Will Columbus become largest Ohio metro? (Cleveland, Cincinnati: legally, activities, car)

[BRNorth]

I do wonder what could have happened if Cleveland was allowed to annex its surrounding areas like Columbus did. I know that Cleveland already had inner-ring established burbs so that made it practically impossible, but most of Cleveland's inner-ring is more urban than 90% of Columbus. Not to mention some of their neighbors are linked via rail.

[BRNorth]

Originally Posted by pontiac51

The problem with you is that you can’t accept the fact Columbus is a farm metropolitan area. In other words, it’s a COW-Town. Columbus is the only major city in the country where you can drive from downtown to the cornfields in less than 10 minutes! And the MSA metric isn’t the only one that matters; it’s the only one matters to YOU!! In other metro areas, such as the Bay Area, Salt Lake, and Raleigh/Durham, the CSA is the only metric that matters!!

What? Not even close. There are many metros throughout the county where you can drive a short distance from the inner core and be out by a country-like setting in minutes. I agree, some Columbus posters love to do the woe-is-me and low key bash regional cities, but as far as new growth northern metro areas, Columbus is doing a pretty good job densifying and they have good inner neighborhoods to build off of. They just need to build higher. It is sad for the growth Columbus is having they build nothing of substantial height.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by 216facts

I wouldn't hold up density as some figure of merit, particularly if you want growth. Babies happen in the suburbs, look at Columbus and Dallas and where they're at on density. In fact, it would be interesting to see a chart on organic growth vs density, at a local level. These cities like Columbus and Dallas that can expand ever outward and fuel the growth with jobs and a young talent pool - no stopping them.

Density is objectively better than sprawl in many ways. It's more financially sound by having more people paying for local infrastructure, it's more environmentally friendly, it's healthier (promoting walkability and biking rather than driving alone), it allows for more needed housing in a given area, etc. There's nothing really inherently good about sprawl.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

In 1950, Columbus population was 376,000, ahead of Portland, Atlanta, San Diego, and others. Even today, that is solidly a small to medium size major city.

So it was a dense, mid-major city 70 years ago, that quadrupled its city area to more or less double its city population, while dismantling virtually all of its serious mass transit.

This is why contemporary "look how big we're getting" claims are so misleading from Columbus. For what most consider the metrics and appearance of a big city, its smaller than it was 70 years ago-just like others in the region.

Most US cities dismantled their interburan and local rail systems, and almost none have brought them back to an equivalent level. Many still don't even have any serious bus systems. Again, you guys keep treating national trends as unique Columbus faults.

If we're comparing the 1950 peak boundaries that Ohio cities reached, Columbus' urban population kept growing another decade longer than any other place and subsequently declined far, far less during the urban exodus that occurred nationally. 2010-2020 was the strongest urban growth period for Columbus since the 1940s, so that decline is clearly over. That 1950 boundary growth was almost 4x that of Cleveland's, but at least Cleveland gained there. Cincinnati actually further declined.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

you can live at morse and karl if you want. i’ll take worthington.

Great, but that still doesn't make what you said objectively true.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

you’ll notice i posted a few locations. i can post way more if you want. yeah cleveland is much bigger city than the small towns, that’s not a great point at all. california also has the most people moving to other states too. so what?

You can cherrypick all you want. No one is arguing that Columbus' boundaries don't include suburban or low-density areas. But if it was all that or a majority of that, how could a city that is 3x the area size of the other 2-Cs have already passed one and set the pass the other soon in overall density? None of you have ever really directly addressed that. Columbus has tons of density within its boundaries, it's just not equally spread to all locations.

I think you missed the point. You stated Columbus draws from all these small towns, but it largely draws from the big cities in Ohio. It's domestic migration is driven by places like Cleveland, not Prospect. You seemed to be trying to say that the people who moved to Columbus liked it because they considered it a big city compared to where they were from, in just another roundabout way of suggesting it's not a real city.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

the response was to a post about justifying columbus as some much better place than it is based on population. my point is that population means very little in this context.

But better, again, is subjective, not objective. Every Clevelander claiming that Cleveland is better because of its symphony or museums is an entirely subjective claim. I have repeatedly made the point that if people placed high priority on such things, Cleveland would be seeing far more domestic migration than it does. Most people don't place high value on such things- or even any value at all- when considering a move, though, and never have. Columbus objectively doesn't have to compare to all those other cities to attract lots of people, as has already been proven. Growth doesn't happen magically or arbitrarily. It happens for real reasons.

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by 216facts

Yeah, I see your point. But its pretty hard to call Columbus a cow town any more now that its well over 900k population. It is getting better at some cultural things too. 2 more fun facts about Columbus, now that I'm in my Columbus cheerleader mood:
1. Their community foundation endowment is on par, if not bigger than the Cleveland Foundation. Which is a huge wow factor, because we're like top 10. Page 4 in the link below, somewhat dated material.
https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...DF+Version.pdf

2. They have more acreage under conservation in their metroparks than Cleveland. Its like 28k vs 25k. We still have all the other local county metroparks plus the CVNP, but they're quite respectable here.

OK, I'll try not to bash Columbus (as much) any more.

Greater Cleveland has five metropark systems, one in each Greater Cleveland county, whose acreage collectively dwarfs that in Greater Columbus, and not including Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Holden Arboretum, etc.


Additionally, the topography and Lake Erie freshwater surf beaches enhance the quality of much of the Greater Cleveland park acreage. E.g., consider Gildersleeve Mountain in the Chapin Forest Reservation of the Lake Metroparks. Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve is a unique attraction near downtown and the University Circle cultural district, and the likes of UC can't be found in many U.S. cities and certainly NOT Columbus.



https://www.lakemetroparks.com/parks...t-reservation/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gildersleeve_Mountain


Does Greater Columbus have any lighted or even groomed cross country ski trails?


https://www.lakemetroparks.com/event...g-snowshoeing/


https://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/...nt-reservation


https://ianadamsphotography.com/news...s-lake-county/


https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/see-th...ature-preserve



https://www.portofcleveland.com/clev...eserve-photos/



https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a...ach-state-park


Holden Arboretum is one of the largest and best in the U.S. with natural areas that include National Natural Landmarks.


https://holdenfg.org/holden-arboretum/plan-your-visit/


Anyone who would argue that the parks in Greater Columbus are better let alone comparable to those in Greater Cleveland has never explored both areas very carefully.


However, Greater Columbus and other major Ohio metros are fortunate to have their metro park systems, the expansion of which often have been opposed by development-oriented Republican politicians such as in Geauga County currently.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

exactly, tired of hearing “well we are a new city”. not really no. it’s been columbus tradition to be as anti urban as possible for a long time, it was completely optional. the beginnings were promising but they made the decision to change course and become a suburb, which is touted as some massive victory over the rest of the state.

Columbus isn't new, but the point is that in the time when strong urban cores were valued, it was not growing as fast and was a relatively small city in the state. Cleveland and Cincinnati were attracting many more people, were much bigger cities for longer, and longer in a time when the old urban growth patterns were standard. Columbus has a core like that- roughly 50-60 square miles, with another 10-20 square miles that were built in the 1950s but retained a more traditional grid, such as much of Linden. But since Cleveland and Cincinnati were already largely hemmed in by their suburbs by the 1950s and Columbus wasn't, growth patterns diverged from there.
Annexation didn't start because city leadership just wanted to spread out or because they had embraced low-density suburbia. It happened because there had been a long history of water shortages, and many fledgling suburban areas just outside the city's borders were using city water and resources, but not paying taxes into the city to support those things. So the policy of annexation for water was implemented. Additionally, there was some foresight in that they could see the trends of suburbanization coming with the highway system and didn't want to be in the same position as Cleveland and Cincinnati. They were worried that they would be completely surrounded and see their tax base collapse through urban depopulation. So the annexation policy addressed 2 issues. And it proved very prescient. It allowed the city to both address its water infrastructure issues while also providing consistent city services because there was no depletion of the tax base. The latter helped keep the city relatively attractive during the national urban abandonment of the 1960s-1980s.
So while Columbus does have a traditional urban core, it also has a large area that was built in the suburbanization period. But again, nothing that happened in Columbus is unusual or unique. There wasn't some decision to suburbanize, it was just what was happening at the time everywhere. Cleveland and Cincinnati couldn't suburbanize themselves becaue the land within them was already filled and they literally couldn't grow outward anymore. But that doesn't mean that their areas didn't suburbanize too, because they absolutely did. All those people that left those cities just moved further out. They ended up in other communities where as in Columbus they were still inside the city.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by Losfrisco

Yes, and its worth pointing out that the LeVeque Tower, by far the most iconic structure in Columbus, was built 95 years ago. At the time, this would have been a world-level skyscraper and only one taller, a boring box, has been built since.

Its very easy to find photos of Columbus from yesteryear and see how much more city-like and busier it appeared then.

https://ohiomemory.org/digital/colle...oll32/id/9877/


Cities that are truly and meaningfully growing set new benchmarks beyond new craft beer joints and seven story apartment buildings.

Exactly what specific "benchmarks" does a place need to meet to be considered "truly and meaningfully" growing if neither development nor adding people play any role in it?