^ The thing about Nashville and It will always have this advantage over Columbus and Cincinnati is that Nashville has a much larger tourism business and also has the high profile music business to give it additional exposure.  Attending a number of real estate conferences, Nashville always has a lot more cranes in the ground and developments (especially apartments) than Columbus, Cincy, Indy, etc. and has been that way for 30 years.  The one thing that Nashville has and Columbus cant really compete with is that there are a number of people who get 2nd or 3rd homes in Nashville and use it as a trophy property whereas you don't have that in Columbus.  It is like the luxury housing market in NYC, LA, San Fran or Miami where luxury investors purchase property and it largely sits vacant most of the time. THis brings adds a few units to the market that otherwise should not be there but more so it brings exposure to a market from an investment front.  Given Nashville's position as a music town, you will have this much more than you could have it in Columbus.

 

Tourism maybe, but I think Ohio and its cities in general receives far more tourism than people think.  Ohio in tourism dollars beats almost all the South except I think Florida and Texas. 

And all that tourism hasn't translated to growth.  Nashville is incorporated into its county the way Indianapolis is, so its city limits are much larger than Columbus or any Ohio city.  Yet it had less than 3,000 people move there last year.  For all the supposed building, tourism and national reputation, it's consistently had weak population growth, especially for such a large area.  Tourism apparently doesn't translate to quality of life issues that are attractive to real movers.  Nashville is clearly being overrated by many.

 

And I agree with you that Nashville is overrated but my point was more to do with perception than reality. Tourism is different there than in Ohio. In Nashville, you will have music stars and other celebs more likely to grab a high rise condo that sits empty 360 days of the year. You don't get that in Columbus. Because of its international appeal, you may get a Saudi Sheik looking for a place to dump capital that is not New York, LA or Miami and may snag a condo there for a while that sits empty. Ultimately, you have a bunch of high end real estate there that is built but empty 99% of the time. You do not have that market in Columbus. I am not saying it is in Nashville much either, but Nashville has greater potential for that then Columbus.

^ The thing about Nashville and It will always have this advantage over Columbus and Cincinnati is that Nashville has a much larger tourism business and also has the high profile music business to give it additional exposure.  Attending a number of real estate conferences, Nashville always has a lot more cranes in the ground and developments (especially apartments) than Columbus, Cincy, Indy, etc. and has been that way for 30 years.  The one thing that Nashville has and Columbus cant really compete with is that there are a number of people who get 2nd or 3rd homes in Nashville and use it as a trophy property whereas you don't have that in Columbus.  It is like the luxury housing market in NYC, LA, San Fran or Miami where luxury investors purchase property and it largely sits vacant most of the time. THis brings adds a few units to the market that otherwise should not be there but more so it brings exposure to a market from an investment front.  Given Nashville's position as a music town, you will have this much more than you could have it in Columbus.

 

Tourism maybe, but I think Ohio and its cities in general receives far more tourism than people think.  Ohio in tourism dollars beats almost all the South except I think Florida and Texas. 

And all that tourism hasn't translated to growth.  Nashville is incorporated into its county the way Indianapolis is, so its city limits are much larger than Columbus or any Ohio city.  Yet it had less than 3,000 people move there last year.  For all the supposed building, tourism and national reputation, it's consistently had weak population growth, especially for such a large area.  Tourism apparently doesn't translate to quality of life issues that are attractive to real movers.  Nashville is clearly being overrated by many.

 

And I agree with you that Nashville is overrated but my point was more to do with perception than reality. Tourism is different there than in Ohio. In Nashville, you will have music stars and other celebs more likely to grab a high rise condo that sits empty 360 days of the year. You don't get that in Columbus. Because of its international appeal, you may get a Saudi Sheik looking for a place to dump capital that is not New York, LA or Miami and may snag a condo there for a while that sits empty. Ultimately, you have a bunch of high end real estate there that is built but empty 99% of the time. You do not have that market in Columbus. I am not saying it is in Nashville much either, but Nashville has greater potential for that then Columbus.

 

Maybe, but I'm not sure any of that is actually good for Nashville.  Having a bunch of empty buildings that no one is actually moving to doesn't really add much more than a nice skyline.  What's interesting to me about Columbus is that, nationally, it has very little reputation, positive or negative.  Yes, there have been some positive media stories at times, but it consistently flies under the radar more often than not.  Hype feeds hype, and you get cities like Austin and Nashville attracting people to their metros often just because they've become popular in the media.  Yet Columbus really has none of that.  The media attention it gets, if at all, is along the lines of, "Wow, I can't believe there's a decent city in flyover country!"  It's annoying, but that's the reality.  So to me, its rise to become a top 10 fastest-growing city is really kind of remarkable.  It's going to be interesting watching the city evolve from here, and whether the boom is temporary or something that is going to stick around for a while.

Columbus is for real. These things don't happen overnight, they are always ten or twenty or thirty years in the making. The Austin we know today got started in the 1950s and 1960s when local leaders decided they wanted to be a tech hub. Perhaps Columbus is a decade or two from that.

Just for the 3-Cs...

 

% of Cumulative Metro Population Change Occurring in the Core County 2010-2017

Franklin: 72.75%

Hamilton: 17.78%

Cuyahoga: -100.00%

 

Ranking in the top 50 largest metros: 9th, 42nd, 50th, respectively.

 

And % of Cumulative Metro Population Change Occurring in the Core City 2010-2017

Columbus: 52.14%

Cincinnati: 6.76%

Cleveland: -59.09%

 

Ranking in the top 50 largest metros: 5th, 40th, 49th.

 

Columbus was one of only 5 cities in the top 50 largest metros to have more than 50% of the metro growth occur in the core city.  The others were New York, New Orleans, San Antonio and San Jose. 

 

County Population Change Per Square Mile 2010-2017

Franklin: +241.67

Hamilton: +28.20

Cuyahoga: -69.16

 

Ranking in the top 50 largest metros: 12th, 37th, 47th.

 

City Population Change Per Square Mile 2010-2017

Columbus: +424.26

Cincinnati: +55.89

Cleveland: -140.14

 

Ranking in the top 50 largest metros: 18th, 38th, 47th.

Columbus is for real. These things don't happen overnight, they are always ten or twenty or thirty years in the making. The Austin we know today got started in the 1950s and 1960s when local leaders decided they wanted to be a tech hub. Perhaps Columbus is a decade or two from that.

 

1988 was the year it started. We could tell.

Current Population Densities- land only

 

Metro Area

Cleveland: 1,031.3

Cincinnati: 496.3

Columbus: 433.4

 

Metro Area Density Change 2010-2017

Columbus: +36.8

Cincinnati: +14.7

Cleveland: -9.2

 

County

Cuyahoga: 2,732.0

Franklin: 2,428.5

Hamilton: 2,004.5

Summit: 1,313.9

Lucas: 1,263.6

Montgomery: 1,150.5

 

County Density Change 2010-2017

Franklin: +289.9

Hamilton: +28.2

Summit: -0.8

Montgomery: -7.8

Lucas: -32.0

Cuyahoga: -69.1

 

City

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

Toledo: 3,432.2

Akron: 3,189.5

Dayton: 2,522.4

 

City Density Change 2010-2017

Columbus: +400.2

Cincinnati: +55.9

Akron: -17.8

Dayton: -35.2

Toledo: -124.5

Cleveland: -143.8

 

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

Columbus gained more people within city limits in just one year 2016-17 (+15.5k) than the entire OSU dorm population (~14k)

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

 

Columbus was 879,170 / 218.5sq.mi.  All the numbers are based on land only, no water.  But yeah, Columbus has more density than people think.

 

 

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

 

This has come up a few times before - Cincy and Cleveland feel more dense because the neighborhoods themselves likely are, but each city has more land taken up by things like undeveloped hillsides, flood plains, and industry than Columbus does, so the overall average density is much lower. Looking at a map of Cincinnati's city limits - nearly 1/3 of the land is either undeveloped hillsides or in the Ohio/Little Miami flood plain. The Mill Creek Valley is entirely industrial from St. Bernard to the Ohio River. The rail yards alone in Queensgate/Camp Washington are larger than all of Over-the-Rhine. That's a ton of acreage with 0 people per square mile.

Columbus has added a lot of density in the past 15 years.  That number will continue to rise. 

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

 

This has come up a few times before - Cincy and Cleveland feel more dense because the neighborhoods themselves likely are, but each city has more land taken up by things like undeveloped hillsides, flood plains, and industry than Columbus does, so the overall average density is much lower. Looking at a map of Cincinnati's city limits - nearly 1/3 of the land is either undeveloped hillsides or in the Ohio/Little Miami flood plain. The Mill Creek Valley is entirely industrial from St. Bernard to the Ohio River. The rail yards alone in Queensgate/Camp Washington are larger than all of Over-the-Rhine. That's a ton of acreage with 0 people per square mile.

 

Ram---that makes sense. Lakewood--on the west side of Cleveland is 9000/sq mile---but the city only has one big industrial area---so other than some retail, parks, schools, and roads, the city is all residential.  Cleveland, of course, has lots of industrial and commericial areas and the entire flats. I'd be curious what Cleveland's density would be just removing the flats south of the East/west bank areas.

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

 

This has come up a few times before - Cincy and Cleveland feel more dense because the neighborhoods themselves likely are, but each city has more land taken up by things like undeveloped hillsides, flood plains, and industry than Columbus does, so the overall average density is much lower. Looking at a map of Cincinnati's city limits - nearly 1/3 of the land is either undeveloped hillsides or in the Ohio/Little Miami flood plain. The Mill Creek Valley is entirely industrial from St. Bernard to the Ohio River. The rail yards alone in Queensgate/Camp Washington are larger than all of Over-the-Rhine. That's a ton of acreage with 0 people per square mile.

 

The numbers don't include water.  All cities have undevelopable land, industry, etc.  I'm pretty sure the difference in growth rates account for far more than what you're talking about.  Plus, isn't the criticism of Columbus that so much of its development is low-density sprawl or that it has a lot of empty land within its limits?  I feel like people are trying to have it both ways here.  Also, if you removed all that land in the other 2, you'd also have to remove it for Columbus, meaning that all 3 would see their densities rise. You would have to somehow show that the differences in land use would create a different picture.  I guess if someone wanted to really do it, they could go all the way down to the block level, but that would take a good amount of work to do.  Otherwise, it's just an assumption, not a fact.

Exactly. Columbus has no less than 3 airports within its boundaries for example. That alone is a H U G E amount of land with 0 people. And then add in industrial zones, multiple quarries, rail yards, etc...

The numbers don't include water.  All cities have undevelopable land, industry, etc.  I'm pretty sure the difference in growth rates account for far more than what you're talking about.  Plus, isn't the criticism of Columbus that so much of its development is low-density sprawl or that it has a lot of empty land within its limits?  I feel like people are trying to have it both ways here.  Also, if you removed all that land in the other 2, you'd also have to remove it for Columbus, meaning that all 3 would see their densities rise. You would have to somehow show that the differences in land use would create a different picture.  I guess if someone wanted to really do it, they could go all the way down to the block level, but that would take a good amount of work to do.  Otherwise, it's just an assumption, not a fact.

 

There is simply no question that the areas within the City of Cincinnati that are residential are generally more densely built than are the prewar sections of Columbus.  Cincinnati has many, many more homes and multifamilies built on 20x90 lots whereas the smallest Columbus gets is about 30x150 and most lots are more like 35 or 40 feet wide.  That makes a huge difference extrapolated over a large area.

 

Good example of how Cincinnati has dense residential nodes surrounded by large areas with almost zero residents:

 

A lot of Columbus is more like this:

 

 

 

Well, yea. LA Metro is more dense than NY metro but to best of my knowledge LA proper isn’t more dense than NYC. It is the same effect, essentially.

Columbus is probably currently more “consistently” populated than Cincinnati or certainly Cleveland as well, I’d think. Yeah Franklinton is still a mess and parts of Olde Towne East and King-Lincoln are somewhat empty but for the most part it’s a fairly “occupied” city. The other C’s have a dense built form (although German Village and pretty much anything else along High is fairly comparable in built density to most Cleveland neighborhoods), but Cincy and Cleveland have some shockingly empty neighborhoods. Especially eastern Cleveland.

The numbers don't include water.  All cities have undevelopable land, industry, etc.  I'm pretty sure the difference in growth rates account for far more than what you're talking about.  Plus, isn't the criticism of Columbus that so much of its development is low-density sprawl or that it has a lot of empty land within its limits?  I feel like people are trying to have it both ways here.  Also, if you removed all that land in the other 2, you'd also have to remove it for Columbus, meaning that all 3 would see their densities rise. You would have to somehow show that the differences in land use would create a different picture.  I guess if someone wanted to really do it, they could go all the way down to the block level, but that would take a good amount of work to do.  Otherwise, it's just an assumption, not a fact.

 

jonoh81---I don't think anyone was criticizing Columbus here. I think people are just surprised by the density numbers you showed relative to Cleveland and Cincinnati as Columbus is very much perceived as a sprawling suburb with little dense development. I can't say that the perception is unwarranted. I personally have been in the "City of Columbus" and was in a cornfield and then later in an area of suburban tract housing.

^Density:

Cleveland: 4,961.7

Columbus: 4,023.7

Cincinnati: 3,865.8

 

Is this accurate?  Both Cleveland and Cincinnati feel much more dense than Columbus, especially Cleveland.  Is this because of all the OSU dorms?

 

This has come up a few times before - Cincy and Cleveland feel more dense because the neighborhoods themselves likely are, but each city has more land taken up by things like undeveloped hillsides, flood plains, and industry than Columbus does, so the overall average density is much lower. Looking at a map of Cincinnati's city limits - nearly 1/3 of the land is either undeveloped hillsides or in the Ohio/Little Miami flood plain. The Mill Creek Valley is entirely industrial from St. Bernard to the Ohio River. The rail yards alone in Queensgate/Camp Washington are larger than all of Over-the-Rhine. That's a ton of acreage with 0 people per square mile.

 

 

yep thats why you cant do city vs city for this, you have to pick an equal set of square miles to compare to try to make it fair as possible.

 

i would say try to compare the most dense 50 sq mi of all three.

 

i would be curious to see if cols has more density in any swath like that.

 

yet i should add.

 

yet.

 

because if it doesnt quite it will.

 

and certainly the other 50 sq mi blocks will be close, because not much in the way of geographic barriers or industrial and post-industrial swaths.

Thing is a lot of Columbus' suburbany areas are relatively dense for modern America. Small lots. Apartment buildings. Look at Polaris area, it's a pedestrian's nightmare but I bet with all the apartment buildings the average density isn't too shabby.

Ohio city census came out today.

 

https://www.ohio.com/akron/news/local/census-bureau-finds-five-of-ohios-largest-cities-growing-akron-slows-population-loss

 

 

good for cols as expected and cinci is holding down the fort, but the rest is just ugly. i was hoping lorain might jump up a little and finally pass youngstown but nope. i think the bleeding in cle has a least slowed up quite a bit though. overall meh its exactly what we thought it would be. i bet a huge chunk of the losses are just lateral moves to central ohio. that and the state could do a much better job with immigration than it does as overall its pretty pathetic in that dept vs elsewhere.

The numbers don't include water.  All cities have undevelopable land, industry, etc.  I'm pretty sure the difference in growth rates account for far more than what you're talking about.  Plus, isn't the criticism of Columbus that so much of its development is low-density sprawl or that it has a lot of empty land within its limits?  I feel like people are trying to have it both ways here.  Also, if you removed all that land in the other 2, you'd also have to remove it for Columbus, meaning that all 3 would see their densities rise. You would have to somehow show that the differences in land use would create a different picture.  I guess if someone wanted to really do it, they could go all the way down to the block level, but that would take a good amount of work to do.  Otherwise, it's just an assumption, not a fact.

 

There is simply no question that the areas within the City of Cincinnati that are residential are generally more densely built than are the prewar sections of Columbus.  Cincinnati has many, many more homes and multifamilies built on 20x90 lots whereas the smallest Columbus gets is about 30x150 and most lots are more like 35 or 40 feet wide.  That makes a huge difference extrapolated over a large area.

 

Good example of how Cincinnati has dense residential nodes surrounded by large areas with almost zero residents:

 

A lot of Columbus is more like this:

 

There is a question if we're still just basing this off of perceptions rather than measured areas.  Again, the only way I can think of to get a good picture is to do each city block by block, eliminating the non-population areas.  Until someone does this, claims that one city is clearly worse than the other is just unsupported speculation. 

^ jonoh81[/member] I get what you are saying, and I think we all like to support our perceptions with facts. The problem is that this type of analysis is obviously sensitive to physical scale - I think that's pretty much made clear by this entire conversation. What you've done is to say "I took the numbers that are available and created some facts that are based on them." But your "facts" might not ring true if done at a different scale.

 

I'm just making the point that we're all playing around here - you're not inherently on more solid ground just because you created a quantitative argument based on the data available (and choosing to ignore the scale) - any more than others who choose to create arguments that (they feel) are at a more appropriate scale, but lack data for quantitative support.

Thing is a lot of Columbus' suburbany areas are relatively dense for modern America. Small lots. Apartment buildings. Look at Polaris area, it's a pedestrian's nightmare but I bet with all the apartment buildings the average density isn't too shabby.

 

exactly. good example. that would be one of the ‘other’ 50 sq mi swaths that could be chosen when comparing the 3 C’s density, not the first choice, and that area will only get even more density as time goes on. its good place to watch too, because development moves much faster in northern columbus than the rest of the state.

^ Before I get too attached to it, where does this "50 sq mi" area come from?

 

That seems waaay too big to me, as a scale of analysis. I mean, Manhattan is 23 sq. mi.

 

-- Addition --

 

Maybe its best to start by looking at maps of data where there is no spatial averaging? The demographers at Virginia have done these very cool interactive 'dot maps' based on data at the census block level: https://demographics.virginia.edu/DotMap/ (unfortunately, of course, these are limited to 2010 data, currently). Here one 'dot' is one person, and their interests seem to be a lot in racial distribution, not density. I don't know how they distribute the 'dots' within a census block - or if it matters.

 

Here's a couple of maps, both at maximum zoom scale, of Cincinnati and Columbus. From these, it seems to me that there are larger areas of higher density in Columbus in 2010 around High, compared to around downtown Cincinnati. These sorts of maps also make it pretty clear how complicated this question is of "what city is more densely populated." Which I guess is the main point.

This is within the Cincinnati city limits:

 

and this:

 

and this:

 

and this:

 

and this:

 

and this:

 

 

The examples go on and on.  The whole reason why Cincinnati has an unusual character is because there was limited flat, flood-proof land and flat land on the hilltops.  So the prevailing lot size was small and multifamilies were often built to the rear lot line in the 1800s.  A lot of those buildings have been torn down but a lot more of them remain in Cincinnati than were ever built in Columbus.   

 

Many of the hillside homes built in the 1800s sustained damage and have been torn down.  If you want to build on a hillside today it is still a risky enterprise.  So new construction only happens on the hillsides in the expensive neighborhoods. 

I don't know how many of you are familiar with All Columbus Data, but he does a good job of doing various statistical things on Columbus population data. One of his blog posts from a while ago just looks at from a pure number of people living in a circle X miles from City Hall, Columbus moves up the list pretty quickly as you move further out, which would suggest that while the immediate downtown core is pretty light on population, the metro as a whole is pretty consistently dense, whereas a lot of the older metros have a denser core but their density drops off a lot more rapidly than Columbus does.

 

One of the more interesting things the Census measures is the population from “City Hall”, or basically the population by a mile radius from the center of each city’s downtown. Since city boundaries come in all different sizes, this is a good way to compare urban populations.

 

I looked at the 15 largest Midwest metros for these numbers.

 

First, here is a breakdown of aggregate population at each mile marker in 2010. Aggregate means that with each mile added, the population within all previous miles are added together.

 

Mile 0

1. Chicago: 63,120

2. Minneapolis: 31,036

3. Milwaukee: 21,587

4. Cincinnati: 17,681

5. St. Louis: 17,359

6. Grand Rapids: 16,099

7. Omaha: 15,582

8. Indianapolis: 14,058

9. Kansas City: 13,709

10. Akron: 12,479

11. Cleveland: 9,471

12. Dayton: 9,182

13. Detroit: 8,709

14. Toledo: 8,304

15. Columbus: 7,416

 

This is a pretty bad showing in this list. In 2010, Columbus had the lowest Downtown population, or population at Mile 0, of any of the largest 15 metros.

 

Mile 1

1. Chicago: 181,714

2. Minneapolis: 123,526

3. Milwaukee: 86,261

4. Grand Rapids: 75,613

5. Cincinnati: 65,264

6. Omaha: 56,244

7. Toledo: 55,739

8. Akron: 53,715

9. Columbus: 49,667

10. Indianapolis: 45,079

11. Dayton: 41,053

12. St. Louis: 40,184

13. Kansas City: 32,900

14. Detroit: 32,810

15. Cleveland: 32,193

 

By Mile 1, Columbus starts to move up rapidly, however.

 

Mile 2

1. Chicago: 318,522

2. Minneapolis: 228,927

3. Milwaukee: 208,776

4. Cincinnati: 138,235

5. Columbus: 134,826

6. Grand Rapids: 127,535

7. Akron: 122,395

8. Omaha: 113,044

9. Indianapolis: 102,412

10. Dayton: 101,817

11. Toledo: 94,058

12. St. Louis: 94,038

13. Kansas City: 77,388

14. Cleveland: 64,721

15. Detroit: 64,046

 

Mile 3

1. Chicago: 508,949

2. Minneapolis: 325,198

3. Milwaukee: 319,111

4. Columbus: 221,466

5. Cincinnati: 205,624

6. Grand Rapids: 184,887

7. Akron: 177,674

8. Omaha: 168,724

9. Toledo: 166,569

10. Indianapolis: 166,266

11. St. Louis: 160,117

12. Kansas City: 155,802

13. Dayton: 152,789

14. Cleveland: 139,945

15. Detroit: 109,104

 

Mile 4

1. Chicago: 764,400

2. Minneapolis: 448,499

3. Milwaukee: 438,629

4. Cincinnati: 315,665

5. Columbus: 314,557

6. Omaha: 253,723

7. St. Louis: 251,432

8. Grand Rapids: 247,473

9. Indianapolis: 240,970

10. Akron: 227,825

11. Cleveland: 227,309

12. Kansas City: 216,483

13. Dayton: 214,614

14. Toledo: 213,529

15. Detroit: 198,341

 

Mile 5

1. Chicago: 1,067,434

2. Minneapolis: 585,588

3. Milwaukee: 552,064

4. Columbus: 404,642

5. Cincinnati: 400,254

6. Cleveland: 361,475

7. St. Louis: 336,573

8. Indianapolis: 320,919

9. Omaha: 311,189

10. Grand Rapids: 305,307

11. Akron: 296,787

12. Detroit: 282,986

13. Toledo: 271,187

14. Kansas City: 269,936

15. Dayton: 262,069

 

So while Columbus’ downtown is down at the bottom in this list, it ends up being a top 5 within just a few miles from it. Clearly, though, the city needs to do better at getting people in the center.

 

Here's the rest of the post: http://allcolumbusdata.com/?p=1079

 

He's got lot of other cool stuff like analysis of the change in the C's downtown populations over the years:

 

 

 

It's an interesting blog, I'd recommend it.

^the last chart above is very interesting. It shows that if columbus didn't force annexation through dehydration, it actually lost 40% of its population between 1950 and 2016.  (regarding your x mile circles around downtown comments, remember, for Cleveland you only get half a circle as north of City Hall is the lake.)

^the last chart above is very interesting. It shows that if columbus didn't force annexation through dehydration, it actually lost 40% of its population between 1950 and 2016.  (regarding your x mile circles around downtown comments, remember, for Cleveland you only get half a circle as north of City Hall is the lake.)

Hah! That's right. It's just never easy.

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

Found a one person one dot map for CLE. As indicated above by someone, it is focused on race.  The white area straight down the middle that indicates no people is the Cuyahoga Valley. Other areas of no people are mostly transporatation corridors or industrial areas (of which the valley is a part).

 

https://localwiki.org/cleveland/Racial_Map_of_Cleveland/_files/2010-cleveland-race-map.png/_info/

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

I'm not certain I understand the question.

 

The place to start is something like a dot map. That's as close to "raw data" as we can get right now. (And even that assumes that we're all happy with focusing on "nighttime" population, and don't care about any differences in daytime density created by jobs, entertainment, etc.)

 

So how do you want to define boundaries on such a map in order to define a "city" density that is  meaningful? I mean, I thought that distance from city hall was brilliant, but then you have the problem of the lake!

 

If you want to show that Columbus is more dense, then I think you can do it. If you want to show that Cincinnati is more dense, then I think you can probably do that too. It's sort of like gerrymandering - if you allow the boundaries to be anything, you can have the result that you want.

^the last chart above is very interesting. It shows that if columbus didn't force annexation through dehydration, it actually lost 40% of its population between 1950 and 2016.  (regarding your x mile circles around downtown comments, remember, for Cleveland you only get half a circle as north of City Hall is the lake.)

 

Almost all major cities saw core population decline in the years.  What’s interesting now is that the city is adding almost no land but has growth exceeding the peak annexation years.  Beyond that, most of that growth is happening in the most urban neighborhoods rather than the fringe.  This may have something to do with single family home construction being so low right now.

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

I'm not certain I understand the question.

 

The place to start is something like a dot map. That's as close to "raw data" as we can get right now. (And even that assumes that we're all happy with focusing on "nighttime" population, and don't care about any differences in daytime density created by jobs, entertainment, etc.)

 

So how do you want to define boundaries on such a map in order to define a "city" density that is  meaningful? I mean, I thought that distance from city hall was brilliant, but then you have the problem of the lake!

 

If you want to show that Columbus is more dense, then I think you can do it. If you want to show that Cincinnati is more dense, then I think you can probably do that too. It's sort of like gerrymandering - if you allow the boundaries to be anything, you can have the result that you want.

 

The suggestion is that the numbers are wrong because places like Cincinnati have hills and other geographic/development areas that cannot have population.  However, Cincinnati is only 78 square miles.  Columbus is about 219, almost 3x larger.  My question is how a much smaller city can have so much more no-density area than a city 3x its size, especially one like Columbus that supposedly also has many more low-density suburban neighborhoods within its borders?  That wouldn't make sense.  Essentially, the majority of Cincinnati would have to be devoid of people for this to work as claimed.

Average household size also plays a role.

2016 5-year ACS average household size:

Cincinnati: 2.12

Columbus: 2.25

Cleveland: 2.39

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

I'm not certain I understand the question.

 

The place to start is something like a dot map. That's as close to "raw data" as we can get right now. (And even that assumes that we're all happy with focusing on "nighttime" population, and don't care about any differences in daytime density created by jobs, entertainment, etc.)

 

So how do you want to define boundaries on such a map in order to define a "city" density that is  meaningful? I mean, I thought that distance from city hall was brilliant, but then you have the problem of the lake!

 

If you want to show that Columbus is more dense, then I think you can do it. If you want to show that Cincinnati is more dense, then I think you can probably do that too. It's sort of like gerrymandering - if you allow the boundaries to be anything, you can have the result that you want.

 

The suggestion is that the numbers are wrong because places like Cincinnati have hills and other geographic/development areas that cannot have population.  However, Cincinnati is only 78 square miles.  Columbus is about 219, almost 3x larger.  My question is how a much smaller city can have so much more no-density area than a city 3x its size, especially one like Columbus that supposedly also has many more low-density suburban neighborhoods within its borders?  That wouldn't make sense.  Essentially, the majority of Cincinnati would have to be devoid of people for this to work as claimed.

We're talking density here. Cincinnati wouldn't have to have more non-developable area than Columbus; it would need a greater fraction of it's total land area that was non-developable. That's completely believable. I mean, you're not going to ever compare density for a land area larger than Cincinnati's of 78 sq. mi., right? So how much non-developable land is there in Cincinnati, versus any reasonable 78 sq. mi you pick in Columbus?

 

But I guess you're rejecting my main point, which was that the scale of analysis (and the boundaries for it) matter. They might even dominate. That's why I personally get more out of things like dot maps, cause I can (sort of) let my eye estimate the different ways of calculating density, and I can see the non-dense versus denser areas, which is interesting and practical.

Yes Cincinnati is a lot smaller city limit wise but within those city limits there are a lot of hills to where you can not develop. There’s also some large parks. Mt Airy Forest for example which is over 2 sq miles and Soring Grove Cemetary which is the third largest cemetery in the US. There is a also large industrial areas between Queensgate and Northside where virtually no one lives as well as area around Lunken airport that have a low population due to to flooding concerns.

I suspect that Cincinnati's neighborhoods on the far east and west sides are less dense than people seem to acknowledge, as well. Westwood and West Price Hill have a bunch of sprawly cul-de-sac subdivisions, as is Mount Washington and most of Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Clifton north of Ludlow, and North Avondale. The parts of the city that are "Great Lakes city density" (we're calling downtown/most of Uptown "east coast built form" for the sake of this argument) are relatively small patches of land adjacent to Norwood. Namely, Bond Hill, western Oakley, and northern Hyde Park. So yeah, Cincinnati's core is built up very dense, but there is also plenty of pseudo-suburban car-oriented development within the city, as well.

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

I'm not certain I understand the question.

 

The place to start is something like a dot map. That's as close to "raw data" as we can get right now. (And even that assumes that we're all happy with focusing on "nighttime" population, and don't care about any differences in daytime density created by jobs, entertainment, etc.)

 

So how do you want to define boundaries on such a map in order to define a "city" density that is  meaningful? I mean, I thought that distance from city hall was brilliant, but then you have the problem of the lake!

 

If you want to show that Columbus is more dense, then I think you can do it. If you want to show that Cincinnati is more dense, then I think you can probably do that too. It's sort of like gerrymandering - if you allow the boundaries to be anything, you can have the result that you want.

 

The suggestion is that the numbers are wrong because places like Cincinnati have hills and other geographic/development areas that cannot have population.  However, Cincinnati is only 78 square miles.  Columbus is about 219, almost 3x larger.  My question is how a much smaller city can have so much more no-density area than a city 3x its size, especially one like Columbus that supposedly also has many more low-density suburban neighborhoods within its borders?  That wouldn't make sense.  Essentially, the majority of Cincinnati would have to be devoid of people for this to work as claimed.

We're talking density here. Cincinnati wouldn't have to have more non-developable area than Columbus; it would need a greater fraction of it's total land area that was non-developable. That's completely believable. I mean, you're not going to ever compare density for a land area larger than Cincinnati's of 78 sq. mi., right? So how much non-developable land is there in Cincinnati, versus any reasonable 78 sq. mi you pick in Columbus?

 

 

 

Compare the 19th-century areas of Cincinnati to Columbus.  Virtually everything in Cincinnati was subdivided into a 20x100~ or 25x100~ lot.  But most of German Village, Old Town East, Victorian Village, etc., was built on 30x150 lots.  20x100 is WAYYY denser than 30x150. 

 

Outside of about a 2-mile arc from downtown, the lot sizes are typically 30x150. Covington and Newport, KY are platted on 20x100 parcels. 

 

I suspect that Cincinnati's neighborhoods on the far east and west sides are less dense than people seem to acknowledge, as well. Westwood and West Price Hill have a bunch of sprawly cul-de-sac subdivisions, as is Mount Washington and most of Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Clifton north of Ludlow, and North Avondale. The parts of the city that are "Great Lakes city density" (we're calling downtown/most of Uptown "east coast built form" for the sake of this argument) are relatively small patches of land adjacent to Norwood. Namely, Bond Hill, western Oakley, and northern Hyde Park. So yeah, Cincinnati's core is built up very dense, but there is also plenty of pseudo-suburban car-oriented development within the city, as well.

 

I agree, I think the West Side drags the density down especially. Some of the newer Hyde Park stuff is straight outta Kenwood. Oh and the Middle Side, say around the Winton Hills mountain range is not helping at all.

So a question... Columbus is roughly 150 square miles larger than Cincinnati or Cleveland.  How is it possible that there is so much of those cities that is empty that it compensates for Columbus having 3x the area size? 

I'm not certain I understand the question.

 

The place to start is something like a dot map. That's as close to "raw data" as we can get right now. (And even that assumes that we're all happy with focusing on "nighttime" population, and don't care about any differences in daytime density created by jobs, entertainment, etc.)

 

So how do you want to define boundaries on such a map in order to define a "city" density that is  meaningful? I mean, I thought that distance from city hall was brilliant, but then you have the problem of the lake!

 

If you want to show that Columbus is more dense, then I think you can do it. If you want to show that Cincinnati is more dense, then I think you can probably do that too. It's sort of like gerrymandering - if you allow the boundaries to be anything, you can have the result that you want.

 

The suggestion is that the numbers are wrong because places like Cincinnati have hills and other geographic/development areas that cannot have population.  However, Cincinnati is only 78 square miles.  Columbus is about 219, almost 3x larger.  My question is how a much smaller city can have so much more no-density area than a city 3x its size, especially one like Columbus that supposedly also has many more low-density suburban neighborhoods within its borders?  That wouldn't make sense.  Essentially, the majority of Cincinnati would have to be devoid of people for this to work as claimed.

We're talking density here. Cincinnati wouldn't have to have more non-developable area than Columbus; it would need a greater fraction of it's total land area that was non-developable. That's completely believable. I mean, you're not going to ever compare density for a land area larger than Cincinnati's of 78 sq. mi., right? So how much non-developable land is there in Cincinnati, versus any reasonable 78 sq. mi you pick in Columbus?

 

But I guess you're rejecting my main point, which was that the scale of analysis (and the boundaries for it) matter. They might even dominate. That's why I personally get more out of things like dot maps, cause I can (sort of) let my eye estimate the different ways of calculating density, and I can see the non-dense versus denser areas, which is interesting and practical.

 

But again, you can't just point to areas that don't have any development, because density is based on population divided by area size.  Low-density areas mean low population.  So does Cincinnati not only have a greater area of no development, but low-density development than Columbus?  I'm just trying to understand what I've seen people say over the years- that Columbus is low-density sprawl and doesn't seem dense at all.  So either that is true or its fraction of it is lower.  That's my point.  It has to be either higher density overall or have a lower fraction of no and low population areas.  Area size matters because its population has to be divided into a much larger area.  If Columbus was 78 square miles, its density would be the highest of the 3-Cs, by several thousand, and we wouldn't be having the debate at all.

 

Dot maps can show where the population lives and doesn't live, but not tell exactly how dense the population is overall. 

Let's challenge perception versus reality in regards to Columbus density.  This first photo is an aerial of most of Census Tract 7551.  It is the area south of Easton. Most of it is single-family homes, a few parks and apartments clustered in the southeast.  The tract is divided into 2 census block groups.  What would you guess the density is?

 

 

I think the statistic you're looking for is "weighted density." Basically, it averages out the census tract density but gives higher weight to the tracts where more people live (e.g. if 10,000 people lived in 1 square mile and one person lived in 99 square miles surrounding that tract, the weighted density would be nearly 10,000 people/sq mi, even though the "average" density is 100/sq mi). It gives a better measurement of the density the "typical" resident experiences.

This is Census Tract 330, in northern Linden.  The homes here are smaller and older than 7551.  What is the density?

 

This is Tract 1121, which includes a good part of the main OSU campus, specifically the Oval and large apartment buildings to the north and south.  What is the density?

 

This is Tract 6393.  It is on the far northern boundary of Franklin County north if I-270, almost as far from the core as the city limits go.  It is almost entirely somewhat newer single-family homes.  What is the density?

 

 

 

This is Tract 55, south of Livingston Avenue on the Near South Side. It is a historically older neighborhood, built mostly between 1880-1920 on a classic grid pattern.  What is the density?

 

This is 8132, on the Far West Side, south of West Broad and west of I-270 near at Westland High School.  Immediately west of this is fields and the beginning of the Big Darby protected area.  There's a mix of schools, parks, single-family homes and some commercial development.  Fairly typical suburbia for Columbus.  What is the density?

 

Finally we have 8822, on the Far South Side along 23/S. High and just north I-270.  It includes a wide mix of single-family homes, large commercial developments, a huge quarry, farm fields and various other things.  What is the density?

 

 

This is Tract 55, south of Livingston Avenue on the Near South Side. It is a historically older neighborhood, built mostly between 1880-1920 on a classic grid pattern.  What is the density?

 

 

 

Yeah, that's all 30x150 or 35x150 lots, which is why it's impossible for Columbus to be effectively denser than Cincinnati.  Much of Cincinnati is comprised of 25x100 or smaller lots and many of those lots have multifamilies on them.  I have already mentioned this.

 

I own a single-family home on a 25x90 lot that has a 4-unit on one side and a 3-unit on the other.  Such a situation is basically non-existent in Columbus because there is almost no such thing as a street platted to 25-foot lots.  My cousin owns a 15-foot wide house nearby.  There is no such thing as a 15-foot wide row house in Columbus.   

 

The 25x100 lots represent *most* of the residential lots situated within a 3- mile radius of Fountain Square, and that includes both sides of the river.  Newport, KY is comprised mostly of 25x100 lots:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Newport,+KY+41071/@39.0886344,-84.4963964,1929m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8841b10b08002211:0x5dea4a7640e40f0d!8m2!3d39.091449!4d-84.4957757