Columbus' Uncool Crescent is illustrated well on the map.

I don't understand the blue dots that appear to be along River Rd. in Cincinnati. That's too bizarre...a string of blue dots leading from downtown into the west side like that. Maybe that's actually Kentucky since they go southwest from downtown but still, those linear blue dots don't make sense to me.

 

The Reading Road area due north of downtown are probably Wyoming, Glendale, maybe parts of Evendale. There's downtown, a few blue dots around Clifton (and North Avondale maybe?) then a bunch of orange until the cluster of blue where I believe Wyoming begins. The blue dots southwest of downtown would be Park Hills, Crestview Hills, that whole area off Buttermilk, etc.

Columbus, by far, has the greatest concentration of blue dots in it's urban core. German Village, Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Upper Arlington as well as many prosperous northern immediate suburbs. Cincinnati's blue dots are mostly concentrated on the east side and northern 'burbs which I expected - Mariemont, to Hyde Park on up to Indian Hill and Mason and Kings Mills (but considering the recent renaissance in OTR, I did think there'd be more blue dots around OTR and Clifton... and as far as the west side goes, a little more around Western Hills or west of it.) I must say...Cleveland is a little surprising considering the current high demand to live downtown and it's current high prices. There's mostly blue dots on the east side - looks to be around Shaker, and then on the west side around Bay Village and a little farther west and that's it for Cleveland's metro area. Other than that, the blue dots close to metro Cleveland are only existent in the exurbs between Cleveland and Akron. That's pretty tragic... Nothing in the urban core at all.

 

 

everything looks as expected across the state. as for cle, i doubt downtown is accounted for this yet. i do see ohio city & tremont have blue dots. and its not so totally dire, we know downtown, univ circle and midtown will get their blue dots soon enough.

Columbus, by far, has the greatest concentration of blue dots in it's urban core. German Village, Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Upper Arlington as well as many prosperous northern immediate suburbs. Cincinnati's blue dots are mostly concentrated on the east side and northern 'burbs which I expected - Mariemont, to Hyde Park on up to Indian Hill and Mason and Kings Mills (but considering the recent renaissance in OTR, I did think there'd be more blue dots around OTR and Clifton... and as far as the west side goes, a little more around Western Hills or west of it.) I must say...Cleveland is a little surprising considering the current high demand to live downtown and it's current high prices. There's mostly blue dots on the east side - looks to be around Shaker, and then on the west side around Bay Village and a little farther west and that's it for Cleveland's metro area. Other than that, the blue dots close to metro Cleveland are only existent in the exurbs between Cleveland and Akron. That's pretty tragic... Nothing in the urban core at all.

 

 

everything looks as expected across the state. as for cle, i doubt downtown is accounted for this yet. i do see ohio city & tremont have blue dots. and its not so totally dire, we know downtown, univ circle and midtown will get their blue dots soon enough.

 

Is there a tighter zoom available on NE Ohio?

Columbus' Uncool Crescent is illustrated well on the map.

 

The closing of the Hooters was the death knell.

Youngstown has like 8 blue dots.  How many people per dot?

I don't understand the blue dots that appear to be along River Rd. in Cincinnati. That's too bizarre...a string of blue dots leading from downtown into the west side like that. Maybe that's actually Kentucky since they go southwest from downtown but still, those linear blue dots don't make sense to me.

 

That string of blue dots is all the condo and townhome developments strung along Riverside Dr. and Eastern Ave and probably includes Mt. Adams, and the parts of Walnut Hills that overlook the river. That is definitely not the west side. Cincinnati's downtown is located on the southwestern part of that strand.

Youngstown has like 8 blue dots.  How many people per dot?

 

I think those dots represent census tracts which are sometimes pretty arbitrary. It doesn't represent any specific number of people, just an orange or blue dot for each census tract where data for said tract would indicate that it's either above 60% or below and the map is given a color accordingly. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems that if these maps said anything about population, the physical boundaries of highways and mountains and stuff wouldn't be so visible on these maps.

Where is Athens?

Youngstown has like 8 blue dots.  How many people per dot?

 

If accurately described by KJP, the dots are "precincts," not people. I'm not a fan of this mapping technique, to be honest. The more typical approach for things like this is just a dot density map where dots = people, instead of winner take all for each geographic unit. Not even sure what it means by "precinct"...literal voter precincts (for which I doubt we have decent education attainment data)? Census tracts?

 

EDIT: David beat me to it.

Where is Athens?

 

It shows up as a blue island in the southeast part of the state map.

Columbus, by far, has the greatest concentration of blue dots in it's urban core. German Village, Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Upper Arlington as well as many prosperous northern immediate suburbs. Cincinnati's blue dots are mostly concentrated on the east side and northern 'burbs which I expected - Mariemont, to Hyde Park on up to Indian Hill and Mason and Kings Mills (but considering the recent renaissance in OTR, I did think there'd be more blue dots around OTR and Clifton... and as far as the west side goes, a little more around Western Hills or west of it.) I must say...Cleveland is a little surprising considering the current high demand to live downtown and it's current high prices. There's mostly blue dots on the east side - looks to be around Shaker, and then on the west side around Bay Village and a little farther west and that's it for Cleveland's metro area. Other than that, the blue dots close to metro Cleveland are only existent in the exurbs between Cleveland and Akron. That's pretty tragic... Nothing in the urban core at all.

No, the west side Cleveland dots begin the with a cluster in Lakewood, considerably closer to the core than Bay Village. Likewise the inner east side cluster begins at University Circle, which one would obviously expect.

I don't understand the blue dots that appear to be along River Rd. in Cincinnati. That's too bizarre...a string of blue dots leading from downtown into the west side like that. Maybe that's actually Kentucky since they go southwest from downtown but still, those linear blue dots don't make sense to me.

 

That string of blue dots is all the condo and townhome developments strung along Riverside Dr. and Eastern Ave and probably includes Mt. Adams, and the parts of Walnut Hills that overlook the river. That is definitely not the west side. Cincinnati's downtown is located on the southwestern part of that strand.

 

Yeah, I see that now. I haven't looked at a Cincinnati map in years and when I see clusters of dots my brain tends to think "a high population lives here" so I was confused at first, thinking that was downtown.

 

These maps give an illusion of serious brain drain in Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Columbus, by far, has the greatest concentration of blue dots in it's urban core. German Village, Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Upper Arlington as well as many prosperous northern immediate suburbs. Cincinnati's blue dots are mostly concentrated on the east side and northern 'burbs which I expected - Mariemont, to Hyde Park on up to Indian Hill and Mason and Kings Mills (but considering the recent renaissance in OTR, I did think there'd be more blue dots around OTR and Clifton... and as far as the west side goes, a little more around Western Hills or west of it.) I must say...Cleveland is a little surprising considering the current high demand to live downtown and it's current high prices. There's mostly blue dots on the east side - looks to be around Shaker, and then on the west side around Bay Village and a little farther west and that's it for Cleveland's metro area. Other than that, the blue dots close to metro Cleveland are only existent in the exurbs between Cleveland and Akron. That's pretty tragic... Nothing in the urban core at all.

No, the west side Cleveland dots begin the with a cluster in Lakewood, considerably closer to the core than Bay Village. Likewise the inner east side cluster begins at University Circle, which one would obviously expect.

 

Better off than Detroit.  At least we have some dots in the core, however few. 

I wish I had a premium account on socialexplorer.com. There are some extremely cool maps to be made on there. I don't want to pay $50 a month just to make nerdy maps though. They have very recent survey information, done outside of the ten year census. Weird but cool stuff like ancestry, travel time to work, mental and physical health, carbon emissions... they even have SLAVERY data - number of slaveholders, slaves and freed slave population for their data going back to the 17-1800s! Once you start looking at their old slavery data from the 1800s, the website starts calling African Americans "coloreds"  :?

 

I can't believe they make you pay for a premium account or log in through a school library account just to get basic education level information for individual census tracts. A free account on SocialExplorer is f-ing useless.

Better off than Detroit.

 

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that phrase.

 

That should be Cleveland's slogan. Someone get Destination Cleveland on the phone.

 

 

No, the west side Cleveland dots begin the with a cluster in Lakewood, considerably closer to the core than Bay Village. Likewise the inner east side cluster begins at University Circle, which one would obviously expect.

 

That's weird. It doesn't seem like University Circle is that far away from downtown. That does explain the string of blue dots that now looks like University Circle, Little Italy, Cedar-Fairmount to the wealthier part of Cleveland Hts.

 

Shouldn't there at least be a blue dot by Edgewater Park? Maybe the census tract was too big and included some more blue collar areas nearby.

 

Yeah, I see that now. I haven't looked at a Cincinnati map in years and when I see clusters of dots my brain tends to think "a high population lives here" so I was confused at first, thinking that was downtown.

 

These maps give an illusion of serious brain drain in Cincinnati and Cleveland.

 

I don't think it really gives the illusion of serious brain drain for Cincinnati. Basically the whole east side is blue or blue adjacent, with the corridor out from downtown and then the Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout, Columbia Tusculum area is all blue. Other nodes in the city are Clifton, maybe North Avondale, maybe Pleasent Ridge as you get closer to the big collection of blue dots near Kenwood and Blue Ash. The west side is a little troubling, but keep in mind that 60% is a pretty high bar for degree attainment in an area. It'd be interesting to see a little more nuance here. Maybe green dots for 50% and yellow for 40% or something. It'd give much more of a gradient, and would probably give a better picture of neighborhoods that are up and coming or in a transitional state.

 

I think it's kind of cool how noticeable the Little Miami River and flood plain are here. The stark cut off between Hyde Park/CT and Mariemont is drastic. You can also tell the topography of Cincinnati just by looking at this map. Speaks to some of the density numbers discussed in other threads here.

 

Yeah, I see that now. I haven't looked at a Cincinnati map in years and when I see clusters of dots my brain tends to think "a high population lives here" so I was confused at first, thinking that was downtown.

 

These maps give an illusion of serious brain drain in Cincinnati and Cleveland.

 

I don't think it really gives the illusion of serious brain drain for Cincinnati. Basically the whole east side is blue or blue adjacent, with the corridor out from downtown and then the Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout, Columbia Tusculum area is all blue. Other nodes in the city are Clifton, maybe North Avondale, maybe Pleasent Ridge as you get closer to the big collection of blue dots near Kenwood and Blue Ash.

 

Cincinnati's blue dot areas in the core are pretty dense whereas a lot of what looks like centrally located blue dots in Columbus are actually fairly suburban areas. That's all I meant by illusion of brain drain in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The map doesn't speak on population density. Also, if the data is from the 2010 census, it might be too old to be accurate at this point anyway. I think we should do a census every 5 years.

 

I really need to stop staring at these dots and get some work done.

Columbus' Uncool Crescent is illustrated well on the map.

 

As someone who grew up in the 'uncool crescent'(far west side)and still has many connections there, do you think there is any hope for it? If so, where?

Columbus doesn't have as many sleeping  NBDs in the Uncool Crescent waiting to be reactivated as other cities. But, I'd look to the existing ones on West Broad, Parsons and Cleveland Ave. first as they have more talent than the endless swaths of residential -only development in the Crescent.

I think W. Broad St from Franklinton all the way to Westgate has potential for very successful redevelopment. Westgate is a hidden gem. The housing stock by Westgate Park is incredible and as a developer on the west side, you don't really have to worry about the racial component - community backlash, like with Old Town East, from residents who think you're trying to kick out all the Black people and make room for White people.

 

I always thought the west side didn't stand a chance because of the low quality, bland housing stock but then I saw an anomaly, this 'fancy' place called Little Italy up here in Cleveland....

Frankly, in Columbus it's hard to say "You're kicking out black people" since there's almost always tons of white people around. There are few, if any, all black areas.

Frankly, in Columbus it's hard to say "You're kicking out black people" since there's almost always tons of white people around. There are few, if any, all black areas.

 

I don't think this is true.  The city has far more census tracts with growing minority populations than it does a growing white population.  Majority white tracts are in decline citywide as most are becoming much more racially diverse.  Racially integrated tracts grew from just 2 in 1990 to 98 in 2015, a 4800% increase.  In 1990, 153 tracts were at least 90% white, but that number had fallen to just 46 in 2015. 

^Those numbers still confirm what I am saying. While the neighborhoods might have more black people and other minorities than they did in 1990, there's still plenty of white people around. I haven't looked at the numbers, but culturally speaking the Mt. Vernon Ave. neighborhood, Ohio Ave./Champion and even Urbancrest seem to be the hubs of black culture in Columbus.

With all this 3C (Cleveland, Columbus Cincinnati) bellyaching, I whipped up a quick table comparing the urban areas in Ohio of 250,000 or more people.  I looked at core city/MSA/CSA/UA populations and land areas and noticed basically depending on how you cut it, the three areas are very similar or tied in lots of metrics.  All three cities usually either first, second, or third in most categories.

 

Some things do stand out though.  The Columbus MSA will most certainly over take the Cleveland-Elyria MSA by 2020, but the Columbus MSA has a land area more than twice that of Cleveland taking up ten counties compared to Cleveland's five.  But Columbus has a much smaller urbanized area, so therefore the vast majority of the Columbus behemoth is sparsely populated.

A large percentage of the populations in Fairfield, Madison, Pickaway, Licking, Union and Morrow Counties are living in dialup areas for sure.

 

On the Hamilton County side of things, the wild and wooly western quarter plummets density for the county as a whole.

Maybe not Licking.  Newark is biggish, Granville has money, and sprawl is filling the gap between them and Columbus.

Cincinnati loses out on density due to hillsides and gullies.

Columbus, by far, has the greatest concentration of blue dots in it's urban core. German Village, Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview, Upper Arlington as well as many prosperous northern immediate suburbs. Cincinnati's blue dots are mostly concentrated on the east side and northern 'burbs which I expected - Mariemont, to Hyde Park on up to Indian Hill and Mason and Kings Mills (but considering the recent renaissance in OTR, I did think there'd be more blue dots around OTR and Clifton... and as far as the west side goes, a little more around Western Hills or west of it.) I must say...Cleveland is a little surprising considering the current high demand to live downtown and it's current high prices. There's mostly blue dots on the east side - looks to be around Shaker, and then on the west side around Bay Village and a little farther west and that's it for Cleveland's metro area. Other than that, the blue dots close to metro Cleveland are only existent in the exurbs between Cleveland and Akron. That's pretty tragic... Nothing in the urban core at all.

No, the west side Cleveland dots begin the with a cluster in Lakewood, considerably closer to the core than Bay Village. Likewise the inner east side cluster begins at University Circle, which one would obviously expect.

 

I still can't figure out if that single blue dot on the lake is my neighborhood or further east, it looks just east of the beginning of UC.

 

I still can't figure out if that single blue dot on the lake is my neighborhood or further east, it looks just east of the beginning of UC.

 

I would guess Bratenahl is the solitary dot, but then where are the two dots further east? Looks to be roughly north of a blank space I'm assuming is CuyCo Airport, but that would be Euclid??

Maybe not Licking.  Newark is biggish, Granville has money, and sprawl is filling the gap between them and Columbus.

 

Indeed, yet eastern Licking County might as well be Noble County.

One thing that I think is kind of interesting regarding the county population estimates is Butler County's continued rise in size and significance. Most of the "collar" counties around the 3 Cs hover in the high 100,000s to low 200,000s. Butler, however will probably be over 400,000 by the 2020 census. While there are are two urban centers in Hamilton and Middletown, most of the population of the county is suburban communities for Cincinnati and Dayton. Butler and Warren to a lesser extent are probably the closest thing Ohio has to say an Oakland County (MI), Orange County (CA), Fairfax (VA), etc. Large, relatively affluent suburban counties that are large enough to exist kind of independently from the core cities/counties.

 

I still can't figure out if that single blue dot on the lake is my neighborhood or further east, it looks just east of the beginning of UC.

 

I would guess Bratenahl is the solitary dot, but then where are the two dots further east? Looks to be roughly north of a blank space I'm assuming is CuyCo Airport, but that would be Euclid??

 

Those high rises on the lake probably.

One thing that I think is kind of interesting regarding the county population estimates is Butler County's continued rise in size and significance. Most of the "collar" counties around the 3 Cs hover in the high 100,000s to low 200,000s. Butler, however will probably be over 400,000 by the 2020 census. While there are are two urban centers in Hamilton and Middletown, most of the population of the county is suburban communities for Cincinnati and Dayton. Butler and Warren to a lesser extent are probably the closest thing Ohio has to say an Oakland County (MI), Orange County (CA), Fairfax (VA), etc. Large, relatively affluent suburban counties that are large enough to exist kind of independently from the core cities/counties.

 

I would agree.  Butler County is in an interesting position between two core MSA counties, yet actually taking advantage and filling in the gaps unlike Warren County, which seems more "rural" in perception aside from, say, Springboro, Lebanon, and Mason.

With all this 3C (Cleveland, Columbus Cincinnati) bellyaching, I whipped up a quick table comparing the urban areas in Ohio of 250,000 or more people.  I looked at core city/MSA/CSA/UA populations and land areas and noticed basically depending on how you cut it, the three areas are very similar or tied in lots of metrics.  All three cities usually either first, second, or third in most categories.

 

Some things do stand out though.  The Columbus MSA will most certainly over take the Cleveland-Elyria MSA by 2020, but the Columbus MSA has a land area more than twice that of Cleveland taking up ten counties compared to Cleveland's five.  But Columbus has a much smaller urbanized area, so therefore the vast majority of the Columbus behemoth is sparsely populated.

 

Very interesting. One thing to consider when talking about Columbus is where everyone lives within the MSA. Obviously the Columbus MSA has a much larger area, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is more sparsely populated. I would venture to say a large percentage of the entire Columbus MSA is located in Franklin County, the Southern half of Delaware County, and the Northeastern half of Fairfield County. If that is actually the case, the Columbus MSA just has a lot of dead space in the extra land area it has.

 

Another interesting aspect to keep in mind is the "population from city center". Here is a breakdown comparing Columbus and Cleveland:

 

4 Miles/50 Square Miles

Cleveland: 227,309

Columbus: 314,557

5 Miles/78.5 Square Miles- This is slightly smaller than Cleveland's current city limits.

Cleveland: 361,475

Columbus: 404,642

8 Miles/201 Square Miles- This is a bit smaller than Columbus' current city limits.

Cleveland: 719,218

Columbus: 795,666

9 Miles/254 Square Miles

Cleveland: 820,848

Columbus: 887,928

 

People tend to assume Columbus is sprawled out and not very dense, but in reality the two cities are pretty close to each other. In fact, a couple of the census tracts around the campus area in Columbus are the most densely populated areas in the state at close to 30,000 people per square mile. I believe this is evident in your chart under the "Urbanized Area" section. Columbus has a lower urbanized population, but a larger the population density because the urbanized areas of Columbus are actually quite densely populated.

The "distance to city center" doesn't work  for Cleveland comparatively because its top half is an enormous body of water.

The "distance to city center" doesn't work  for Cleveland comparatively because its top half is an enormous body of water.

 

It's using equivalent square mileage. I believe it does work. 

Wow! Dial-up is still that commonplace in those counties? No wonder breitbart and Drudgereport's websites are basic as hell. Their 56K connection can't handle loading anything more than basic html and css. Mind...blown.

The "distance to city center" doesn't work  for Cleveland comparatively because its top half is an enormous body of water.

 

It's using equivalent square mileage. I believe it does work. 

 

Not clear, devil's in the details.  Columbus spreads its population in a 360 degree arc around its center while Cleveland's arc is more like 200 degrees.  If the "miles from center" measurement is a radius, the comparison doesn't work because Cleveland isn't arranged around a geographical center the way Columbus is.  Coastal cities tend to be oblong and their concentrations of density follow the same pattern for the same reason.  Along the lake shore, Cleveland's metro is 60 miles wide.  So measuring 9 miles from downtown includes a National Park but leaves out many densely populated areas.

 

Wow! Dial-up is still that commonplace in those counties? No wonder breitbart and Drudgereport's websites are basic as hell. Their 56K connection can't handle loading anything more than basic html and css. Mind...blown.

 

Never thought of that.  Might be something to it.  Strategery!

Columbus seems more dense and compact to me compared to Cleveland and Cincinnati. It has a small outer belt which discourages sprawl. You can also get anywhere in the metro area from the opposite side of town in less than 20 minutes. It's obnoxious how in Cleveland it can take 15 minutes just to get to a highway to go across town - if taking a highway is even remotely close enough to your destination to be worth it. Also, I noticed on my girlfriend's car, which records avg mpg, once being moved to Cleveland, started averaging 3 mpg less. Driving patterns are similar but Columbus has an extremely efficient highway system and is less sprawly due to essentially having grid streets with crosshairs running through a fairly small circle as a highway system.. You end up braking and accelerating less, travel faster and have your destination closer on average.  Lake Erie is a good excuse for development patterns but it's also proven to be a giant pain in the ss[/member]. The water up here doesn't even taste good and there's few places in Cleveland where you can actually see the lake from. I only remember it's there when I go somewhere and it's suddenly ten degrees colder; I'm like "crap - I must be near the lake."

Columbus has the better road system, no doubt about that.  Also higher speed limits on comparable roads.  That really does help when getting places is your goal.  Cleveland could make much better use of its waterfront, no doubt about that either.  Unfortunately our waterfront plans never seem to involve the sort of intense development that port cities typically favor there.  As for lake views, Cleveland's anti-tower policies sharply limit them.  It's a shame because the topography favors amazing views from all over the place.  There's just a willful refusal to take advantage of that.

 

Parts of Columbus are beginning to eclipse Cleveland in terms of density, not due to geographic or logistical concerns but simply because that's what Columbus has chosen to do.  The new High Street could have been planned like the new Euclid Avenue, focusing on low-density high-security single-use facilities, but a different decision was made and it seems to be working out.  Ironically, Cleveland's plan is based on "jobs jobs jobs" but the Columbus method of building walkable density ends up attracting more of them.

I really think the reason High St. is so dense is because there's actually a huge demand to live in the area now. You're going to pay probably at least 1300 a month for a one bedroom apartment in the Short North. Developers aren't going to take such a big risk and over-build with high-rises just because the city and neighborhood is willing to let them.

 

It also had a lot of organic momentum before all those high-rises went up. There was a lot of cool stuff to do in the area so it got a lot of people's attention. It's a very central location. Also helped that there were a lot of gays with money to get the ball rolling in terms of rehabbing.

 

Are you refering to Euclid in mid-town area? That's why I always say that the best approach to developing Euclid is to first bring cool stuff to the area and help make it a destination. Shops, restaurants, theater, various forms of entertainment. Demand for housing will come after that.

^even the New York Post praised High Street in a little paragraph in this travel story (except I didn't know what they meant by "winding boulevard." It's pretty straight, isn't it? A slight bend maybe :|)

 

http://nypost.com/2017/04/03/8-amazing-american-streets-youve-never-heard-of/

Cincinnati still has much of the structure of the densest city in the Midwest...here is the West End in 1956 just before it was destroyed by nuclear attack:

 

The big advantage Columbus has is that neighborhoods center around High St. (and its other radials) for miles and miles without breaks.  Cincinnati has ravines & hillsides, cemeteries, city golf courses, huge parks, and other anomalies.  Also, Short North up to OSU doesn't have an interstate or other bypass diverting people from traditional retail on High. 

 

 

There's a ton of suburban crap west of 315 which roughly parallels High.

Really? That's awesome to see it get acknowledged by nypost!

 

I honestly don't think the Short North is comparable to any of those other main streets, though. At this point, the Short North is essentially Downtown Columbus while Downtown Columbus is essentially a nearby office park that closes at 5pm. No one is eager to invest in Downtown Columbus because there's not nearly as much demand to live there. There's not much of a demand because it's not cool. There's hardly anything fun to do down there. It's desolate and it's sad because they've invested so much in an awesome riverfront park system but ultimately parks like those are colossal failures when you don't give people any other reason to go down there.

 

I can't stress this enough, because like 327 said, the focus in Cleveland is "jobs jobs jobs" and for some reason the city and urban planning-minded residents think that people are going to suddenly move on into the hollowed-out east side because they work at all these start-ups sprouting up along the health-tech corridor or the well-established and growing Cleveland Clinic, UH and so on. PEOPLE DO NOT INHERENTLY FEEL INCLINED TO LIVE NEAR WHERE THEY WORK. Most people, especially the high income employees who work in tech and healthcare have cars and choose to either live the suburban peace and tranquility lifestyle or they choose to live somewhere that's actually cool. That not only includes walkability and density but destinations and fun stuff to do as neighborhood amenities.They're not willing to move to a dumpy, desolate neighborhood because it's conveniently close to their jobs. 

 

Long before High St. saw all these high-rises go up, you still had the shiny new Arena District nearby. You had Pro Hockey, concerts and high end restaurants nearby. You had The Bucks - The Horseshoe and The Schott where all these cool things were going on. Amazing festivals in the summer like Jazz/Rib Comfest that draw people from all over the metro. High St. had all the nearby amenities that one of the largest universities in America typically offers. OSU has a huge endowment - probably well over a billion dollars now and they've been investing in that corridor for a long time now to wow prospective students going on campus tours. That certainly helped build momentum. Meanwhile, the Short North was developing organically with all these quality infill projects and remodeling and I feel confident in saying that it's probably because there are a lot of wealthy gay 'urban pioneers' in Columbus. There was already tons of cool places in the SN portion of High that existed well over a decade ago. Every element that makes a neighborhood cool and prime for residential development. The hookah bars, record stores, head shops, apparel, live music, food and drink, you name it. Those places don't sprout up as a result of towers being built. If anything, (sadly) those towers will ultimately drive out everything that made it cool in the first place. It's sort of the classic story if you think about it.

 

As much as the Short North has had going for it for a long time now, I honestly don't think all those towers would be going up if it weren't for the fact that Downtown Columbus sucks so badly. This is why I'm reluctant to compare Cleveland and Columbus premiere neighborhoods. Unlike Columbus, Cleveland's big regional attractions - stadiums and arenas, concerts, festivals, you name it, are actually downtown.

 

I like what's happening on the west side of Cleveland. They seem to get it. What they're doing in Detroit-Shoreway/Gordon Square Arts District is way more effective imp than the approach on the east side - at least in terms of rebuilding population and creating and strengthening communities.

Cincinnati still has much of the structure of the densest city in the Midwest...here is the West End in 1956 just before it was destroyed by nuclear attack:

 

LOL. A nuclear attack would be a lot less embarrassing for the city than what really happened.

 

I recently read about the loss of the incredibly dense Kenyon-barr neighborhood, full of all these incredibly beautiful Italianate row-houses from the 1800s. Then in the '50s or '60s they tore it all down. City officials had to make way for the future (of Queensgate...) The only explanation I could find for it is that it had too many poor black people too close to the Central Business District. It's no wonder Cincinnati has had such horrible race relations for so long.

 

I just found a YouTube video on the history of the Kenyon-barr neighborhood.

Go to 9:58 - 10:12 in the video and check out the before/after. It's pretty depressing.

 

I really think the reason High St. is so dense is because there's actually a huge demand to live in the area now. You're going to pay probably at least 1300 a month for a one bedroom apartment in the Short North. Developers aren't going to take such a big risk and over-build with high-rises just because the city and neighborhood is willing to let them.

 

This. So many on this site think you can just build a high rise in a hallowed out area and people will come. They don't seem to take into consideration that banks and investors want to be comfortable knowing they will make a return on their investment.

 

You see the population stats and low job growth of the Cleveland region, so people aren't pouring into the area. Until that happens we will continue to see developments with more limited risks being built.

 

That said, I think what is going on in Ohio City along Detroit is starting to become comparable to what the Short north/North High in Columbus has experienced.

Now that I think about it, Union Terminal sticks out like a sore thumb and contextually makes absolutely no sense today. A huge commuter train station in the midst of a light industrial wasteland. In the '50s and before, it certainly did. You had Crosley Field nearby where I'm assuming a lot of people came in on trains to go to the games and the incredibly dense neighborhoods and factories/businesses surrounding it. They did a good job preserving Union Terminal but it doesn't look nearly as glorious as it would have in the '50s when you could actually see why such a big passenger train station would exist there.

 

Isn't it bizarre that they would build all those housing projects immediately east of Union Terminal? Right away, all of the tourists would see those projects immediately after getting off of the train. Certainly wouldn't leave a good impression. I'm sure cities were just as conscious of how they were perceived back then as they are now. Maybe that's why they obliterated almost the entire West End but what they replaced it with looks far worse and just...ridiculous. I remember the first time I went to the top of Carew Tower and saw Queensgate and thought "wtf?!" It looks especially ridiculous from up there. It looks like a completely unnecessarily complicated highway system.

That said, I think what is going on in Ohio City along Detroit is starting to become comparable to what the Short north/North High in Columbus has experienced.

 

I love that area! I really want to move over there. I live in Cleveland Hts. now and I'm starting to think that it's...well, 'stale' I guess, for lack of better words. I enjoy living by Cedar-Lee and Shaker Lakes and stuff but... I feel like most of the nicer parts of the east side are expensive for no reason. What they have going on over there on Detroit is so interesting; the infill projects, the diversity in people and types of businesses moving in and the really unique adaptive re-use of buildings. There's so much to do over there and Detroit Ave. has a very big city feel to it. That's a really cool area. Lots of small-scale changes happening here and there but so many that they add up to an overall dramatic change in the neighborhood. I love it.