for maybe 270 to the edges of Merion Village on the south end.  There has been a real push for infill in those areas.

 

Regarding mass transit, here is basically why we don't have it yet:  We don't yet have the overall demand for it. 

Highways were not mentioned as a sign of progress, but as a reason why the deman for rail, etc may not be as high as in some other cities.  But again, in the closest cities to our size (which are not local, but around the country), most of them still have nothing, either, so it's hardly something unusual.  Clearly a city our size just doesn't have the population yet to support that demand, and throw in the highways and there may even be less demand than usual.  Even so, the point is that the city is not behind the curve on this.  It may not be ahead of the game, but certainly in the ballpark.  I do fully believe, however, that mass transit is inevitable and I fully support it.  As long as the city continues to grow, the demand for more options will also go up. 

 

And again, the comparisons are unfair.  Minneapolis' central core is very small in area and therefore has a higher density than Columbus.  Also, there are over 3.5 million people in the metro area, many of them obviously working, shopping, etc in the area.  So there is clearly a higher demand for mass transit, etc.  That's also a lot more people investing in the city, as well as there being several more Fortune 500 companies located within the city limits.  The city has been larger than Columbus for decades, regardless of what the city proper population is.  Every city is different, some are in better shape, some worse.  Columbus has made mistakes, for sure, but you act as if nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen.  I couldn't disagree more.  I have seen it.

 

High Street could support BRT easily I think and the corridor could support light rail if you could find decent right-of-way near High Street. Columbus would do fine with Philly's system pretty much placed over the city's geography.

High Street could support BRT easily I think and the corridor could support light rail if you could find decent right-of-way near High Street. Columbus would do fine with Philly's system pretty much placed over the city's geography.

 

Probably, but again, there's not enough demand to get it built, whether or not it would be used right now.  You have the have the demand present to make that step. 

There is more than enough demand for BRT along High St. Obviously, the Philly level of infrastructure would never be built, but their subway and regional rail system would fit very well with Columbus development pattern.

I would  say that I would rather live in a declining Cleveland than a growing Columbus any day.  Please don't ask me to list the one hundred reason why.

 

Agreed.  But I think Keith M's point stands, regarding Columbus as well as Cleveland.  Ohio cities need to start examining out-of-state successes and applying those lessons at home.  I'm more inclined to view Ohio (and Detroit) as the outliers, and not in a good way.  Anti-density forces are large and in charge here.

 

Yep. Ohio is the problem. We are being left in the dust when it comes to urban development (and creating the policies that lead to urban development). It seems that for every urban neighborhood that recovers, another one falls down some place else. The pull of sprawl is still huge in this state. The state's politics lean heavy towards low density highway development. I think Ohio has more of the "scary city/anti-urban" attitude than the norm. Part of this is simply due to the fact we destroyed/rotted so much of our core cities. Yes, Columbus is the best city for yuppies, but it is still a deeply wounded place where lots of good urbanity was destroyed. Yuppies can't make up for all the destruction of the past, especially when a good chunk of them are transient.

 

Ohio's urban development is a stream where we need a river.

Keith...

 

I'm sorry, but maybe you are not a native and have no idea what the city was like prior to the late 1990s, but there have been drastic changes.  Almost all of the major projects and gentrification of High, especially the closer you get to Downtown, have come in the last 10-15 years.  And if you want to include Clintonville, why not Worthington, why not all the way up to Delaware County?  Not all of High is going to be developed the same way, and it's a little strange to suggest that since Clintonville exists, that that kind of development should have spread city-wide now.  Even near OSU, which also has seen a developed corridor on High for decades, has also improved markedly lately, and the university has become much more involved in neighborhood revitalization.  The area between the Short North and OSU is probably the least developed and most run down section of the corridor, save for maybe 270 to the edges of Merion Village on the south end.  There has been a real push for infill in those areas.

 

Regarding mass transit, here is basically why we don't have it yet:  We don't yet have the overall demand for it. 

Highways were not mentioned as a sign of progress, but as a reason why the deman for rail, etc may not be as high as in some other cities.  But again, in the closest cities to our size (which are not local, but around the country), most of them still have nothing, either, so it's hardly something unusual.  Clearly a city our size just doesn't have the population yet to support that demand, and throw in the highways and there may even be less demand than usual.  Even so, the point is that the city is not behind the curve on this.  It may not be ahead of the game, but certainly in the ballpark.  I do fully believe, however, that mass transit is inevitable and I fully support it.  As long as the city continues to grow, the demand for more options will also go up. 

 

And again, the comparisons are unfair.  Minneapolis' central core is very small in area and therefore has a higher density than Columbus.  Also, there are over 3.5 million people in the metro area, many of them obviously working, shopping, etc in the area.  So there is clearly a higher demand for mass transit, etc.  That's also a lot more people investing in the city, as well as there being several more Fortune 500 companies located within the city limits.  The city has been larger than Columbus for decades, regardless of what the city proper population is.  Every city is different, some are in better shape, some worse.  Columbus has made mistakes, for sure, but you act as if nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen.  I couldn't disagree more.  I have seen it.

 

 

I'm a lifelong resident and the city is still clearly behind the curve, which is precisely why I'm moving (and why I deleted my Columbus urbanism blog of 4-5 years). Improvements have been made, but looking at Columbus in a vacuum or just comparing it only to other Ohio cities and Indianapolis is pointless. With 300,000ish urban residents you most certainly have the demand for streetcar lines. Back in the teens, Columbus only consisted of around 200,000 residents, yet supported several streetcar lines passing through numerous urban business districts which attracted the development you can still see today. Just rebuilding a few of these lines where needed (not N High) would clearly work and be a boon to struggling districts, but residents are not at all well-versed in the effects of what a streetcar line would do. I merely included Clintonville as one of the healthy stretches of N High because it is an old urban neighborhood (South Clintonville, that is). In the end, given the same amount of time and fewer obstacles than other cities in the region, Columbus falls well behind the best. Who cares what the middle-of-the-road ones are doing. Our (while I'm still here) city government is spending the vast majority of money on sprawl, not urban neighborhoods. Take the $3.5 million to be spent citywide on bike infrastructure vs. any one of the single road widening projects that cost at least 3x that just for one stretch of one arterial road out in the boonies. Accommodating motorists who want to drive to Applebees and back to their apartment complex cul-de-sac is a much bigger priority for the city of Columbus than providing safe roads in the inner city for peds and cyclists. There is no debate: that is what is actually happening right now, yet you expect me to stick around and wait for city leaders to have a magical change of heart. We could be where Minneapolis or Pittsburgh is today if we wanted that, but locals are apathetic and this city has a pro-sprawl agenda: where do you expect any real change to occur in this scenario? Are you going to start contacting the city about this? Because I grew tired of doing that and just getting bunch of bunch bullsh!t responses, such as councilman Craig stating that there was more demand for road-widening projects up in sprawling NW Columbus, when the reality is that residents from that area don't need to show up to city council meetings (they don't) because the city spends money on these places by default.

 

You want to say that Minneapolis is an unfair comparison, and you're free to think so, but then explain how a beaten-up rust belt city like Pittsburgh also offers more revitalized urban neighborhoods than Columbus, which never had to overcome the difficulties of being a rust belt city, and when their urban population is virtually identical. You can go ahead say how much progress Columbus has made, but go ahead and head to W Broad east of Hague and spend your evening there if we've made so much progress. Meanwhile, I can go to Pittsburgh and actually go to their version of W Broad and find places I'd want to spend time in. I've done High St plenty of times: it's old. I guess I should just be happy that more overpriced, mediocre restaurants are making inroads into the Short North instead of being able to have a decent selection of quality off-High options. As a Hilltop resident, you should be very aware of the antagonistic position the city takes against off-the-radar urban neighborhoods, like when they wanted to remove all on-street parking along W Broad's urban business district. Talk about kicking someone when they're already down.

Keith...

 

I'm sorry, but maybe you are not a native and have no idea what the city was like prior to the late 1990s, but there have been drastic changes.  Almost all of the major projects and gentrification of High, especially the closer you get to Downtown, have come in the last 10-15 years.  And if you want to include Clintonville, why not Worthington, why not all the way up to Delaware County?  Not all of High is going to be developed the same way, and it's a little strange to suggest that since Clintonville exists, that that kind of development should have spread city-wide now.  Even near OSU, which also has seen a developed corridor on High for decades, has also improved markedly lately, and the university has become much more involved in neighborhood revitalization.  The area between the Short North and OSU is probably the least developed and most run down section of the corridor, save for maybe 270 to the edges of Merion Village on the south end.  There has been a real push for infill in those areas.

 

Regarding mass transit, here is basically why we don't have it yet:  We don't yet have the overall demand for it. 

Highways were not mentioned as a sign of progress, but as a reason why the deman for rail, etc may not be as high as in some other cities.  But again, in the closest cities to our size (which are not local, but around the country), most of them still have nothing, either, so it's hardly something unusual.  Clearly a city our size just doesn't have the population yet to support that demand, and throw in the highways and there may even be less demand than usual.  Even so, the point is that the city is not behind the curve on this.  It may not be ahead of the game, but certainly in the ballpark.  I do fully believe, however, that mass transit is inevitable and I fully support it.  As long as the city continues to grow, the demand for more options will also go up. 

 

And again, the comparisons are unfair.  Minneapolis' central core is very small in area and therefore has a higher density than Columbus.  Also, there are over 3.5 million people in the metro area, many of them obviously working, shopping, etc in the area.  So there is clearly a higher demand for mass transit, etc.  That's also a lot more people investing in the city, as well as there being several more Fortune 500 companies located within the city limits.  The city has been larger than Columbus for decades, regardless of what the city proper population is.  Every city is different, some are in better shape, some worse.  Columbus has made mistakes, for sure, but you act as if nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen.  I couldn't disagree more.  I have seen it.

 

 

I'm a lifelong resident and the city is still clearly behind the curve, which is precisely why I'm moving (and why I deleted my Columbus urbanism blog of 4-5 years). Improvements have been made, but looking at Columbus in a vacuum or just comparing it only to other Ohio cities and Indianapolis is pointless. With 300,000ish urban residents you most certainly have the demand for streetcar lines. Back in the teens, Columbus only consisted of around 200,000 residents, yet supported several streetcar lines passing through numerous urban business districts which attracted the development you can still see today. Just rebuilding a few of these lines where needed (not N High) would clearly work and be a boon to struggling districts, but residents are not at all well-versed in the effects of what a streetcar line would do. I merely included Clintonville as one of the healthy stretches of N High because it is an old urban neighborhood (South Clintonville, that is). In the end, given the same amount of time and fewer obstacles than other cities in the region, Columbus falls well behind the best. Who cares what the middle-of-the-road ones are doing. Our (while I'm still here) city government is spending the vast majority of money on sprawl, not urban neighborhoods. Take the $3.5 million to be spent citywide on bike infrastructure vs. any one of the single road widening projects that cost at least 3x that just for one stretch of one arterial road out in the boonies. Accommodating motorists who want to drive to Applebees and back to their apartment complex cul-de-sac is a much bigger priority for the city of Columbus than providing safe roads in the inner city for peds and cyclists. There is no debate: that is what is actually happening right now, yet you expect me to stick around and wait for city leaders to have a magical change of heart. We could be where Minneapolis or Pittsburgh is today if we wanted that, but locals are apathetic and this city has a pro-sprawl agenda: where do you expect any real change to occur in this scenario? Are you going to start contacting the city about this? Because I grew tired of doing that and just getting bunch of bunch bullsh!t responses, such as councilman Craig stating that there was more demand for road-widening projects up in sprawling NW Columbus, when the reality is that residents from that area don't need to show up to city council meetings (they don't) because the city spends money on these places by default.

 

You want to say that Minneapolis is an unfair comparison, and you're free to think so, but then explain how a beaten-up rust belt city like Pittsburgh also offers more revitalized urban neighborhoods than Columbus, which never had to overcome the difficulties of being a rust belt city, and when their urban population is virtually identical. You can go ahead say how much progress Columbus has made, but go ahead and head to W Broad east of Hague and spend your evening there if we've made so much progress. Meanwhile, I can go to Pittsburgh and actually go to their version of W Broad and find places I'd want to spend time in. I've done High St plenty of times: it's old. I guess I should just be happy that more overpriced, mediocre restaurants are making inroads into the Short North instead of being able to have a decent selection of quality off-High options. As a Hilltop resident, you should be very aware of the antagonistic position the city takes against off-the-radar urban neighborhoods, like when they wanted to remove all on-street parking along W Broad's urban business district. Talk about kicking someone when they're already down.

 

You're seriously comparing the city now to the 1920s?  You didn't have the highway system and cars were not NEARLY as prevalent as they are now.  All cities nationwide were vastly more dense and compact.  That 200,000 people did not live out in the suburbs.  They were Downtown.  That is not the reality for the vast majority of cities in this country now.  You keep trying to hold Columbus to standards that either don't exist, or aren't comparable.  And you keep saying that I'm talking about Ohio cities.  I'm not.  I'm talking about Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Indy, Austin, and Charlotte.  Those are all comparable in city proper populations, but in some cases have much larger metro populations, which, like it or not, can make a HUGE difference in how a Downtown area functions.  Frankly, I'm sick to death of the comparsions to places like Pittsburg and Cleveland, both of which peaked 60 damn years ago with much larger populations than Columbus has now.  Of course their infrastructure is going to be a step ahead.  Light rail has been around long enough that those places got it during their peaks and still maintain it now.  The fact is that it is NOT difficult to travel around this city, not at all.  While I absolutely want to see more options, you are not going to see a citywide movement for that while it remains easy to travel.  Residents here are practical, and they're not going to push for change until they see a real need for it, and given the overall economy, you can't really blame them from shying away from expensive projects that they don't yet buy into.  I think it is realistic to expect that light rail will not only be back on the table, but in planning stages if not further within the next 5 years. 

 

And I LIVE east of Hague off of Broad.  I know how much work remains to be done.  I get that.  BTW, they listened to residents about the on-street parking issue and moved the bike lanes off of Broad.  Anyway, I'm also not going to sit here all day long and complain just because the city is not bowing to my every urban wet dream.  I see progress, a lot of it, and that's good enough for me.  I am able to put this into perspective vs other cities (which btw, have plenty of issues themselves).  You speak of Pittsburg being so great, yet it's own residents continue to evacuate the city left and right.  Same with Cleveland.  Even Minneapolis has gone through periods of decline.  All cities have unique challenges.  Columbus has it's own, I recognize that.  But clearly I believe that good things are in the future and you don't.  Frankly, if you can no longer support it, then it probably is a good idea you're leaving.  We have enough negative people already.  And honestly, I don't really get your attitude.  For someone who proclaimed to have spent so much time fighting, giving up seems really lame to me.  Oh well.           

I think ColDay had a really interesting point about this same topic a few years ago.  It was that Columbus as a city definitely has one linear core of urbanity, where all the premier neighborhoods are lined up along High.  Other cities, like Cincinnati, have what I believe ColDay said was the Tokyo model, where premier neighborhoods are scattered throughout the city.  Mt. Adams, Hyde Park, OTR, Northside, Clifton, Mt. Lookout,  are all spread out over the whole city.  Both systems have advantages and disadvantages.

 

A friend of mine from Columbus came down to visit our mutual friend, and stayed at my friends place in Hyde Park.  I asked her what she thought of Cincinnati, and she said that she thought it was cool that there were a lot of different places to go with different character in the different neighborhoods, and she also said she thought Cincinnati just felt like a bigger city. However, she also thought it was weird that you can be driving through a really nice neighborhood, and then 2 seconds later be in a crappy neighborhood, then a minute later be back in a nice one.  When I go to Columbus I'm always impressed by the High St. stretch, and wish Cincinnati had something like that. 

 

Agreed on everything.

I agree in regards to lack of anti-sprawl policy and public transit but I don't understand why it's so hard for people to see the positive aspects of Columbus. Ohio's cities have different pathologies and most Columbus bashing seems to be extremely vague and founded on very little. It's certainly not productive and I've never heard of someone leaving the city b/c the majority of premiere neighborhoods are along High St-a corridor that literally stretches from one end of the metro to another.

I agree in regards to lack of anti-sprawl policy and public transit but I don't understand why it's so hard for people to see the positive aspects of Columbus. Ohio's cities have different pathologies and most Columbus bashing seems to be extremely vague and founded on very little. It's certainly not productive and I've never heard of someone leaving the city b/c the majority of premiere neighborhoods are along High St-a corridor that literally stretches from one end of the metro to another.

 

Me neither.  I can empathize with certain concerns and frustrations regarding Columbus, but in regards to Keith, it seems that he has his own personal vision for the city and because the city is not following it lock-step, it's apparently incompetent, corrupt, racist and lightyears behind other similarly-sized cities.  We all have our own ideas of what makes a place great, and we all have ideas on what we'd like to see improved.  I really think, however, that most people just don't get how long this process takes.  My take on High is that we're lucky to have it.  As long as the Downtown area continues to improve, it shows overall health and continues to attract people.  The more people Downtown, the more likely it will be to see even more significant changes, including mass transit.  Besides, it's not as if High is the only place seeing improvements.  I see posts and threads all around about projects and discussions on what's happening outside of the Downtown core.  Again, it may not be to the whims of everyone, but we are improving as a city overall.  It has far less of that "cowtown" feel than ever to me.   

A relative ton of development is going between Downtown, Campus, Grandview and other older parts of town. In fact, this article states ] Columbus leads the nation in new construction jobs. Almost none of the development is going on in the suburbs/exurbs. They're done. Meanwhile, you can't drive on 315 or through the split without dodging dump trucks. There's all kinds of gravel and rocks built up between the travel lanes and the barricades from it flying out of the dump trucks. Columbus is starting to look like Berlin. I'm not kidding.

I understand Keith's concerns as a person who cares deeply about my own city, but frustrated when I visit other cities that seem to 'get it' more than Cincinnati.  That said, you have to realize that while Pittsburgh and Minneapolis are great cities, Columbus is a great city too.  Yeah, Columbus doesn't have a Shadyside or a Southside, but Pittsburgh doesn't have the Short North or German Village.  You have to look towards your city's strengths, or else you'll constantly be wanting to move somewhere else.  You don't think people who live in Pittsburgh are looking towards DC with envy, or people in Minneapolis don't look on at Chicago and wish they could have comparable urban experiences?  I think it's healthy to look to peer cities for inspiration (I'd argue that Minny and Pgh are not Columbus' peer cities), but you also have to stop and realize what is great about your city already.

Dude people are just never happy. Period. People are restless. When I lived in Cincy I got nostalgic for Columbus, where I grew up. I used to drive up here almost every weekend when I was 18. I didn't mind wasting 20 bucks on gas traveling i-71 back and forth. Now that I'm in Columbus, I get nostalgic for Cincinnati but it's funny; I like each city for completely different reasons. Cincinnati is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. It's cozy. Yet I like Columbus because of the people; they're more outgoing and interested in what's going on all around town, not just their neighborhood. In a way, Columbus is just one big neighborhood. Most people who are bitter and want to run away from their city are really trying to get away from themselves. The city is really what you make of it. That goes for most places, anyway.

So I what I'm getting is that I should ignore our extremely uncooperative city council & city departments. I should just buy all of the abandoned urban business districts in Columbus, open restaurants, bars, shops, then buy a bunch of paint, repaint our roads, add crosswalks, install a bunch of concrete bumpouts, and erect a bunch of new 25MPH signs to make them vibrant, pedestrian-friendly areas. Why didn't I think of that before? I'm not the only pro-urban Columbus resident looking to move to a more progressive city. There are those who have gone through a lot more of the city's pro-motorist/sprawl bureaucracy to make positive changes and have raised the white flag, ready to move out where you don't have to fight tooth and nail for the smallest of improvements. Anyone is free to assume I have an ulterior motive, but that would be ignoring the fact that plenty of people move away from Columbus, and Ohio in general, for a truly progressive environment. My firsthand experiences with the city government along with following the money trail hasn't convinced some of you and I could care less if you want to pretend that the city government and large number of urban residents share the priorities here at UO, but my experience was more than sufficient to convince me that I'm wasting my time here and that's good enough for me.

 

Of course, I'm very familiar with Columbus' strengths, particularly when it comes to restaurants, bars, etc. Hell, I had an online neighborhood guide that detailed all of the interesting places to visit in every neighborhood, but the huge effort I put into it on my own time and for free was not worth the small amount of traffic/interest generated (I did get one email from someone who missed it, though). In the end, I myself only find that only a very tiny fraction of what is offered here appeals to me on a daily basis and it gets old after a while. Meanwhile, the kinds of establishments that appeal to me are in much greater number elsewhere and also just so happen to be in much more progressive cities than Columbus. Oh, and how could I forget, as a rather frequent rider of COTA, that getting to and from destinations I want to get to using what passes in Columbus as "mass transit" is a trip in itself. This alone revokes the use of the adjective "great" in describing Columbus. A great city has mass transit which is at least decent. If, for example, I got the urge to eat and drink Downtown right now I would have to bike all the way down and back, because the last bus southbound on the main drag of this city left at 8PM. The last bus for me to take up north is at 9PM: gone before I could get there. But at least while I can't get decent bus service on N High of all places for years, COTA is adding new lines for me to have an easy morning-evening commute to Hilliard and Pickerington instead.

Keith, no you should NOT ignore things that you believe are problems.  I noticed, though, that you seem to believe that you're fighting this fight alone and that you're the only one who cares.  The fact is that MANY people care, but they may not all be informed on what's going on.  There are groups out there that are doing things to build up the areas that maybe are more ignored than others.  It's not like you're the only one who sees issues.  I also think you're trying to tackle every single issue all at once.  You want to micromanage every neighborhood house to house, street light to mailbox, and that's just unrealistic.  In fact, it's a recipe for going totally crazy and turning very bitter about the whole process, which clearly is the point you've reached.  If you really think you can move to another city and expect to do this, you're in for a nasty surprise.  It sounds more like you need to take a huge step back and prioritize.  No one ever said that rebuilding neighborhoods was easy.  No one ever said that a city council was always going to vote your way or do the right thing every time.  These are, after all, very fallible human beings.   

 

You want Columbus to be Chicago, NYC, or LA, and it's not and doesn't move at that pace.  Maybe you don't love the city anymore.  Maybe you don't even like it, but you clearly once did.  I really think this is a matter of you expecting way too much way too fast, and ended up setting yourself up for massive disappointment.  This is not to say that the city has not made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of opportunities.  Of course it has.  I'll be the first one to say that.  But I love my state and I love this city and I just don't think it's the pit of hell that you see right now. 

 

As for COTA, on one hand you want expanded mass transit, but on the other you're complaining that they're expanding service to other areas of the city.  Isn't this a step in the right direction... bringing people in from the suburbs?  Also, I assume that they do some kind of study that shows when and where there is demand for service, otherwise it'd be a waste of time and money.  At least that would be the logical conclusion.  Is there a high demand for bus service after 9pm where you live and want to go?  When I lived in Mexico City, which probably has some of the best mass transit options anywhere, both for cost and availability, there were still times that I couldn't get a train.  There were times that I had to wait or choose something else.  I never thought of it as a problem simply because I personally was inconvenienced in some way.  Mass transit is not just about me.  Neither is the direction in which a city chooses to go.  Somewhere along the line, you may have forgotten this.   

If you want a good sense of some of the challenges folks face in rebuilding a city - Song of the City by Nathanial Popkin about Philly does a job in a memoir style. He talks about how one neighborhood was destroyed by a landlord that basically got mad at some other folks in the city and at his tenants and single-handedly drove one neighborhood into oblivion. You could argue (quite easily in fact) that a couple landlords in Cincinnati deserve outsized blame for the destruction of OTR (and you could find similar stories elsewhere). What I'm saying is that, cities (even one's as seemingly boring (in a good way) as Columbus) often have deeper explanations behind why some neighborhoods survive, recover, thrive, or collapse. A couple of nasty realtors teamed up with a few unscrupulous landlords could destroy any city in America in less than a year.

jbcmh- He's talking about the last bus leaving towards downtown at 8pm on a SUNDAY. Keith, be realistic, no one goes downtown that late on Sunday since nothing is open. Lets be real, Columbus isn't the only city that shuts down early on Sunday. On Saturday night there's bus service until like 2-3am, isn't there? "The Night Owl"?

I was in the Short North after leaving The Arnold yesterday and there was nobody walking around at all at 4pm. Completely dead. People hibernate in the winter and don't do jack-sh!t on Sunday. That annoys me but it's like that almost everywhere.

I was in the Short North after leaving The Arnold yesterday and there was nobody walking around at all at 4pm. Completely dead. People hibernate in the winter and don't do jack-sh!t on Sunday. That annoys me but it's like that almost everywhere.

 

Pretty much.  Very few cities in the country stay busy in their downtown areas at all hours of the day and night, 7 days a week.  This is a matter of supply and demand.   

I came across this at Columbus Underground:

 

Update on “Brain Drain” from Richard Florida

By Walker | February 3, 2011

 

Author and Creative Class Guru Richard Florida recently penned an article for The Atlantic that provides a national update on the much-discussed “brain drain” issue, where the young and the talented are migrating to specific regions for specific reasons.  This new update from 2005 to 2009 is interesting as it showcases a changing trend.  The recession has lowered overall migration, and in some instances we’re seeing slowed migration in sunbelt cities and improved migration in rustbelt cities.  Columbus is pointed out in this article as an example of a city that managed to change from a migration loss (-0.23) to a migration gain (+0.16).

---

 

Here is the link to the full article by Richard Florida at The Atlantic:  Where the Brains Are Going

 

Here is the migration chart from the article for Columbus and other cities:

 

Most people who are bitter and want to run away from their city are really trying to get away from themselves. The city is really what you make of it. That goes for most places, anyway.

 

I don't know about that. Granted, I'm from Toledo, but most people I know who leave Ohio do so because of money and job opportunities. They leave to improve their lot in life. It's the same reason their ancestors came to this state in the first place.

 

Also, people many times want to get away from toxic families, etc. But I get the point, at least in regards to Columbus. I'd rather live there than in most of Ohio. It offers a lot for a young person (nightlife, dating scene, job opportunities in growth sectors, pay, etc.). Columbus is fun and economically healthy, but I can see Keith's arguments about urbanism. The same fatal errors were made there as everywhere else in Ohio (and even worse in the case of the inner ring highway of death). Thankfully Columbus has yuppies trying to change this. That's better than a lot of cities can say, but the politics in Ohio towards urbanism can be somewhat stifling. This whole state needs major changes at the political level. To put it in perspective, Sandusky still has intercity passenger rail, Columbus doesn't (and given the seismic political shift of the state, probably never will). It's easy to get frustrated. Life is short, and you have to pick your battles wisely. Sometimes it makes more sense to move to a place that has everything you want as opposed to staying in a place that doesn't. Carpe diem. I wish everyone the best who leaves this state. I've found there usually is a good reason for it.

 

Columbus doesn't have the economic reasons for leaving that exist in many other cities in Ohio, but there is still always going to be that desire to get away from home, or that desire to move to a coastal urban mecca. It really is human nature.

Demographic change just isn't about migration - it can also be about falling birth rates and the like. The brain drain may be true, but many of the drains don't reproduce in their new cities or return home when it is time to reproduce. If a city's population lacks families it is much harder to keep growing.

Well if there is any good news for Ohio today in regards to the census, at least one city is still growing.  Columbus is reaching the population level where larger and larger projects begin to be a consideration, from buildings to mass transit.  If the city continues to grow at a similar pace, here is what it would be in the milestones of the next 20 years and comparisons to the cities closest in city proper populations:

 

Columbus

 

2010: 787,000

2015: 825,000

2020: 863,000

2025: 901,000

2030: 939,000

 

 

VS. Indianapolis

 

2010: 830,000

2015: 854,000

2020: 877,000

2025: 901,000

2030: 925,000

 

VS. Fort Worth

 

2010: 741,000

2015: 844,000

2020: 948,000

2025: 1,051,000

2030: 1,154,000

 

VS. Austin

 

2010: 790,000

2015: 857,000

2020: 924,000

2025: 991,000

2030: 1,058,000

 

VS. Charlotte

 

2010: 731,000

2015: 827,000

2020: 922,000

2025: 1,017,000

2030: 1,113,000

 

VS. San Francisco

 

2010: 805,000

2015: 819,000

2020: 834,000

2025: 848,000

2030: 862,000