My recent repost of an article on Columbus, Ohio’s brand blew away the all time comment record for this blog, with 271 as of this writing.
One the discussions was around the extent to which Columbus and other Ohio cities draw mostly from the state or from a broader area. Obviously with Ohio State University, Columbus has a massive in-state draw. But what about people from out of state?
To try quantify this, I used the IRS migration data in my Telestrian system to sort out net migration into that which is with the state of Ohio, and that which is with other states. Before the data, a couple caveats. First, this is based on tax return data so probably understates student movements as many (most?) undergrads aren’t filing their own returns. Second, for multi-state metros like Cincinnati, someone moving from Ohio to the Kentucky or Indiana part of the metro area still counts in the total. The metro area is considered a unit. Also, movements within the metro area are ignored. With that, here’s the chart (click to enlarge):
To put this in perspective, I ran the same analysis for various other similar sized metros:
Portland is also an interesting case. It appears to be like Nashville and Charlotte, but what this doesn’t show is that overwhelmingly the net migration to Portland is coming from California – 53,000 people worth. If you exclude both Oregon and California, Portland only drew a net of 21,000 people from the rest of the country. Contrary to what you might think, vast quantities of people (on a net basis) are not streaming into Portland from all over the country. It’s a regional draw.
Austin parallels Columbus a bit in that it has a huge in-state draw, possibly again because of the university. It also as a huge migration with California – 30,000 people. If you look at Texas plus California, that’s about half the total. Charlotte has a similar effect with New York and New Jersey migration.
Indianapolis is sort of a control with Columbus. It is primarily an in-state draw but does have a positive balance with the rest of the country. Keep in mind that it will inevitably lose some people to Sunbelt states for retirement. There’s not much you can do about that. But it’s an effect say North Carolina may have less of. The contrast with Columbus in out of state migration could be due to the lack of a major school there. I don’t know for sure.
Looking more closely at the 3C’s, here is their net migration with each other:
So, Columbus is competing with other cities in its region and not beyond. How has Charlotte differentiated itself to draw northeasterners and Midwesterners? Is it just low taxes, light regulation, and a ruthlessly aggressive local business/political elite? Which of these does Columbus lack or is best positioned to develop? What about these same factors in Cleveland and Cincinnati?
Thanks Aaron. These numbers are about where I thought they were, meaning that Columbus is often the alternative to leaving Ohio entirely. In other words, Columbus is the least insular city in a pretty insular state. Even state leaders don’t seem to think it can be more than “one of Ohio’s jewels.”
I dispute the idea that Columbus doesn’t have a regional brand- everyone knows it as the home of “THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY”. The downside is it seems to be all Ohio all the time.
Charlotte has Bank of America’s headquarters, and before the crisis forced them into Wells Fargo’s arms, Wachovia too. Plus, a lot nicer climate and lower cost of living than NY/NJ.
Columbus is the gateway to leaving Ohio, according to the numbers. People move from elsewhere in Ohio, then a significant proportion of them leave the state. sn’t come close to overcoming the domestic departures.
On the other hand, Indy…which has a brand identity…is a place where lots of people come, mostly from inside Indiana, but also from elsewhere.
Austin and Portland seem to be benefiting from California out-migration. Similarly moderate climates…completely different economic climates, politically similar: Austin is a “blue speck” in a giant red state. Those California migrants certainly don’t seem to be flocking to the Midwestern conservative meccas of Indiana and Wisconsin.
Charlotte has clearly parlayed banking consolidation to its benefit.
Apparently Nashville has the “secret sauce”?
Nashville is almost the exact inverse of indy. This may be due to Tennessee being virtually 3 states in one. West tenessee is probably more tied into st.louis, chicago and dallas; eastern tennessee into charlotte, Atlanta and the eastern seaboard. It may be the nature of some of its key industries.
A few things. First, the data would be more interesting if broken down by year. Are the Ohio and national numbers changing at all, staying the same, etc? I know, for example, that Franklin County saw it’s highest growth in 2012 in over 20 years, and became the fastest growing county in the state.
Another question is, where are those net metro losses really coming from? Columbus, its core county, or the outer, more rural counties in the metro?
Again, I haven’t seen numbers for the city, but for Franklin County, there was a net domestic loss every year from 1993-2007. In the 5 years of 2008-2012, 4 had net domestic gains. 2012 was the strongest domestic gain since at least 1990. Whether or not this was largely from just the state, I don’t know, but the core of the metro seems to be pulling a lot stronger than it used to.
In any case, someone earlier on in the other thread made a great point. People went on and on about what Columbus lacks, but I think it’s biggest challenge is overcoming its location. If absolutely nothing else was different, had Columbus been located in another state, particularly in the South, there wouldn’t even be a question of how it was going to succeed, only a discussion on just how high it could go. There are tons of Sun Belt cities that I honestly couldn’t name what they’re really known for, but they succeed often by perception alone. Columbus doesn’t have that benefit of the doubt. It’s in Ohio, and Ohio hasn’t been fashionable for a long time now.
Columbus has a much lower cost of living than New Jersey, too.
Jon, the Ohio migration for Columbus has been pretty stable – if anything it has declined since the 2000s but I wouldn’t read too much into that because migration nationally was down during the recession. The data for the rest of the states is so volatile it’s hard to draw any conclusions.
I would be willing to bet that Indy’s net positive migration from out of state is primarily due to its proximity to Chicago. If Chicago didn’t exist, it’s numbers would be like Columbus’.
@Anon 9:01, I think you’re right. On a metro area basis, Chicago is by far the net supplier of people to Indianapolis. It’s 68th for Columbus, with basically zero net transfer. It’s #5 on a gross churn basis, but that could account for the difference.
I was just looking at Megabus schedules. There’s only one Chicago-Indy bus through-routed to Columbus vs. three to Cincinnati and two to Louisville/Nashville.
I would say until very recently Ohio State was not on the radar as a college choice for Chicagoans (suburban H.S. included in that description). I would say it was the last choice of all ten Big Ten schools and behind other large universities and liberal arts institutions as well. It appeared as an overly large second-tier state university with a horrendous bureaucracy – why pay out of state tuition for that? Conversely, tOSU seemed to have students had the whole country including the East Coast, California (this was the mid-1990s I was at OSU) and Sun Belt on their radar post graduation – there wasnt that irresistible pull to the north side of Chicago that other B1G institutions and MAC (e.g. Miami of Ohio, Ball State) had and still have in place. It seems that both Aaron’s net migration data and the anecdotal Megabus data (a more pinpoint proxy of college enrollment) demonstrate this.
I would think the whole Big Ten rivalry/ mentality seems childish and insular to outsiders. Would a kid from Michigan move to a place best known for thousands of people hating on Michigan?
Nothing wrong with Columbus’s brand as a reasonably welcoming city in Ohio but clearly they have to take things to the next level and seem open and interesting to others.
Nobody has explained why Columbus isn’t more attractive for Michigan residents. Detroit obviously has its problems and Ann Arbor resists becoming more than a small city that revolves around UM.
From what I can see, there is no Megabus service from Ann Arbor to Columbus but there is a Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh service.
There’s a long-running joke in Oregon about Portland being the northernmost city in California. The dynamic is changing quickly though, most of the recent growth in places like Medford & Bend is also the result of Californians moving in.
John, the OSU/Michigan rivalry may actually be the modern-day embodiment of a long-ago border war between the two states that Michigan lost:
The Toledo War (1835—36), also known as the Michigan—Ohio War, was the almost bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War
The answer regarding college attendance is economic, though. Why would a student from Michigan or Indiana pay out-of-state tuition to attend a university that isn’t as good as his home-state one(s)? For out-of-staters, B1G universities approach the cost of private ones. So the degree program had better be “top of field” recognized, as Purdue in Ag and Engineering, Indiana in Business, Michigan in Engineering and Business. There is just no reason to go to OSU (or Columbus) for the vast majority of youngsters in either nearby state.
Further history: Ohio’s first wave of settlers came from the east, and its historic ties are to Pittsburgh and the mid-Atlantic coast (MD, VA, SE PA, DE). I don’t think this has really changed too much in two centuries. Much of Ohio is really more like Pennsylvania than like Indiana or Michigan: coal, steel, hilly farming regions, lots of little liberal-arts colleges, swing state politically.
Aaron, what’s the “born in state” percentage for Indy, compared to the 3Cs?
67.8%, lower than all the three 3Cs and 8 out of 12 in the large Midwest metros I track. That’s still very high by national standards though.
OSU is indeed quite bureaucratic. I do admire their particular brand of traditionalism, but the problem with that is you can become so steeped in it and insular that you fail to see and care all that much about the world changing around you. For example, they don’t offer any online degree programs yet, not even an MBA, but have been talking about doing so for the past few years. Other in-state universities, including Cincinnati (MEd, MBA), Toledo (Technology, Education), Cleveland (MBA, Education), and Kent State (MPA) have jumped on the opportunity in multiple fields and are running with it.
As was noted on the previous Columbus thread, even among other Big Ten schools, OSU lags behind within instructional innovation and delivery. I think former Pres. Gordon Gee did start them on the path towards performance benchmarking, though. We’ll see to what extent new Pres. Michael Drake pushes them further along that trajectory.
@ Chris Barnett
One big reason is to go to a school with better local job prospects. Certainly, after school one would think, kids would consider Columbus in addition to Chicago.
Isn’t Ann Arbor also sort of expensive- for a city with marginal opportunity? Michigan is wasting this asset by neither shifting more programs into Detroit- or allowing more density and growth in Ann Arbor.
IMHO, Columbus can position itself against Michigan, in the same way it does a against most Ohio cities. A bit safer,a bit more opportunity; more scalable/ growth oriented & reasonably affordable.
My guess is Columbus also will develop an advantage over Pittsburgh as the city gets more expensive.
The more I think about it, the more I really feel Ohio State -is- Columbus’ brand, for better or for worse. Take that as you will, but it definitely looms large in so many aspects of the city, its daily life and culture, and its presence is felt virtually everywhere throughout the metro. If you’ve lived in Columbus for any amount of time, you can’t help but notice this.
Is there another large city where a public university is so central to its identity and culture? As others have pointed out, this is not the case anywhere else in the Midwest. Certainly not in Cincinnati with UC, or in Pittsburgh with Pitt, although both of these cities obviously have other colleges (e.g. Xavier, CMU) that command their own share of local interest and attention. Meanwhile, nothing comes remotely close to serving as a foil to Ohio State in Columbus.
Even in smaller cities like Toledo and Akron, their namesake public universities certainly play a respected role within civic life and culture, but the local axis doesn’t truly run through them as it does through OSU in Columbus.
This being the case, and since we encourage cities to maximize their assets, maybe the path forward for Columbus is to maximize its relationship with OSU? I guess for OSU’s part, they need to reach the pinnacle of performance for a public university, and become the top choice not only for native Ohioan high school grads, but for people all over the Midwest, the nation, and the world.
Absolutely, Ohio State is Columbus’s brand but it needs to always work to transcend just being a company town. I actually don’t think most people know it’s a pretty big city & lump it in with Ann Arbor, Bloomington or State College.
@EJ, there are plenty of placed identified by their school – they’re called college towns. Most of them are much smaller than Columbus, though. I agree that OSU is a big part of what makes the city tick and shouldn’t be shied away from.
@John Morris – “One big reason is to go to a school with better local job prospects. Certainly, after school one would think, kids would consider Columbus in addition to Chicago.”
There are two separate issues here: inflow of new college students and outflow of new college grads.
This is generally anecdotal (so if others have more quantitative data to either backup or dispute what I’m stating, please share), but the state of Michigan actually does a fairly good job of retaining its good-to-great high school grads and sending them to in-state colleges (the “inflow” quotient) because (1) University of Michigan is a national academic powerhouse, (2) if you can’t get into U of M but are still good enough to be in the next tier in terms of academic credentials, Michigan State is still an excellent school and (3) if you can’t get into MSU, then the state’s other directional public universities offer slots. As a result, almost the entire population of high school grads in the state of Michigan has excellent access to slots at universities that reasonably align with their credentials for much less expensive in-state tuition. If you’re an elite student, U of M is legitimately competitive with the Ivy League and top tier privates in terms of attraction for a lot of programs, yet you get that type of top-level education at a much lower sticker cost. If you’re more in line with MSU for academic credentials, it makes more sense financially to pay in-state tuition there as opposed to paying higher prices to go to Ohio State, Indiana or Purdue (which are all more or less on the same academic tier, with OSU being slightly ahead but not dramatically so). It makes even less sense to pay out-of-state tuition to go to a MAC school in Ohio than it would be just to pay in-state tuition at Eastern/Western/Central Michigan.
In contrast, the state of Illinois, even though it has a significantly larger population than Michigan, has a steep academic rankings drop-off between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the rest of the public universities in the state. So, the state of Illinois has slots for the top 10% or so of its high school grads, but it loses a LOT of the next tier (that top 15% to 30% range that can’t get into U of I but are overqualified for Illinois State) – the types of people that largely end up becoming the bulk of the upper middle class. As a result, that group enrolls en masse at neighboring public flagships such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Purdue and Missouri.
(That part isn’t anecdotal. I’ll have to find it, but the Chicago Tribune recently put together a database showing the destinations of all Illinois high school grads and it’s stunning how many end up at neighboring Big Ten schools along with Mizzou. By the way, the exact same thing is happening with respect to California students heading to out-of-state Pac-12 schools, particularly Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Arizona State. The same crunch on in-state admission slots at the University of California system is driving students to nearby out-of-state flagships just like the state of Illinois.)
Now, the outflow *after* graduation is a bit different. Illinois (and specifically the Chicago area) gets a lot of the boomerang effect with many students that attending out-of-state schools heading back home (or at least to the North Side of Chicago) and I’d imagine that’s similar with respect to California.
For the state of Michigan, the University of Michigan has one of the most national company recruiting profiles, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the geographic proximity of Ohio doesn’t mean much in terms of attraction. Many U of M grads, especially from the engineering and business schools, can effectively pick from a whole slew of job options based in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, etc. To be honest, when I was interviewing for jobs coming out of U of I, which is a step behind U of M in most program rankings outside of engineering/computer science, I didn’t consider the relative proximity of St. Louis and Indianapolis to campus to mean much, either. In my mind, if I wasn’t going back to Chicago, I wanted to go to a NYC/SF-level place. I can see the same type of calculation coming even more into play for U of M grads. It’s not as if though those U of M grads are choosing to stay in Michigan instead of sampling Ohio due to the Big Ten rivalry. Instead, U of M grads have job opportunities in geographic breadth and scope that are more in line with an Ivy League-caliber school, so unless they move to Chicago, they seem to be just leaving the Midwest entirely altogether (and you can see the large numbers of U of M grads these days in the NYC and DC areas, in particular).
Michigan State has a bit different student demographic profile, but there’s certainly a very strong connection between that school and the Chicago market. I don’t know what the heck it is, but it feels like half of the bars in Lincoln Park and Lakeview (AKA Big Ten and new college grad central) are Spartan-affiliated bars. MSU might be sending a higher proportion of its grads to Chicago compared to U of M, but once again, I don’t think it’s a matter of the other MSU grads staying in the state of Michigan. Instead, it seems as if though they’re either choosing Chicago (with a smattering in Indianapolis) or going outside of the Midwest entirely.
@EJ:
I think you’re 100% correct that Columbus’ identity has long been OSU. That said, I feel we may disagree that Columbus should essentially double-down on its association with the university to succeed. I’m unsure how they could get further involved with OSU, to be honest, but if we’re talking national perception I would think this is antithetical to Columbus breaking away from being just a college town.
Honestly, when I think of Columbus, I look at Austin and I think that’s basically what they should aspire toward. Not 100% exactly, mind you, but what Austin seems to have achieved. A big city that has managed to embrace a huge state university and yet develop its own unique identity at the same time. Granted this is an outsiders’ point of view of Austin, but that’s what I see.
I think #EJ clearly said, big city, which the Columbus metro now is.
While one can’t escape OSU one has to work against being owned by it. Does the mayor really have much control of the quality of the school or important issues like online degree programs or continuing education?
I’m reminded of the You Don’t Have To be Jewish to Love Levy’s ad campaign.
Smart is a great brand- but Ohio State company town is not a good image for a city of that size.
This is a big downside of orienting brands around college and pro sports. A hundred thousand fans dressed & painted in red looks more like a cult than a diverse interesting city.
@John Morris – “Absolutely, Ohio State is Columbus’s brand but it needs to always work to transcend just being a company town. I actually don’t think most people know it’s a pretty big city & lump it in with Ann Arbor, Bloomington or State College.”
On that part, I agree that there’s something missing with respect to Columbus. Austin is a clear example – it’s a college town at its core and the University of Texas is a massive presence there, but it also has a distinct identity that is separate from UT. UT football fans are every bit as omnipresent as Ohio State fans (in fact, the top 2 athletic departments in the country by revenue are Texas and Ohio State, and they’re actually ahead of everyone else by a material margin) with the stereotypical white bread frat-type culture that comes with it (my personal blog has focused quite a bit on conference realignment for the past few years, particularly with the Big Ten and why the traditionally Midwestern-based league has had to seek expansion into areas with much more favorable demographics, along with a lot of writings on UT specifically because it is the one school that every power conference wants), yet it Austin also has that large hipster/countercultural/arts-oriented element sitting right alongside of it. (Come to think of it, that’s similar to the North Side of Chicago with its yuppie atmosphere in Lincoln Park/Lakeview and then the hipster vibe in Wicker Park/Bucktown.)
So, Austin has that mix (which gives it a much more cosmopolitan feel and a distinct culture), whereas Columbus doesn’t seem to have it. Granted, as I stated in the last Columbus post, maybe we (the readers of this blog that are predisposed to that urban mix) overrate its importance compared to the hardline quantitative factors such as economic growth, job opportunities, public school quality, etc.
“U of M grads have job opportunities in geographic breadth and scope that are more in line with an Ivy League-caliber school, so unless they move to Chicago, they seem to be just leaving the Midwest entirely altogether (and you can see the large numbers of U of M grads these days in the NYC and DC areas, in particular).”
I guess that’s what happens with Penn State to a large degree. Doesn’t seem to matter that there are so few jobs or internship opportunities nearby.
CMU really has been a great success recently in terms of churning out kids with top degrees who want to stay in the area.
@John Morris:
I tend to agree with you, which is why I was trying to draw comparisons to Austin. A big city with a huge school with huge influence, but has managed to carve out its own identity and thrive.
OSU generates a large influx of people, but once they graduate there doesn’t seem to be enough reason to stay (depending on your career focus). If you’re into fashion or insurance then Columbus has you covered, otherwise it’s likely you’re looking elsewhere. Now, that’s a snarky comment on my part, almost no city is going to cater perfectly to every field of education. But it certainly seems like OSU generates a lot of talent that gets exported because there’s nowhere for them to thrive here.
@Frank: “So, Austin has that mix (which gives it a much more cosmopolitan feel and a distinct culture), whereas Columbus doesn’t seem to have it. Granted, as I stated in the last Columbus post, maybe we (the readers of this blog that are predisposed to that urban mix) overrate its importance compared to the hardline quantitative factors such as economic growth, job opportunities, public school quality, etc.”
(Hey Frank, been a while. Latched onto this place from the link in your last post.)
I think it’s a mix. College students largely aren’t going to care about if their future children will have access to a good public school, but they’ll definitely care about if there’s a job available when they graduate. Moreover, if there’s nothing to do in the evenings then most kids will probably just bide their time until they can move to a ‘big city’ like NYC/SF/Chicago. I then to believe college students a like any other group with maybe a slightly narrower focus. Give them a reason to stay (jobs), then show them why they like to stay (culture).
I feel like there’s a lot to like about Columbus culturally — there’s a blossoming craft beer culture here with some great small/medium breweries, and a lot of smaller food businesses have been springing up lately to compliment (food trucks, artisanal eateries, etc.). But these things are as a cultural force in their infancy, and there doesn’t appear to be the diverse economy here to keep more college students to feed into it long term.
@John Morris – “I guess that’s what happens with Penn State to a large degree. Doesn’t seem to matter that there are so few jobs or internship opportunities nearby.
CMU really has been a great success recently in terms of churning out kids with top degrees who want to stay in the area.”
One other thing is that cities and metro areas can’t take geographic proximity for granted with college grads. Even the connection between Chicago and University of Illinois has to continually be nurtured. So many U of I engineering/computer science grads are getting lured by Silicon Valley money that Rahm Emmanuel himself has gone on multiple recruiting trips to campus to pitch the advantages of living in Chicago (which used to be an assumed given for anyone that attended U of I). Considering that the state of Illinois could have had its own Silicon Valley if it had simply retained its key U of I grads alone (much less adding in the grads from Northwestern, University of Chicago and the neighboring Big Ten schools on top of them), it’s important for any city/metro/state to understand the talent that it has in its own backyard. The Mayor of Chicago personally heading down there on campus recruiting trips is a key symbolic message – if someone with as much power and influence as Rahm is taking the time to do that and he already has city neighborhoods and nightlife that are a relatively easy sell to college students, then what does the Mayor of Columbus (or Detroit or Indianapolis or Cincinnati or Pittsburgh or any other Midwestern town) need to do to be competitive?
I see Columbus as sort of hybrid Austin + Charlotte- with a big back office, vanilla type job base combined with tech, manufacturing & research potential.
As has been stated, the city can only so far in terms of cost & perception as long as it’s tied to Ohio.
I know saying you are better than New Jersey doesn’t sound like a big goal, but Columbus is.
I think under Aaron’s previous post on Columbus, someone pointed out that it has a very strong and thriving local food scene that has really only recently emerged over the previous decade. I can certainly verify this from personal experience having lived there. Local non chain restaurants are all over town now, not even just in the urban center. Columbus has embraced food trucks as well, to the point that they even have an annual summer festival downtown that features them.
Sure, White Castle and Wendy’s are still easy to find, given that Columbus is their base. But if you were absolutely determined to avoid all the national chain restaurants, you would never fear going hungry or becoming bored of the same one or two alternatives.
Seems to me that this might be a good solid organic starting point for the city in terms of creating an identity separate from OSU. It’s very real (as opposed to being contrived and shoehorned) would also build on the whole “cowtown” throwback agricultural image, not by shying away from it, but by updating and embracing it, and making it relevant to people in the 21st century. There are certainly local, national, and international angles that can really be promoted and played-up here.
“Columbus. The Foodie’s Delight” Or something along these lines.
But Columbus may be getting dragged down by the legacy costs and Jersey-like business and social structures of NE Ohio. The Canton-Akron-Youngstown area might be an ideal area for some sort of international airport (equal distance to COLS, CLE and PGH), but there might still be mob costs involved. Kasich had his heart in the right place by seeking right-to-work legislation, but unlike Scott Walker, he went full boat targeting first-responder unions and trades as opposed to just teachers and public employees, and thus lost the referendum (I think back in November of 2011).
@urbanleftbehind
I have advocated the idea of a major shared airport between Cleveland & Pittsburgh in that area but the concept seems to have few legs. It also is in an overall market that is shrinking aside from the fracking wildcard.
@EJ
“I think under Aaron’s previous post on Columbus, someone pointed out that it has a very strong and thriving local food scene”
Not just Columbus- Ohio as a whole is now on the foodie radar. This is what I mean about embracing the regional culture and advantages.
A giant foodie/ farm festival would be a great concept- alone or as part of my “flyover festival” idea.
If we compare Columbus to Austin one has to ask why the city has never tried to start that kind of large organic festival.
Perhaps it has, but it never came on my radar. My guess is it did some all Ohio, all the time thing that wasn’t open to Pittsburgers so I never heard of it.
Aaron, I added up state to state migration totals 2005-2012, and Ohio’s is actually improving. 2005 saw a net domestic loss of 41,089. In 2012, that loss had improved to just 1,736. In 2013, estimates had the state seeing its best domestic rate (still a loss) since 1996, its best international rate since 2001 and its best overall rate since 2007 (3rd best since the 1990s). It may be too early to say for sure, but Ohio may have bottomed out to be putting out numbers not seen in more than a decade. Columbus is easily the biggest population magnet in Ohio right now, so it would be hard to believe that none of those numbers are translating to any noticeable change there. The 2000s were economically terrible nationwide, with 2 recessions, so as you say, you can’t put too much into domestic rates. International rates more than doubled during the 2000s, though, into the Columbus metro.
One could think of a range of events where, Columbus could have tried to do something big & opted for the small & bland.
Detroit hosts a big Maker Faire. Instead of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati getting together and trying to put together a huge event- each city hosted a “mini maker Faire”, few people outside (Or even people inside) each city would care about. I went to Pittsburgh’s once and decided it was smarter to check out a big one in NYC next time.
This is not how Austin would act. Right off the bat- everyone in all those cities decided to think small.
Another thing of interest is Columbus’ demographics.
Here are some maps of Franklin County census tracts 1990-2010. There are also 2020 projections for some based on recent historical trends.
White
1990: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/whitepopulation1990.png
2000: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/whitepopulation2000.png
2010: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/whitepopulation2010.png
2020 Projection: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/whitepopulation2020.png
Black
1990: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blackpopulation1990.png
2000: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blackpopulation2000.png
2010: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blackpopulation2010.png
2020 Projection: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/blackpopulation2020.png
Asian
1990: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/asianpopulation1990.png
2000: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/asianpopulation2000.png
2010: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/asianpopulation2010.png
Hispanic
1990: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hispanicpopulation1990.png
2000: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hispanicpopulation2000.png
2010: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hispanicpopulation2010.png
2020 Projection: http://allcolumbusdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/hispanicpopulation2020.png
Columbus was a very white place 20 years ago. That is rapidly changing, as the maps show. This is not indicative of a place only seeing Ohio migration, which is very majority white.
I’ll throw out another organic festival concept that anyone in Columbus could probably legally run with.
Many urbanists on here have probably heard of “Parking Day”, where people turn legal parking spaces into mini parks; art pieces; gathering places or whatever.
http://inhabitat.com/parking-day-2013-the-best-pop-up-parks-across-the-states-photos/
Columbus is a huge college town, that wastes masses of space on parking– why not create the word’s biggest “Parking Day” festival by getting artists and creatives from all over to create parks. The result could be the world’s biggest temporary public art festival.
Parking Day- Columbus could be also become a huge food festival.
Couple observations here as a millenial who’s from Tennessee, knows a bit about Nashville/Charlotte, and has both Nashville and Columbus on a list of possible job destinations within the next two years:
1) Neither Nashville nor Charlotte have a large, headlining university within the city. Vanderbilt is prestigious, but it has an enrollment of less than 13,000. There are a number of other excellent universities in Nashville, but most of them are small and they seem to pull mostly from within the center of the state. The state flagship university is in Knoxville, and the largest undergraduate population is in Murfreesboro. I don’t know how many MTSU graduates eventually find their way to Nashville, but I can tell you that Tennessee-Knoxville is the big destination for graduates from across the state and especially the eastern third.
Charlotte is probably even worse off in this regard. UNC-Charlotte, despite its current size, has long been a local commuter school. Chapel Hill and NC State are a couple hours away and the smaller prestigious schools (Duke, Wake Forest) are elsewhere. None of the big college destinations are in Charlotte. But there’s a steady flow of college grads from neighboring states who start their careers in the city (along with migrating Yankees).
2) Nashville benefits immensely from the fact that it has a major industry (healthcare) that has seen steady growth through all kinds of economic weather. Its other big industry (music) is comparatively recession-proof.
3) The above might explain why Charlotte’s productivity growth isn’t really better per capita than Columbus, while Nashville has managed to sustain significant population growth AND significant productivity growth.
4) Charlotte and Nashville are pretty disastrous when it comes to walkable areas and transit. Charlotte has (one line of) light rail, but it’s last in Walkscore out of the major US cities. Nashville is barely any better, and is perhaps even more hopelessly devoted to the automobile. So far this hasn’t been a liability, but speaking just for myself, it’s a major turn-off.
5) Similarly, my only real hang-up with Columbus is walkability and transit. It’s better than Nashville or Charlotte on that count, but not leagues better. The neighborhoods feel like they have more character (heck, even Dublin feels less oppressive than Charlotte or Nashville suburbs) and Columbus comes off as less parochial and xenophobic than the Nashville and Charlotte metro areas (both of which engage in Muslim-baiting and illegal immigrant hysteria). I’d be curious to see what Columbus could do if it engaged in some deliberate branding as an “Open City,” building upon its history of historical in-migration from other regions of the country (remember the Hillbilly Highway?) and current influx of college students and international arrivals. Other Midwestern cities feel rather closed off, either through defensiveness and defeatism (Cleveland) or clubby private schools and their alumni (Saint Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville).
Jon, Do you work for the Columbus chamber of commerce? If they aren’t paying you for your promotional work, they should.
@MK – Good to see you here! I figured that a lot of my readers would be interested in Urbanophile (and shows that there are a lot of smart and thoughtful college sports fans out there).
I definitely believe that you’re correct in terms of college students. The public school system isn’t going to be as high of a priority coming out of college, whereas proximity to nightlife and culture is generally very important.
It seems as though Columbus, as it stands now, might be most attractive to, well, someone like me – I’m in my 30s and used to live in the city and loved it, ended up moving to the suburbs largely because of the anticipation (and later realization) of having children and concerns about public schools, but would still optimally want to live in some type of walkable environment. Columbus seems to have a lot of attributes that would be attractive to a younger married couple with kids in their 30s compared to single college grads in their 20s. That’s certainly not a bad setup to start with, particularly since capturing those in their 30s is more likely to result in them putting down more established roots (whereas people in their 20s are more “poachable” by other cities).
Matt, it’s called being informed about the places you’re interested in/have lived in.
@Jon – One of the things that is interesting to me about Columbus (and maybe why these latest posts on the city have drawn so many opinions) is that it does have that feeling that it’s a proverbial clump of clay that hasn’t been molded yet. There isn’t the baggage of decades of de-industrialization that plague the renewal efforts in places like Detroit and Cleveland. For a lot of Midwestern cities, there has been a lot of effort to recapture what they used to have 50 years ago, which may or may not be possible. In contrast, Columbus presents a lot of different possibilities that aren’t encumbered by urban legacy costs, so it might be one of the last chances for the Midwest to “get it right” to create a strong metro area.
Yes, the conversation is less about Columbus itself (Most commenters like me don’t seem to live there) than the relative positions of other cities, need to transcend legacy costs & old weaknesses.
But, I don’t think this is just a Midwest issue. The average American City fails to provide safety, walkability, opportunity & urbanism to large segments of the population at an affordable price. Demand exceeds supply.
Columbus is positioned to fill some of that need.
Note Aaron’s stats far above…the in-state born percentage for Indy is lower than Cbus (or any of the 3Cs), and the metro has net in-migration both in-state and out.
So somehow, Indy is already doing the things everyone says Cbus should do: have a consistent and recognizable brand, have civic aspiration, attract national and international migrants, while keeping hold of in-state movers, and be the “open city”. (Indy has one married gay countywide officeholder, and a very large pride celebration.)
And all without a well-known large national university, although IUPUI has something over 30,000 students, many of them in the well-regarded IU graduate schools (law, med, biz, public health, public and environmental affairs) and the Herron School of Art. Strangely enough, though, two of our past 3 mayors have been UofM law grads.
I think Aaron will attest to the independent food and beer scene in Indy as well. A recent IndyStar story listed a couple of dozen (!) pending microbrewers.
Indy, like Austin, is a blue city in a red state (but the suburban counties are deep red).
Forgot the ref on Pride celebration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_City_IN_Pride
@Chris: My own observation and anecdotal conclusion from conversations with various people that have lived in both Indy and Columbus is that Indy has done more with less in the past, better branding, better focus on Downtown revitalization and real institutional buy in etc.
Columbus on the other has done less with more. Cbus has benefited from years of revitalization of inner-ring neighborhoods likely due to the presence of OSU and without generous public support. The large scale redevelopment of these neighborhood is only lately being realized. Once the CBD is redeveloped (which attention, money, and energy are finally being focused on) in terms of ‘urbanism’ Columbus will largely best Indianapolis.
Does this mean much in terms of economy, population growth, ect? I’m not sure. For the urbanist crowd though, I think they (we) see more potential in the car-free, urbanist lifestyle in Columbus. But again, I could be off as this is all anecdotal.
I sort of agree with the more with less arguement for Indy. If you have one or more large research universities- in the middle of your city like Columbus and Pittsburgh, you already had a huge head start. Cleveland also should have done well.
I’m always amazed at the Pittsburgh Renaissance myth. The city already had major universities, museums and a high quality inner city housing stock.
That said, Aaron has posted stats over and over that show that Indy trails most regional cities in core development ranks near worst in class in urbanism.
Since I think many of us agree that Columbus’s sweet spot is the development of affordable urbanism, perhaps the process can become part of the brand?
Suppose, OSU in conjunction with Kent State created an institute to study affordable neighborhood design, building techniques & architecture.
Jon, on second thought, I can see why the Chamber of Commerce would be better off not associating themselves with you.
A couple of thoughts on Indy:
(1) There seems to be a general perception that Indianapolis is lower on the urban quotient scale compared to a lot of its Midwestern counterparts, yet out of all of the massive public works projects that have been created by dozens of cities across the country over the past 20 years (i.e. sports stadiums, convention centers, etc.), Indy has arguably done the best job out of anyone to ensure that their facilities are in a walkable district connected to downtown and spurs private development (i.e. hotels, restaurants, bars) along the way. That has to be highly commended because lots of cities have attempted to do this and the vast majority have failed to achieve the critical mass of development around their public works projects that Indy has been able to do (and that includes some of the most well-known walkable urban cities out there, including the United Center in Chicago and the sports stadium complex in Philadelphia). It was also something completely planned by Indy’s leadership over the past couple of decades as opposed to being able to rely upon historical bones or fortuitous decisions by cities made 50 or 100 years ago. Indy’s leaders should be given a lot of credit for that because so many other cities have new stadiums and convention centers that are islands that aren’t connected to their respective urban cores.
(2) Regarding Indy not being a college town like Columbus, I mentioned in a previous post that Chicago is really a post-collegiate town (attracting a massive number of people that just graduated from college from several Big Ten schools) as opposed to a college town a la Boston (with a lot of students that are still *in* college). Indy is actually well-position geographically and culturally to be a smaller version of Chicago as a post-collegiate market. While Indy isn’t home to a massive flagship, it’s only about an hour away from both Indiana University and Purdue (both of whom churn out 9,000 or so high quality college grads per year each), less than 2 hours from the University of Illinois, University of Louisville and the Cincinnati schools, less than 3 hours from Ohio State and the Chicago schools, and less than 4 hours from Michigan, Michigan State and the St. Louis schools. The Indiana and Purdue grads provide an immediately large top tier college grad pipeline for Indy that many larger metro areas don’t have similar access to and they only need to take a relative handful of grads from the nearby schools that I’ve listed above to quickly build a highly educated and higher income post-collegiate population base. Heck, it might already be happening in the way I’ve described (maybe Aaron has some data), but the media hasn’t latched onto it as of yet.
Matt, I didn’t realize being informed was a terrible thing that should be shunned and criticized, but from our past run-ins, this is par for the course from you.
@ Frank the Tank
This comment from Jon seems about right.
http://www.urbanophile.com/2014/02/02/replay-rebranding-columbus/comment-page-5/#comment-85565
“The city rate is not even close. In fact, only about 17% of the metro growth in Indy was in the city, which is essentially Marion County. Almost half of the Columbus metro growth was in Franklin County. That’s a huge difference and indicates that Columbus the city is a far stronger pull than Indy is.”
From what i have been hearing, Indy is close to the only large city in the wider region to not have significant growth in or near its downtown.
Chicago’s loop is surging, Detroit’s only major growth is in the core, Cleveland has over 10,000 downtown residents & very tight apartment supply (In spite of every effort to undermine the area with cars & mega projects), Cincinnati is seeing growth. Pittsburgh’s downtown is still relatively weak, but most inner neighborhoods- Shadyside, East Liberty, Friendship, South Side are seeing significant investment.
Columbus lags in actual downtown investment, but has many recovering core neighborhoods. Only Indy seems to be hollowing out.
John Morris, you are right that Indianapolis is hollowing out at a clip far surpassing regional peers. See this for details:
http://allcolumbusdata.com/?p=1079
@Aaron:
That’s pretty interesting to see, but not particularly surprising regarding Columbus. The old knock on Columbus was downtown became a ghost town after five, when all the businesses closed for the day. To be fair I feel that’s changing somewhat with Nationwide Arena (where the Columbus Bluejackets play), its surrounding businesses, and the start of the Short North/Victorian Village areas. But that still might be around mile marker 1 or 2 of your data.
I’ll be interested what those numbers (in the A. Renn post) look like come the next census. Large scale efforts to get residents in the Cbus CBD have have only paid off recently. At least 1,000 units in the core are under construction today and there are likely more on the way with the redevelopment of the Scioto Peninsula (which is all government owned land).
I’m sure its not unique to Columbus but at least a portion of the loss of population stems from the emptying and demolition of inner-city housing projects.
Downtown Columbus used to be a ghost town BEFORE five. When the state legislature wasn’t in session and the weather was less than ideal, downtown Columbus used to look like an unused movie set. Even now, it is only intermittently busy. If Columbus can figure out how to bring its metro together around its downtown with some regularity, it will make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Jon, We’ve had past run-ins?
Frank, I was thinking much the same but it would have been discounted coming from an Indy resident.
You actually left out the OTHER big state school within an hour, Ball State, which is the communication and urban design/architecture/landscape school in the state. (It’s a MAC school, like Bowling Green and the Michigan and Illinois “directional” universities.) And Notre Dame is still in Indiana, despite their lack of popular association with the state. [Their AD is an old Indy downtown sports/lawyer guy, Jack Swarbrick.]
—
Re home-county growth and this comment “The city rate is not even close. In fact, only about 17% of the metro growth in Indy was in the city, which is essentially Marion County. Almost half of the Columbus metro growth was in Franklin County. That’s a huge difference and indicates that Columbus the city is a far stronger pull than Indy is.”
Franklin County is 543 square miles, 140 square miles larger than Marion County’s 403. I believe the development patterns are similar; if the urbanized areas are comparable, Franklin County includes more suburbs than Marion County. So of course Franklin County captures more metro growth than Marion County. That’s a meaningless stat.
I haven’t driven Livingston, Main or Broad Streets east from Downtown Columbus for a while, but from I-70 the near-east swath of Columbus over to Bexley doesn’t look much different than the near-east swath of Indy over to Irvington. Which is to say, not good at all. See, for example, here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.957789,-82.965914,3a,75y,319.57h,82.63t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sH9qE_U2tzo9DS6dG-9PF_g!2e0?hl=en
The dynamic has definitely changed in the past two years in a sometimes stunning way. The vibrancy is definiely returning in certain areas (S 4th Street, Gay Street, RiverSouth) and I the trend is going in the right way. IMO it has a lot to do with huge price increases in the Short North. Businesses are now started to head for other areas. I think the next 2-5 years will determine the long term development chances and I personally think they are good.
Lots of money and attention has and is still going into the RiverSouth, Scioto Pennesula, and East Franklinton areas and if sucessful those areas have the power to dramatically change the dynamic and character of the city. This is all dependent though on the apartment market. Should it collapse that could prove a major hurtle. If sucessful I think Cbus will be positioned well to compete with the Minneapolis, Austin, Portland tier of cities.
Columbus is clearly on the right track in a way Indy doesn’t seem to be. The sudden concern about “branding” scares me.
Cleveland is seeing great downtown growth but can’t seem to shake off crony capitalist schemes to build some huge thing to enhance Cleveland’s brand.
BTW, isn’t Indy also losing corporate offices to the suburbs? I could be wrong.
Here is a story about Indianapolis losing jobs to its suburbs.
“The city of Indianapolis was actually home to 10,000 fewer private-sector jobs in 2011 than it had in 2008 as the recession began to reshape the region. In 2007, the downtown area was home to 41,300 private-sector jobs. In 2011, it had approximately 400 fewer positions.
In contrast, as the recession began to unravel the country’s economy, the Indianapolis region had 772,575 private-sector jobs. In 2011, it had approximately the same number. While the region was adding 41,644 private-sector jobs from its low point, Indianapolis itself would be home to just 16,038, or 38.5 percent, of the jobs.”
@Chris Barnett
I don’t think most of us are saying that Columbus’s core is surging yet, just that it’s heading in the right direction. Indy stands as worst in class in this respect.
Columbus’s larger area also gives it a wider comfort zone. If Indy doesn’t get this together it could easily start to slip into the kind of financial black hole we see in Detroit.
If Cbus plays its cards right it can see increasing growth relative to infrastructure investment, while Indy forced to build more just to stay even.
IMO, Columbus’ urban fabric is about 10 years off from being rated very good. I always said that if you just juggled a few neighborhoods in Columbus around it would be a totally different experience. If you moved OSU to be just adjacent to downtown, pushed the Short North so it goes through downtown and put German Village in downtown next to the Short North, Columbus would be known as having one of the best downtowns in America.
As it stands now, Columbus doesn’t. Its downtown hollowed out while German Village and Short North thrived-it was like the bar on a set of dumbbells. So you have these very isolated urbanist experiences. I bet that (with the exception of live music establishments) if you compared the Short North/German Village to downtown Austin, they would measure up well in terms of activity and offerings (I don’t know this, having never been to Austin).
However, downtown is starting to fill in. there’s still 10 years of work to do, but I think in that time, the High Street corridor between German Village and the Short North will have filled in nicely (it’s already happening), creating one connected vibrant urban corridor that stretches about 4 miles through German Village, downtown the Short North and Campus.
I bet Charlotte is skewed because of South Carolina. Due to its border location and a portion of its metro in SC, there would be a sizable impact. That said, the out of state migration #s have to be impression, but I think the core “state” of Charlotte is BOTH carolinas…
Oops Here is the link for the quote I posted.
http://www.ibj.com/rosentraub-indiana-state-fairgrounds-destination-hurts-downtown-indianapolis/PARAMS/article/46002
Another quote also shows how badly Indy trails its suburbs in terms of income.
“Median household income (averaged between 2008 and 2012) in Indianapolis was $42,144. It was $84,821 in Hamilton County, $68,774 in Boone County, $62,702 in Hancock County, $68,283 in Hendricks County, and $62,888 in Johnson County.”
The writer goes on to describe a situation in which the city needs a constant flow of events to keep the core active and the huge venues near solvency.
In comparing Columbus and Indianapolis, they always seemed to me to be the twin sisters that you couldn’t tell apart from a distance (heck, even just driving into them they look very similar), but once you got up close they were obviously different.
Indianapolis has its stuff together. They have done a great job of planning for the growth and development over the past 30 years, and it shows. They have a nice downtown, and their economy has benefitted from being “Chicago-lite”, drawing employers and grads from IN and IL schools that want to live in a city but don’t want to pay Chicago prices. They have done a good job supporting their tech economy. They beat Columbus to the punch of becoming the non-Chicago logistics hub of the Midwest by 20 years.
However, Columbus is the more talented, gifted sister. It’s got more assets. It’s got OSU. It’s got a better urban environment (personality)-this even extends to the suburbs, where virtually all of them have quaint downtowns that are revitalized and thriving, vs. Indy where there seems to just be miles of houses. Even Indy’s main entertainment area, Broad Ripple, is much smaller and less busy that the Short North. We finally found an Applebees at Broad Ripple and it was half empty on a Saturday night at 6:30 PM-kind of shocking.
Columbus has an economy as or more diverse economy in many ways, including government, education, tech, insurance, fashion and back-office work to name a few. Heck, it even has an airport with 2-mile long runways that have a multimodal terminal next to it and virtually NO passenger flights to get in the way-while Indy uses its main commercial airport for most of its heavy lifting of freight.
For all of that, Indianapolis has in many ways outshined Columbus. It’s been focused, and Columbus was not. Their downtowns attest to that. Indianapolis knew its downtown was its resume, and it invested in it. Columbus had one failed attempt prior to 2,000 to revitalize its downtown. Otherwise, it kind of treated it like an office park-ripping down buildings for parking with abandon-including very significant buildings like the Daniel Burnahm-designed Union Station, which was the “prototype” of sorts for DC’s Union Station. Indianapolis worked tirelessly on developing a convention node with over 6,000 full-service hotel rooms. It took Columbus a decade to build its third to get it over the 1,500 mark, and now suddenly the convention business is doing much better. Indianapolis invested in housing around their canal. Prior to 2000 Columbus did very little to invest in housing downtown-most of the Short North and German Village development happened organically. In fact, building housing downtown prior to 2000 was virtually illegal due to the restrictive zoning that was in place at the time.
Going back to Columbus’ one failed attempt to revitalize downtown, that was the now infamous City Center Mall. I’m going to do another post on this momentarily, because it gives a good microcosm of how Indy and Columbus diverged for so long.
“Even Indy’s main entertainment area, Broad Ripple, is much smaller and less busy that the Short North. We finally found an Applebees at Broad Ripple and it was half empty on a Saturday night at 6:30 PM-kind of shocking.”
1. Broad Ripple is no longer the main entertainment area. Downtown, Fountain Square/Fletcher Place, and Mass Ave all have nice concentrations of dining, microbrews, art, theater, and music, mostly locally grown. Sure, there are chains, but those give visitors and suburbanites someplace obvious and familiar.
2. That Applebee’s was half empty at 6:30 on a Friday partly because the locals interested in eating out and/or drinking were probably in one of the 15-20 independent eateries, bars, or brewpubs within easy walking distance, and partly because the people too young for kids and mortgages don’t hit BR until 9 or after (or so my post-college kids tell me).
@Chris Barnett
Your comment only underscores how dependent entertainment districts near the downtown are on visitors and non residents.
The energy shifted because the population can’t support all those districts at once.
In 1995 Indianapolis built its Circle Center Mall. Here’s a quick blurb from the Wikipedia entry on it (so there could be errors):
The mall consists of over 100 stores on four levels with a gross leasable area of 786,000 square feet (73,000 m2), and is anchored by three-level empty anchor space and Carson Pirie Scott stores. A Carson’s home store of 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) was added in 2007. [1] The third level features a food court. The fourth level was formerly devoted to entertainment such as a brewery, other over-21 attractions, and a GameWorks Studios arcade (now known as Tilt). It currently contains a nine-screen United Artists movie theater.
Columbus decided to do something similar, and took a large swath of land to build its own similarly named City Centre Mall. Again, some Wikipedia facts:
Columbus City Center (known locally as City Center) was a 1,200,000-square-foot (110,000 m2), three-level shopping center in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Columbus City Center was developed by the city as part of the Capitol South development, opening on August 18, 1989.[1] Lazarus, already open since 1851, was made one of the original anchor stores by connecting it with the mall via an enclosed bridge across High Street. The other original anchor stores were Marshall Field’s and Jacobson’s. Taubman Company leased and managed the building until control was later taken over by Mills Corporation. Early leasing efforts were substantially enhanced when Limited Brands, a locally-based dominant specialty retailer, announced that all of its brands would have a presence at the center.[3]
Today, Circle Center Mall-while suffering recently from the closure of its Nordstrom’s- is still a viable shopping destination for locals in Indianapolis. City Center was demolished in 2009-2010. Their divergent paths tell an interesting story on how the different approaches of Columbus and Indianapolis approached their downtown development-and economic development in general. Below are several factors that made significant differences:
1. Design-from the start, Circle Center was designed to mesh with the surrounding City blocks. City Center was designed as a fortress-you drive into downtown, you shop, and you could not even see the rest of the city. Here’s a few examples:
http://www.eekarchitects.com/portfolio/12-public-buildings-and-places/100-circle-centre-arts-garden
http://www.walkindianapolis.org/artsgarden.html
Notice how the bridge connects to the surrounding area and is bright and open, inviting traffic in and out. It has events of its own and connects not only to the mall and hotels, but to the neighboring park.
Contrast that the City Center’s bridge over High Street to Lazarus department store- Best photos I could find:
Inside : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CityCenterLazarus.JPG
Outside: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/index.php?level=picture&id=1892
As you can see, the City center walk has absolutely no relation-no windows, entrances or exits, to the surrounding neighborhood.
This also goes for the mall itself:
Circle Center: http://historicindianapolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Maryland-and-Illinois-Streets-2009-Google-Street-View.jpg
http://www.in.gov/visitindiana/adportal/Content/FileUploads/8376/dzrl-Circle_Center_Exterior_(FINAL)LowRes_.jpg
City Center typical exterior: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Columbus_city_center_macys_exterior.JPG
Here’s an aerial-the short building in the front is the Ohio Theatre, and there was a walkway along side it to get to the mall from the Statehouse-the mall itself and the parking garage are long-low buildings behind the theatre:
http://urbanohio.com/CentralOhio/Columbus/Neighborhoods/Downtown/Downtown48.JPG
Notice how Circle Center engages the sidewalk and invites people in-at least in some areas. City Center, again, was a fortress.
The result was that unless you were going specifically to City Center, you probably missed it. But you could be in Indianapolis, for a sporting event, and you might wander into Circle Center and shop. It drew activity to the area, while City Center’s blank walls actually deadened the area around it.
2. Relative location
Circle Center was located adjacent to their sports and convention centers. There was a synergy, and Indianapolis regularly made new investments into the surrounding area. City Center was located near the Statehouse and was supposed to be the anchor of redevelopment. Unfortunately Columbus never did much of anything to encourage nearby development. They had put their convention center a mile to the north adjacent to the Short North. Later the Arena District sprang up near the Convention Center. Meanwhile, City Center plodded along.
3. Competition
Here’s where you really see a policy difference between Columbus and Indianapolis, which is somewhat driven by circumstance. After the construction of Circle Center, Indianapolis did not see another regional mall open up until the mid-2000’s. Columbus constructed several large malls not long after City Center was built. Here’s the summary of competition:
Competitors when Mall first opened:
Castleton Square Mall/Fashion Mall at Keystone north side of Indianapolis-together over 2 million square feet first developed in early 1970’s and continually updated
Washington Square Mall east side of Indianapolis~960,000 square foot mall opened in early 1970’s and continually updated
Newer competitors:
Clay Terrace in Carmel~500,000 square foot lifestyle (open air) center mid 2000’s
Metropolis in Plainfield~500,000 square foot lifestyle center mid 2000’s
City center has a very different story as show below:
Competitors when opened:
Northland Mall~1.2 million (?) square feet on north side of Columbus opened in mid 60’s and enclosed mid 70’s-NOW CLOSED
Eastland Mall ~1 million square feet on east side of Columbus opened in late 1960s
Westland Mall~860,000 square feet on west side of Columbus opened late 1960’s and later enclosed -NOW CLOSED
Newer Competitors
Mall at Tuttle Crossing~1.5 million square feet built in 1997 on north west side of Columbus
Easton Town Center-Lifestyle Center ~1.6 million square feet (1st 2 phases) on the northeast side of Columbus-phase 1 1999, phase 2 2001-phase 3 under construction
Polaris Fashion Place~1.56 million square feet mall on the north side of Columbus opened in 2001
Since City Center opened, the Columbus area added about 4.6 million square feet of regional mall space-and that’s not counting strip malls, such as the Polaris Town Center across from the Polaris mall at 715,000 Square feet. Indianapolis has added about 1 million square feet, more spread out and on a much smaller scale.
The question is why the difference between the two cities?
First, to be fair, Simon Properties, a mall REIT based in Indianapolis, owns virtually all of the malls in Indy, and I am sure they jealously protect their home turf. I doubt they would cannibalize their malls for a new one-why bother? They are well-connected politically, no doubt, and seem to control the retail landscape in the area.
Columbus, on the other hand, has a very active real estate development community that sometimes competes with each other-as they did when rival developers rushed to build both Eaton Town Center and Polaris Fashion Place in the same basic area of town at the same time. It got so bitter that Les Wexner of Limited fame refused to put any of his stores at Polaris for over 10 years so as not to support Glimcher’s mall that competed with his Easton Town Center.
And it’s not over-4 developers now have proposals in to build new outlet malls in the Columbus area, two on the north side one exit from Polaris, one on the northeast side somewhat between Polaris and Easton, and one on the west side. At least one will likely be built-and the competition between developers is fierce.
Finally, it should be noted that none of these malls would be located in Columbus, a first, as the City in the past actively rushed in the past to scoop up any job centers that were being developed for the tax money. In fact, to the dismay of many, Columbus leaders provided Tax Increment Financing to both developers of Easton and Polaris-which directly competed with and eventually led to the demise of City Center. However, the malls would have been built anyways, in the same locations, regardless, as the land owners could have chosen to annex the property into neighboring jurisdictions or leave them in unincorporated areas. This would have led to them being built and Columbus would be out a City Center AND not receive the major income that Easton and Polaris generate. In many ways Columbus’ hands were tied in a way that Indianapolis’ were not.
Finally, part of this is due to UniGov. Indianapolis has fairly fixed borders, but they are large and could take in much of the metro area. Columbus did not have that, but it did control the water and sewer lines in the City for many years, which allowed it to control growth. Only when the infrastructure got to the point where development met up with other utility systems, as it did near Polaris, did Columbus find itself actively bidding for new development-sometimes at the expense of older development. For Indianapolis, development is in the City, or it’s not, more or less.
One more note. Easton Town Center has been one of the top 10 grossing shopping centers in per square foot sales in the U.S. since it opened. It has been a model for other shopping centers across the nation-including the two in Indy-as it demonstrated that open-air lifestyle centers could not only be viable but thrive in cold weather-middle America. If it could do that in Columbus, it could do it anywhere. Easton set a trend for shopping malls for the foreseeable future that has put stress on “traditional” enclosed shopping malls.
As the analysis above shows, there were many differences in the approaches between Columbus and Indianapolis that led to distinct fates for their downtown malls. Times seem to be changing-Columbus now focuses on high-quality urban development. Columbus Commons, the park that replaced City Center, along with the Scioto Mile riverfront part a few blocks to the west, have generated a significant response from the development community-over 1,000 apartment units are completed or in the works between the two parks, and more are announced every day. This shift, partly due to enlightened leadership, and partly due to circumstance-Columbus has lost its utility monopoly-has focused the City ever more on thoughtful development.
This shift has also happened in the economic development arena, where the very talented Columbus finally woke up, looked at its sister cities, including Indianapolis, and realized that it was falling behind because the focused effort was not there. Columbus today seems to be doing what Indianapolis has done for the past 30 years-plan and execute multi-phased economic and physical development projects. For these reasons, I have high hopes for Columbus’ future.
Chris-good points, Still overall I was amazed by the seeming dearth of restaurant options. Even sit-down chain restaurants like Applebees-Columbus has about 10 off of every highway exit along the outer-belt, for better or worse. We had a hard time finding one on each exit in Indy.
George, good synopsis but you miss a few things.
1. Simon did not own the malls in Indy when Circle Centre was built, but acquired them later. In fact, Simon’s acquiring the Fashion Mall is likely what set Circle Centre on a downward trajectory as they pulled Nordstrom, Saks, and other upscale retailers that might have gone downtown to the northside.
2. You get at this but it’s worth repeating: Circle Centre is Indy’s newest enclosed mall whereas City Center quickly was eclipsed.
3. City City was in the wrong location. Circle Centre is literally the heart of the events and visitors district in Indy.
EEK still cites Circle Centre as a reference project. They are obviously proud of it. I think they did a particularly nice job on the interior.
@Aaron… The numbers from the link run through 2010, but don’t, unfortunately, tell the whole story. I imagine that if we had them for say, 1990-2000 instead, they’d be even worse for Columbus’ Downtown. Mayor Coleman didn’t really start pushing for development there until the city came out with a plan in 2002. That plan called for up to 10,000 new residential units in the CBD by 2010. Unfortunately, the double recessions during that time frame severely impacted construction, and well under half of that goal were actually built by 2010. Most projects during that time were on the small side as well, usually between 10 and 50 units, with only a handful larger than that, mostly on the periphery in the Brewery District and the Arena District. Since 2010, most of the projects have been larger, and there are more of them. Within about a block of the RiverSouth section of Downtown alone, there are about 800 units under construction. Several hundred more are under construction or planned at Neighborhood Launch and Gay/High Streets. The 2020 numbers for the distance link should be very different.
@George… A really good summary on the retail scene in Columbus and why City Center ultimately failed. One point of note is that Columbus and retail have been hand in hand a LOT longer. Some of the first strip malls in the US were built in/around Columbus. One of those goes all the way back to the late 1920s in Grandview, the Bank Block, which still exists today. There was also Town & Country on the East Side, one of the first shopping centers. There’s always been a lot of competition and a lot of retail construction in the city, at least in part because it got a very early start there.
But as far a City Center goes, I’m glad it’s gone. Columbus Commons has proven to be extremely popular and has been able to attract large crowds for all kinds of events. That success has translated to the mini-boom nearby of mixed-use and residential construction in RiverSouth. Eventually, Downtown will reach the vibrancy goal that City Center was supposed to create but never did.
Aaron:
Interesting point on Simon. I did not know that.
I thought I hit on #s 2 and 3, but maybe not enough.
I remember when those new malls opened in Columbus and wondered how responsible the city was in that happening. A positive (one would think) of such large city borders is (some) control over such things. Overall, removing City Center was a good thing and hopefully downtown Columbus can focus on better projects (I do think the downtown adjacent Arena District is a better project)
3. There are little downtowns inside and outside Marion County.
Fountain Square looks like the courthouse square of an old Midwestern county seat. Irvington has an old US40 downtown that is somewhat intact; not as upscale as Bexley, but still a little downtown.
Suburban Carmel and Zionsville to the north, Brownsburg, Avon, and Danville to the west, Cumberland and Greenfield to the east, Wanamaker and Franklin to the south all have old downtown districts of varying size and quaintness. To say that metro Indy lacks such districts is an exaggeration.
4. Indy got on the parks and trails (greenspace) bandwagon long ago. George Kessler designed a connected parks/greenways/boulevard system over 100 years ago; as a result there is connected greenway more than 12 miles long from downtown to Fort Harrison and Geist Reservoir.
The Monon Trail was a Midwestern standard for an urban/suburban rail-trail when built in the 1990s, and the subject of a real estate value analysis by Greg Lindsey that is typically cited to support such projects.
The Cultural Trail is world class and unparalleled anywhere.
5. Partly as a result of its parkway/boulevard system, Indy has fewer interstate-grade highway mile-markers inside its outer loop (34.3 mi.) than Columbus (59.9 mi.), and both beltways are between 50 and 60 miles around. If we counted lane-miles, the gap would be even bigger.
How does more freeway in the urban core make a city more urban? When my grandmother grew up in German Village…it was adjacent to downtown and indistinguishable from it. Now I-70 divides them; the old German Lutheran church (Trinity) and the other German is standing alone just north of the freeway on 3rd St., separated from its roots. The other German church, St. John’s, is a block further north on Mound.
6. With IU’s big graduate and professional programs in Indy (nursing, public health, med school, law school, business school, and school of public and environmental affairs), the student population and vibe is a bit different than a general university setting.
I found the cultural trail in Indy kind of grubby and a little sad even though it seemed fairly popular when I was there in June. I put it down to the lack of alternatives. The gardens around the art museum are much more attractive.
Chris, the city wanted to rectify that separation to some degree, by having the I-70/I-71 rebuild include a number of caps similar to the one that connects Downtown to the Short North across I-670. ODOT would have none of it, and is basically building a few “cap ready” bridges that could support the extra weight if a developer ever came along. I continue to believe that state highway authorities are a net negative for the state of cities today.
I agree with that. Why isn’t there a movement to remove that road in Columbus?
Anyone want to take up my Columbus super Parking Day- art, music & food festival idea?
http://parkingday.org/about-parking-day/
“The mission of PARK(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat … at least until the meter runs out!”
For one day, Columbus can re-imagine its core as a pedestrian place. One could also throw in a Cyclovia.
Jon, you didn’t really address my question about far more urban freeway miles. How can Columbus be “more urban” than Indy when it relies so much more on freeways for metro movement?
Indy, with an 65/70 configuration very similar to the 70/71 merge and split downtown, and without an analog to 670 or 315 at all, doesn’t have nearly the freeway congestion that Columbus experiences downtown whether or not it’s rush hour.
Is the answer that the Columbus city streets are so void of heavy auto traffic that they can be “more urban” (in some alt-world definition)?
Of course, the standard of US urban life is the traffic-choked streets of Manhattan, Center City Philadelphia, Downtown Boston, central DC, SF, and The Loop and Lincoln Park in Chicago. There, auto congestion on the streets does not seem to detract from urbanism; it seems to define it.
@Chris- To that point (of Cbus being more ‘urban’ than Indy) I think you have to ask yourself if it would be possible to live in Indy car-free or car-lite (2 people/1 car). In Columbus I think that for folks in the ‘core’ neighborhoods the answer is certainly yes and there are many that do (anecdotally). Again, from my observations and conversations this isn’t true for Indy.
To some degree this is probably because of OSU. When you have a population of 50,000 who very likely won’t have cars in the city, then amenities to serve those folks organically pop up. In other words, the nature of Columbus’ urbanism exists despite the efforts of the city government, not because of them.
Indy has obviously done great things with their CBD that make the core vibrant and appealing (especially to visitors). This is in direct opposition to the very vibrant neighborhoods to the north and south of downtown Columbus which have evolved mainly to suit the needs of the nearby residents.
With Columbus’ leaders finally getting their act together and really focusing on the CBD things have changed quickly and dramatically (at least in comparison to the previous state of affairs). So if this trend holds envision the combination of a downtown as vibrant as that of Indy, with the adjacent already revitalized sucessful core neighborhoods of Columbus and you have an area that can successfully compete well with other mid-sized cities in terms of urbanism. This isn’t a forgone conclusion and will take the continued efforts of city leadership.
Does this mean Columbus is better than Indy or any other Midwestern peers or vice versa? Absolutely not but I think that is the vision that many familiar with the conversation see. There are several layers of competition, urbanism being only one.
To the issue of the highways:
For the neighborhoods in Columbus that weren’t entirely decimated by the highways and slum clearance, the highways in someways have actually helped to further revitalization (at least post 1980) by dividing the less affluent neighborhoods (East of I-7I) from the affluent and rapidly gentrified neighborhoods (West of I-71). Contrast Victorian Village/Short North with Olde Towne East and I think you can see how this applies.
Josh Lapp…channeling Robert Moses?
If you really meant that I-71 acts as a kind of barrier wall to keep the poor neighborhoods from dragging down the gentrifying areas, I am flabbergasted. That is a whole different discussion than whether more highway miles makes a city more urban…unless you’re using the 80s Midwestern white people’s code of “urban = distinct majority African-American neighborhoods”. (I was not.)
I was making a point that Columbus is far more reliant on expressways than surface streets and boulevards compared to Indy, and I just don’t see how anyone could look at that and call Columbus “more urban” in the sense that we discuss urbanism here.
Indy killed its last inner-city interstate project (a northeast expressway) in the 80s, while Columbus was clearing land for 670, its northeast expressway. Occasionally Indy gets urbanism right; in this case, Columbus is digging out of a deeper hole. You wouldn’t have to build more freeway caps if more freeways weren’t there.
And yes, there are quite a few places in Indy where one could live car-lite. Keep in mind that student life is far different than post-college life, though. A couple of formerly childless car-lite advocates/bloggers in Indy of my acquaintance are learning this the hard way, even though they deliberately chose neighborhoods conducive to car-lite living.
I’ll admit, I often argue in other discussion venues that no-car isn’t a serious option in Indy outside of a few limited districts within walking or easy biking (1-3 miles) distance of the Downtown core…which is why a vastly improved transit system is being pursued by leaders.
I’m not saying I support the highways and god knows we all know the history behind them and their implications but I’m simply making an empirical observation. Both the highway and elevated railroads in Columbus have served as a border between east and west. This ‘limited’ geography is one factor that has made it easier to revitalize the High Street corridor neighborhoods. One of many, but still an important one. I’m not judging this as good or bad, just making an observation.
I’d have to agree with you that Indy has gotten it right much more often than Columbus has. This continues today with the IndyConnect planning, culture trail, ect. Columbus and COTA have no real long term plans at this point for large scale investment (though behind the scenes I think things are changing). Columbus (leadership) has failed in the past and continues to fail on some fronts in terms of urbanism, though in the past 5 years I think that has changed dramatically.
What has made the urban neighborhoods successful in Columbus are private individuals and businesses investing in them. The success of the Short North, German Village, Clintonville and other areas was largely done without any government planning, funds, or intervention. Because of this here are simply more options for urban living in Columbus.
Believe me when I say I wish Columbus could go back 30 years and make the same moves Indy has made. I think the city would be getting much more national attention than it does.
Car-lite could also be summarized as car-as-boat.
The question remains, if Indy is getting so much right, why does it standout for population loss in its core neighborhoods?
I do think, Columbus did start with a lot more, but Indy also engages in revisionist history.
Aaron once posted about the wonderful apartment stock destroyed by the construction of a core expressway.
The lifeless core, Indy spent billions to “fix” was partly a result of their own policies.
John, there are two big reasons Indy’s core has uniquely suffered:
1. The core was always comparatively weak. Indy never had many high quality urban neighborhoods on the likes of Cincy or Pittsburgh. It’s mostly single-family home Jacobsian “gray belts”. And the public realm was always subpar.
2. Conversely, Indy’s sprawly suburbs are some of the best, which is why places like Carmel, Fishers, and Noblesville routinely land at or near #1 in national best suburbs surveys.
I can’t find your post on the inner neighborhood torn down for an expressway.
The housing stock shown looked quite good- circa 1900-1920, pretty similar to what I saw in sucessful Atlanta neighborhoods like Virginia Highlands.
Also, doesn’t Indy have big manufacturing plants near the core?
Aaron- you should check out Atlanta. (Have you ever posted about it?)
Sadly I only got to stay a few days, but I was surprised by the older streecar suburb type neighborhoods like Virginia Highlands & Little 5 Points. I imagine the main period of growth 1900- 1950 also fits better with Indianapolis’s history than with Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.
Atlanta is just starting to fill in- even tearing down a sports stadium.
Some others have already alluded to this, where it seems that Indy has done an excellent job at creating a walkable downtown with a critical mass of amenities for visitors and tourists (i.e. sporting events, conventions), but hasn’t succeeded in building an attractive urban core for people that actually live in the area day-to-day. To be fair, many cities haven’t done a great job of doing either one of them well (much less being standouts on both), yet it’s a fair critique of where Indy stands at point.
Most major cities are now doing a better job with their core than Indy in terms of attracting residents. There is no such thing a successful city where people won’t live. Indy also is losing jobs to its suburbs.
“With a critical mass of amenities for visitors and tourists.”
I also doubt that. A critical mass implies a place with enough diverse activities & attractions to be humming most of the time.
I came across a few stories and opinion pieces about the constant need to create more attractions- fears about suburban investments in amenities sapping life from the downtown.
Listen to the depressing desperate tone.
http://www.ibj.com/rosentraub-indiana-state-fairgrounds-destination-hurts-downtown-indianapolis/PARAMS/article/46002
” Suburban cities are already perplexing to captivate activities from downtown to their possess city centers or mistake downtowns. These suburban
cities wish to offer residents their possess downtown lifestyles replicating a partial of what exists in downtown Indianapolis.
To fight this competition, Indianapolis contingency essay to move more–not fewer–events downtown. Another entertainment
core is not needed.
Growth in a region’s race has not been sufficient to advise that Indianapolis needs another area where major
party activities or events are offered. Indeed, anything that weakens downtown simply creates it some-more formidable for downtown to say a advantage as a region’s core for vital party events.
Putting any some-more party events nearby a fairgrounds would criticise downtown’s growth and revoke a contribution
to Indianapolis’ financial stability.”
The writer here states that ” Central cities are increasingly home to lower-income households.” – a fact no longer true in most major cities- but very true in Indianapolis.
Rosentraub doesn’t live in Indy any more (hasn’t for quite a while) and I don’t think his analysis is a good or particularly nuanced one. His track record is with B1G universities (IU and Michigan, with a stop at Cleveland State.)
He misses the fact that the Indiana State Fairgrounds has been an entertainment center for about 100 years, and that especially in the last 20 has become an all-season venue for shows, meetings, conventions, minor sporting events, dirt-track car racing, etc….smaller things that were priced out of the ever-expanding Convention Center and downtown arenas.
He is especially criticizing IUPUI’s basketball team moving there. Yes, it is a Division I program but played in a high-school gym setting for many years. You don’t move a program from that into a 17,000 seat arena downtown! Even Butler, the present-day Cinderella small school, plays on the north side, just a couple of miles from the Fairgrounds at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and they draw 8-10,000. Why didn’t Rosentraub pick on Butler too? (For one thing, he would have gotten a lot more negative feedback.)
The fact is that a metro has to have lots of busy activity centers outside of downtown to be healthy. Aaron calls it “100 Monument Circles”.
John Morris, I think Aaron might have borrowed or linked to a post on Historic Indianapolis, a local preservationist blog, about the interstate-destroyed Fletcher Place/Fountain Square area.
But even in the old days, Indy was never a “rowhouse city” like an East Coast city, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, or St. Louis.
And yes, Indy had a factory belt northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest of downtown…along the belt line and inner belt rail lines. None north.
@ Chris Barnett
But the basic stats he gives about declining wealth in Indy seem true.
I have nothing against the concept of many downtowns- (also known as neighborhoods) The Pittsburgh region is largely made of them- Southside, Shadyside, Oakland, Squirrel Hill, Mt Lebanon, Sewickley, Oakmont etc..
The problem is that Indy’s core is nothing close to self supporting and depends on constant infusion of large scale events.
Here is the link to Aaron’s post:
http://www.urbanophile.com/2013/08/09/in-case-youve-forgotten-how-much-damage-freeway-construction-did-to-our-cities/
“In Case You’ve Forgotten How Much Damage Freeway Construction Did To Our Cities”
The area shown southeast of downtown seems to have had a good number of reasonably attractive small apartment buildings.
The story Indy leaders tell seems very limited and self serving. It seems to start with the desolate downtown of the 1960’s and 70’s while glossing over the 1920-1960 period and how city reached that point.
By erasing the existence and potential for revival many of these core areas once had.
Aaron, I went to the Census migration page and ran the numbers from the ACS based on the 2006-2010 and 2007-2011 periods for Franklin County alone, the core county for Columbus.
Whether or not the metro is losing domestically from the rest of the country, Columbus’ core county is doing okay. In fact, over those 2 periods, domestic immigration improved, not declined.
First, here are the inbound totals to Franklin County from Ohio (excluding its metro counties) and inbound from outside of Ohio.
Inbound, Ohio Only
2006-2010: +23,634
2007-2011: +23,608
Inbound, Outside of Ohio
2006-2010: +23,091
2007-2011: +24,193
Total Inbound
2006-2010: +46,725
2007-2011: +47,801
Now Outbound numbers.
Outbound, to Ohio (Excluding metro counties)
2006-2010: -17,667
2007-2011: -15,792
Outbound, to Outside Ohio
2006-2010: -27,140
2007-2011: -27,606
Total Outbound
2006-2010: -44,807
2007-2011: -43,398
Net Change
2006-2010: +1,918
2007-2011: +4,403
So it appears that Franklin County had a slight decline in its attraction from other parts of Ohio, but also was able to retain a far larger chunk from going to the rest of the state as well.
It was also able to increase its attraction to areas outside of Ohio as well, which made up for a slight increase in outbound in the same category. Overall, the net change more than doubled between the two periods.
The numbers above raise the question of whether or not Columbus is just a lot more attractive than its overall metro area. That would explain why about half of all population growth is in Franklin County, and why the entire metro would lose domestically but Columbus is improving those numbers.
Jon, so much of Franklin County is suburban in nature that even the core county data doesn’t prove anything about whether “urban Columbus” is more attractive to incoming residents than its suburban subdivisions.
There’s just a lot of Columbus and Franklin County in that 6-10 miles from downtown suburban ring, which is probably where most of the growth is occurring.
Chris, from 2011-2012, Franklin County gained over 16,000 people. About 11,000 of that total was growth within the city of Columbus. Now, you can just assume that it was all in suburban Columbus, but I’m not sure why suburban Columbus would see so much of that growth, but less than 1/3rd would occur within all the other dozen or so separate suburbs in the county, especially fast-growing Dublin, New Albany, etc. It’s also of note that in 2012, Franklin County became the fastest-growing in the state, beating out suburban Delaware County for the first time in many years.
As far as proving where that growth is occurring, based on maps I’ve done, a lot of strongest housing value gains have occurred along and near High Street from Merion Village on up through Worthington, as well as the streetcar suburbs of Grandview, Bexley and a few others. That might provide a clue on where demand is right now.
Also, we were talking about metro migration rates. I just wanted to break it down a bit more to see how Franklin County was performing, considering it’s Columbus’ home county. It seems to be doing much better than the metro overall.
Population growth by definition has to occur where new housing is built, and the vast majority of new housing in any metro is suburban. If urban Columbus has an EXCEPTIONALLY BUSY downtown apartment-building market, maybe 15-25% of those folks moved into the “old city” (downtown and near downtown). Otherwise the only “new” places to move were new suburban subdivisions 6-10 miles away from downtown.
Again…Marion County is 20% smaller than Franklin County, so its suburban population gains are necessarily lower than Franklin County as it approaches “built out”. This remains a tangerine-orange comparison. Similar, but not the same. One’s bigger.
To your other point:
Prices in desirable built-out and landlocked neighborhoods in every city rise. Indianapolis’ streetcar-suburban Meridian Kessler and Irvington, as well as Meridian Hills and Williams Creek (where Peyton Manning lived) are similar examples because there’s no new supply of building lots.
I am most familiar with Meridian Kessler (Indy) and Bexley (Cbus), having lived in both. Meridian Kessler is very similar to Bexley in size, housing stock, age, and demographics, except it has Indianapolis schools. Houses are some of the most expensive on a per-square-foot basis in the region, Indy’s average is probably $80-100/sf and MK is double that…for houses 80-110 years old.
Grandview and Bexley are not indicative of any Franklin County population increase. They are built out and landlocked, and Bexley’s population has been stagnant for several decades. Slight localized increases in density (some condos and apartments along Main Street in Bexley) don’t even balance the average household size decline. My point is, highly desirable neighborhoods or enclaves like Bexley don’t really tell you about demand for the city or metro at large.
Delaware County is pretty far out there; Delaware (county seat) is exurban, nearly 30 miles from Downtown Columbus via expressway. In the crisis, exurban growth everywhere slowed while downtown apartments picked up. This is an unsurprising result given that Millennials are now the largest cohort in the US and they are getting apartments, though as they age, apartment living will prove a bit less attractive. It’s easy to live in apartments when you don’t have much stuff and don’t spend a lot of time at home, but once you have kids and cribs and carseats and diaper bags, that changes.
There was an interesting piece in New Geography the other day, listing the percentage of population 0-14 in various large metros. Indy was highest in the Midwest, behind Salt Lake and a gaggle of sunbelt cities. Those are the people most likely to settle in any metro as adults, so the trends look fairly favorable 10 years out.
You’re doing well, Chris. Keep on fighting.
Only one more. (Trust a guy who has to write or assist with grants to be facile with key statistics and their meaning.) 🙂
Franklin County, even with all those tOSU students stacked into a small area, has lower density than Marion County, by about 5%. Both are pretty low density anyway. This gets at “more suburbs are inside” Franklin County.
Cook County, IL has density more than double Marion County. THAT is unquestionably more urban than any of the rest. But everyone already knows that.
The point is, by most tangible measures, Columbus is just not demonstrably “more urban” than Indianapolis…city, core county, or metro. It’s pretty much the same, better in some aspects and worse in others.
Chris, there was a census report, I believe, that came out last year that listed cities in which were seeing higher growth than their suburbs. Not that many cities nationally were doing so, but Columbus was one of them.
The urban core vacancy rates for apartments has been reported several times in the last year or two in the 1-3% range. Apartment units under construction tripled between 2011 and 2013, from less than 700 to over 2,000, and looks to double again over the next few years. Meanwhile, in the overall Columbus area, the housing market is building at the lowest rate since the early 2000s (less than half) and the supply is at its lowest in at least a decade. The suburbs are still building, but nowhere near where they were, but the urban market is at its fastest pace in many years, if not decades. A few stories have come out recently as well about how Columbus’ development patterns are changing. Here’s one: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlovaas/discovering_a_new_housing_futu.html It suggests that the city is ripe for a LOT of infill over the next 20-30 years, and if so, what we’re seeing with the apartment boom is just the beginning.
In any case, why would people only be moving to “new” places? Or only apartments in the urban core? There are plenty of houses within the urban core of Columbus that are nothing close to being new.
Marion County is Indianapolis, by and large. Franklin County is not Columbus. Columbus is within it, so actually, the size difference is the opposite of what you suggest. In fact, Columbus is MUCH smaller in area size than Indy is. I only compared Marion with Franklin to compare how much of the metro growth was going into those core counties, not to directly compare city sizes (they’re not even close).
No, they don’t always rise. Urban neighborhoods can just as easily decline in price as suburban. In fact, it’s probably even more likely that they do. What I mapped was the home value % change from 2000-2010 for every census tract in Franklin County. The most consistent and usually the highest % changes were along and near High Street. Only a handful of suburban areas saw the same. Most saw average improvement, if were not stagnant. If I ran those same numbers for the previous decade or two, the picture would likely be very different.
Bexley actually saw a slight population loss 2000-2010, but estimates since then show growth. Whether or not that is true, we’ll have to wait a few more years. Grandview was another that saw a slight loss, but the amount of new residential construction there (all of which has been occurring since 2010) logically would suggest that doesn’t happen again. Same with Downtown or many neighborhoods nearby, such as East Franklinton, which is seeing a mini boom of sorts. I ran long-term population trends for every census tract as well. The urban core has been improving since at least 1990 (it reached bottom in about 1980), and should see its best years this decade since the 1940s.
So no, Bexley alone won’t tell you trends for the entire metro or entire city, but there is plenty of other evidence that does.
Ironically, Indy doesn’t seem to really be sharing in that urban development boom that you say cities are seeing now. Aaron has already written about it. Its boom, by and large, still seems to be all about the suburbs.
Chris, the actual difference between the two densities is about 90 ppsm, and Franklin County has been closing that gap every year given that it’s growing faster. In fact, it should be the more dense county before 2020. You can’t just look at a single moment in time and declare victory. You have to look at trends.
Also, those counties are really not that bad. Of all metros nationally within their population range (1.5-2.5 million), both core counties rank in the top 5. But sure, if you’re comparing them to Chicago or NYC, they’re obviously going to look bad.
If we’re talking about city… not even close. Columbus is MUCH more dense. Indy does not have a single tract with double-digit population density. Columbus has many. IMO, that does make the city, at least, demonstrably more urban, and trends are favorable for the county and metro.
I think we all agree that Columbus was & still is a low density city- the point is it is closing the gap and changing in a way Indy doesn’t.
I have no idea why you think that urban growth is passing Indy by.
Indy has about 2-3,000 apartment units complete in the last year, under construction right now, and about to start downtown and near downtown.
—
And again…in aggregate, more people move to Columbus than to Indianapolis because there are continuously new suburban developments within Columbus and Franklin County into which they can move.
Don’t confuse individual move-in with aggregates. Sure, if I moved to Columbus, I could pick any house that’s for sale…but keep in mind that for an existing house, someone else moved out. Generally, in aggregate, the net gain for a city or region is all in new housing units (ignoring units that are taken out of service by obsolescence, and slight changes in residents per unit). Columbus can continue to annex bare land in Franklin, Delaware, Licking, Fairfield, Pickaway, Madison, and Union Counties to sponsor suburban growth and grab a high share of new metro population.
2-3000 apartments built downtown is a very small number, Cleveland already has passed 10,000 with a very low vacancy rate.
Few large cities in the region have less residential growth downtown than Indy.
You might have a case the Columbus ain’t so hot yet either. The reason I jump on here to deflate Indy a bit is that unlike Columbus it’s often held up as a model of ideal downtown development. The facts don’t come close to supporting that.
Chris, these series of maps show why I think Columbus is doing much better from an urban standpoint.
First, let’s look at % growth by tract 1990-2000.
Indy: http://wapo.st/NM8SIa
Columbus: http://wapo.st/NM96Pm
They’re relatively similar. In both cases, the areas around both immediate downtowns saw growth. Indy might have even been ahead a bit.
But take a look at 2000-2010.
Indy: http://wapo.st/NM8Xvp
Columbus: http://wapo.st/NM9gGA
Columbus’ urban growth clearly expanded quite a bit, while Indy’s clearly got worse. I have not done trends for Indy’s urban tracts, but as I’ve said, I have done them for Columbus’. That area of growth should expand even more come 2020. Indy may be turning things around, but it didn’t show that through a few years ago.
Columbus already completed over 2000 units last year, not including those under construction or being planned. At least that many should wrap up this year, and perhaps 2x that many in 2015.
You fail to remember that vacant housing could’ve been vacant for years. Take the Near East Side, for example, which includes Olde Towne East and King-Lincoln. Population there dropped from around 15,000 in 1950 to around 5,000 by 2010. That’s a lot of vacant properties. Tract #38, which is in OTE and hasn’t seen growth since at least the 1950s, will very likely be growing again by 2020, if it’s not already, given demographic changes. The housing doesn’t have to be new, but if people haven’t lived there in a long time, it may as well be.
Finally, annexation into Columbus hasn’t been a huge factor in growth since the 1970s. The entirely of square miles annexed into Columbus the past 30 years is less than the total annexed just in that decade alone. The 2000s featured the slowest rate and smallest total in 70 years. Also, even if the city annexed a bunch of land today, it’s not annexing a lot of population because, as you say, that land is “bare”.