Best city in Ohio? (Columbus, Cleveland: apartment, condos, taxes)

[1watertiger]

cleveland (i like the lake activities,sports,foods,cultural attractions) cincy a close 2nd....no other city can compare to them in ohio...imo

[5Lakes]

Cleveland for me - cultural amenities, Lake Erie, best public transit, ethnic neighborhoods, Cuyahoga National Park, three pro sports teams, great suburbs....

Cincinnati is the best looking city though, due to its architecture and topography.

[Hey_Hey]

If I had to choose one city to live in for the rest of my life I would choose Cincy. The economy is strong, it's growing, there's great neighborhoods, the geography is beautiful, and it's close to Kentucky which has enormous beauty and offers a great quality of life. Because it's the southernmost city in the state the weather is better there than anywhere else.

[DeoGratias]

I hate to use an already worn out analogy, but being the best city in Ohio is a lot like winning the Special Olympics.

Cleveland is sprawling, polluted, and ugly. Crime ridden, too.

Columbus is annexation-mad, polluted, and ugly. See also: flat, boring.

Cincinatti is diverse in all the wrong ways, and is ringed by suburbs because so few people actually want to live there. This makes commuting a purgatorial experience.

And Toledo? Hahahahaha

[Hey_Hey]

That's very true. Columbus is always highlighted as a growing, vibrant city because compared to Cleveland, Toledo, and Dayton it is. However, when you compare it to other cities in its peer group (Nashville, Charlotte, Indianapolis, The Triangle, Austin, etc) it is near the bottom of the list in terms of growth and revitalization.

[HuskerDu]

Originally Posted by DeoGratias

I hate to use an already worn out analogy, but being the best city in Ohio is a lot like winning the Special Olympics.

Cleveland is sprawling, polluted, and ugly. Crime ridden, too.

Columbus is annexation-mad, polluted, and ugly. See also: flat, boring.

Cincinatti is diverse in all the wrong ways, and is ringed by suburbs because so few people actually want to live there. This makes commuting a purgatorial experience.

And Toledo? Hahahahaha

This is such a dated view of Cincinnati... only senior citizens and/or suburbanites who wouldn't live in the urban core of any city could possibly think this way. Otherwise... spot on.

[PhillytoCincy]

Originally Posted by Hey_Hey

That's very true. Columbus is always highlighted as a growing, vibrant city because compared to Cleveland, Toledo, and Dayton it is. However, when you compare it to other cities in its peer group (Nashville, Charlotte, Indianapolis, The Triangle, Austin, etc) it is near the bottom of the list in terms of growth and revitalization.

Not Indianapolis. Columbus is right there along side Indy, and in a lot of categories, even ahead of Indy.

City proper, Columbus is a faster growing city than Indy too.

[DeoGratias]

Annexing every little town within sight is not growth. It physically expands the legal boundaries of Columbus, and increases official census figures and the tax base, but those people were there all along. Columbus's "growth" is all on paper.

[PhillytoCincy]

Oh I know that they are annexing, but why don't you go complain about that type of growth to all the cities in the Southeast and Southwest, because that is exactly how all the cities in this country that are currently growing are doing everything. Indy and Columbus are not the only ones, and are not near as bad as cities down south.

[Hey_Hey]

Not to be picky, but metro Indianapolis is growing at a faster rate since 2000 when compared to Columbus (<9% for C'bus vs >11% for Indy). For the other cities is far more obvious - Nashville 16%, Austin 28%, Charlotte 24%, Triangle 31.5%.

Originally Posted by Beavercreek33

Oh I know that they are annexing, but why don't you go complain about that type of growth to all the cities in the Southeast and Southwest, because that is exactly how all the cities in this country that are currently growing are doing everything. Indy and Columbus are not the only ones, and are not near as bad as cities down south.

One difference between those cities and cities like Columbus is that there is tremendous population growth happening in the annexed areas. Phoenix, criticized often for annexing land (right or wrong) is annexing a lot of land that is undeveloped and then extending water/sewer to those areas. Population growth results. This is the same thing that cities like Toledo and Cleveland were doing in the first half of the 20th century. As the urban areas physically grew in size so did the footprint of the city proper. In contrast to cities like Phoenix, Columbus acheived much of its population growth by annexing previously developed areas. Of course, Indianapolis did very similar things by adopting a city-county combined government.

Of course, this just points out the importance of looking at metropolitan area population instead of city-proper population. Nothing intrinsically changes in Columbus, Indy, Phoenix, or any other city when that city annexes land. People live the same, jobs are still the same, and area population is still the same. The growth the metro areas in the South are seeing is NOT from annexation.