Events, get togethers, and suggestions on what to see and do in Columbus, Ohio!
Why is Columbus the only Ohio city that seems to be growing?
Was visiting town this weekend and loves it. I really enjoyed the short north and German village neighborhoods. Im obviously not surprised that its growing based on my trip but im just curious what makes it different than the other cities?
Edit: When I mean growing I mean at like a higher rate than the other cities
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Every other city in Ohio (and most of the Midwest) was economically reliant on heavy industry until the 1970s, when those jobs moved overseas pretty much overnight. With the sudden loss of their economies all those cities started spiraling into decay, which even 50 years later is still ongoing or just starting to reverse.
Due to being the state capitol as well as the presence of OSU, Columbus has always been a fairly white collar city. So when the American economic landscape starting favoring white collar over blue collar, Columbus instead started thriving.
This. The city has never been tied to industry. Also, the lack of geographic barriers to expansion (i.e the lake for Cleveland, the river and Kentucky for Cincy) has allowed the city to sprawl outwards in all directions.
I think location also plays a major role. Columbus is located in between Cleveland and Cincinnati within the state. Even with the major metros in the surrounding states, Columbus is also the only major city in Ohio to be centrally located within a 3-hour drive between Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Louisville. Growth within the state is limited for Cincinnati to the south by Kentucky and Cleveland to the north by Lake Erie.
Columbus invested in company HQs and therefore heavily in the tech industry too which has boomed.
So glad this is the case. Columbus is a smart, progressive city and I love being here.
Same here. Im a prime example. Moved here to do tech. Columbus is booming for IT professionals with no job shortage. Can easily get an entry level job, get a few years of experience then move somewhere else for more.
I work in tech too. Pays great compared to most all of my friends. Very comfy
Salary is a little under average but with how cheap living here is… almost makes up for it. Cost of living here is infinitely cheaper than working for the triple 3 in Silicon Valley.
It's a distribution hub. Large freight airport, and within a 10 hr drive of over 50% of the population of the US. Large rail infrastructure as well. Also cost of living and available land to develop. Lots of money being poured into here.
I'm seeing a lot of reasons why Columbus is thriving which are true, but a real big reason people are pouring money into its geographic area from afar is this.
I'm surprised I don't see more people talking about this. Logistics is insanely important to the Columbus economy. There's a reason DSCC/DFAS are here.
DSCC is the sole reason why Whitehall has any money for upgrades. Saw an article somewhere that the mayor of Whitehall was the highest paid Columbus politician. Whitehall needs DSCC to survive to modernize.
From a jobs standpoint it is very hard to find cleared personnel in Columbus or in Ohio in general. So contracting companies are willing to pay more for less experience because clearing people cost money. DSCC has a ton of cyber jobs with DFAS and DLA who own the base. The airport doesn’t really have anything to do with the base, nor does it benefit it.
80% of the US population with 10 hours or less.
Isn’t 80% of the US population also within 10 hours of Youngstown?
A major university (almost Top 50 & large number of students) that companies can hire after graduation.
Governmental (both federal, state, and city) agencies that offers decent salary to work
Relatively (relatively!) Affordable market
Reasonably diversed that attracts people from different backgrounds
Industries (financing, insurance, service, IT, and etc.) that are still or likely to grow compared to manufacturing industries.
The first and last point are the primary reasons. The university makes the city an attractive place for corporate offices because it make recruiting educated, talented, young professionals much easier.
The diversity aspect really is a result of the university and the companies which are hiring (so people are relocating here for jobs and such from other areas).
Companies and industries prospering, enables the city to prosper. Lose those companies and industries and the city starts declining.
Not to mention, the diversity and culture aspect of Columbus makes staying a lot more palatable for those educated, talented professionals.
So much this. It's much more diverse than a lot of the Midwest/rustbelt cities.
But us manufacturing folk still hang around.
This talks about some reasons why Columbus is growing. Cincinnati has experienced some growth again. And their metro area population never really went down, just the city population. Cleveland on the other hand…
Former Columbus resident living in Cincinnati… the zoning for population is very strange when you compare cities. Cincinnati is absolutely massive, but many of what you would consider suburbs in Cincinnati aren’t considered in the population data. It would be similar to excluding all of the suburbs outside of 270 in Columbus. It’s actually very strange, and a good example of how data in such studies can be misleading. When you visit, Cincinnati feels like a much larger city. That said, love Columbus and OSU and it’s driving force on the city can’t be understated
All three Cs have almost the same exact metro pop. Cinci and cle have bigger downturns but same number of people in the economic area, 2 million.
no suburbs are included in another cities population.
no suburbs in Central Ohio are included in Columbus's population.
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The map of the Columbus border is absolutely insane, and not normal for cities at all
🎶 At least we’re not Detroit! 🎶
Fun fact the largest Chase office in the world is here in Columbus, and the McCoy center is the largest single tenant office building outside of the Pentagon. — Beyond what other people have said, the rest of Ohio is full of farmers and blue collar folks and for them Ohio is getting expensive.
They built a massive campus but didn't think about how small the parking lots were. I was so happy when our department moved next to St. Ann's then learned we were in one of the original Bank One buildings that had hardly been updated.
They did somehow find a way to expand the McCoy center which was temporarily sidelined due to covid. It was fun when people came in from overseas and went wide eyed as they're walking through the atrium.
Columbus leaders had foresight to anticipate 50+ years ago the challenges that other major cities in the state were facing and avert them here.
Jack Sensenbrenner, Columbus Mayor during the 1950s, realized that other Ohio cities, particularly Cleveland, were going to face obstacles to future growth as their suburbs incorporated and blocked them from easy further expansion per Ohio law. Sensenbrenner enacted a very aggressive annexation policy using the city's water as leverage. Basically, every new development outside the city limits that wanted Columbus's water had to agree to be annexed to Columbus rather than incorporate as separate new suburbs.
The end result was Columbus growing to become the massive blob on the map that it is today with incorporated land across three counties. While it might look haphazard and messy, the key advantage to this approach is that Columbus has access to a great deal of new land for new housing, commercial developments, etc., which contributes to the city maintaining a healthy tax base as well as lower costs for new development. Also, more land has enabled the city to grow its population to over 900k, roughly tripling itself in seven decades. As others have mentioned, Columbus also has several other built-in advantages which it has really leveraged, such as being home to state government and OSU. Not being so heavily dependent on industry largely made it immune to the challenges that ravaged cities like Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Youngstown, etc. when manufacturing collapsed during the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Also, other cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati that have been completely hemmed in by their suburbs have little choice but to focus their efforts on redeveloping the areas already within their boundaries, which is expensive and yields a slower rate of return on investment. It's probable that Cleveland and Cincinnati would both be far larger today and better off economically had they adopted Columbus's approach and expanded outward before their suburbs fully incorporated.
Cleveland also sustained a series of massive economic blows during the industrial collapse period, moreso than Cincy did, so it's path back up is going to be much longer than either Cincy's or Columbus's
The annexation policy was initially much more about water than the suburbs potentially surrounding the city. Columbus was regularly having major water shortages by the early 1950s, so one of the ways to tackle this and fund water improvement projects was to make any area that wanted access to Columbus city water agree to be annexed into the city itself so that it could gain the increase in tax revenues. That continued to be the main reason through the 1980s until the city finally secured enough stable water sources. Incidentally, that is also when annexation rates dropped of a cliff.
Had Columbus not had water shortages, it's entirely possible its aggressive annexation policy would not have existed.
From what I’ve read, suburban growth and incorporation was very much a key concern that Sensenbrenner had because he saw that it was choking off growth in Cleveland, although certainly having access to water and resources were important driving factors behind his push to grow Columbus’s footprint as well.
In any case, it worked out very well here. There might be twice as many suburbs ringing the city now had this not happened. Imagine Polaris and Easton being their own towns for example. Or places like Galloway incorporating, or New Rome and Brice having managed to grow themselves as big as Worthington or Gahanna are today.
It’s always fascinating to me how and why Columbus managed to grow so massive compared to other cities here in Ohio, and even other state capitals. We ended up becoming much more like Indianapolis rather than Springfield, Il. What a difference a policy and timing can make.
Keep in mind that in the early 1950s, there weren't any highways funneling urban residents out of the city and into outer suburbs like would take place a decade later. There weren't really many suburbs to go to. Upper Arlington and Grandview were the main ones in the West, but existed almost exclusively south of 5th Avenue. Whitehall and Bexley were the main ones to the East, but Bexley mostly couldn't grow outward by then and Whitehall had only been founded in 1947 and was mostly farmland when annexation started. Otherwise, Columbus was not even close to even beginning to be surrounded by non-city suburban neighborhoods. Suburbs like Dublin, Gahanna, etc. were all tiny villages then. There was talk about suburban growth being a threat at the time, but mainly in the worry that their growth detracted from potential city tax revenues rather than the worry that the city would eventually be completely hemmed in by them. Luckily, the annexation-for-water plan addressed both worries pretty well.
The irony is that Columbus, based on US city standards, isn't actually all that large area wise. In the top 100 cities, it's about right in the middle. It's larger than most "legacy" cities, but is small in comparison to the Sun Belt equivalents.
It seems this guy has just been summarizing this article:
https://www.columbusnavigator.com/columbus-annexation/
It makes sense though
This needs more up votes. The square mileage of Columbus is a lot larger than Cincinnati and Cleveland.
I never knew the history, but that was incredible foresight. Cincinnati's tax base in particular is missing a lot of the middle class as they have moved to the suburbs along with the corporate offices. The Kentucky and Ohio state line does not help either.
Actual diverse economy
Columbus was never a one industry town like many Ohio towns where they only had agriculture or only manufacturing
Columbus has always been a mix of retail and restaurant head quarters, financial services, tech, defense, insurance industries etc
Plus having one of the largest universities in the country helps as well lots of research money there and at the medical center
Plus the other colleges
This is exactly it! A diverse economy has allowed us to survive all of the recent economic struggles relatively well. And it has allowed us to bounce back and grow pretty quickly. It also means that you get a very diverse group of people coming to the city.
I was excited when Amazon was initially interested Columbus but changed my mind when I realized that they would have taken over the city overnight. And that even though it would have had a lot of good benefits it’s total takeover of our downtown economy it would completely change the way our city functioned (in my opinion for a worse future). Even though we have lots of mega corporations that are either based out of the city or have a major presence not one has total control of our city. And when Amazon comes to town they always want control.
Honestly it’s mainly the newer wave of corporations coming here, I believe. Obviously Cinci has G&E which is huge, but there are a lot of fresh companies coming to cbus. Not sure about CLE, but I’m sure they’ve also got a decent amount of industry, but probably all older and more established, as well as more reliant on heavy labor/machining. Between OSU expanding constantly, LBrands, Battelle, and the newer companies/locations that have been thriving and/or recently coming to Columbus like coHatch, the new Amazon distribution center, Wendy’s head quarters, etc. that all run out of here, there’s a lot of thriving industry. I additionally believe more companies will migrate here (after Texas), given the lower costs of living for employees and lesser number of natural disasters/better infrastructure to support heat waves and wild cold snaps. Also, there are numerous programs for employees of these companies to help them get housing. OSU for example, offers mortgage reimbursement for like 15k if you commit to living in an off-campus house for 5 years. Battelle is building the Founders housing complexes, which are super nice, mainly so their employees can live within walking distance.
I’m sure other comments already touched on this, but long story short, Columbus never declined like Cleveland and Cincy did. Columbus was never an industrial powerhouse and was always a much smaller city than Cleveland and Cincy until a few decades ago. This means Columbus doesn’t have to deal with aging infrastructure, a bad reputation, people trying to flee the city, etc. like other cities in Ohio have had to deal with. Plus, since the city is much newer in terms of its growth, it is able to better position itself as a 21st century city without any baggage from the industrial days
EDIT: Another major advantage of growing later than older cities was that Columbus was able to anticipate the fact that it would need to aggressively annex suburbs to keep a good tax base. While the city of Columbus contains many wealthy and middle class suburbs, cities like Cleveland never had the chance to do so because the surrounding suburbs were already well established independent entities, leaving Cleveland with a very low income tax base
There are several reasons why Columbus is booming:
Columbus is sitting on a large fiber backbone. Allowing Amazon, Google, Facebook data centers to be built creating high paying jobs.
The military base in Whitehall. Large presence of IT jobs and contract IT jobs. Military members come from all over the country to work here because having cleared personnel in the area is extremely rare. So contracting companies are paying more for less experience. Great start for young professionals in their 20s or service members that just finished their speciality school to make a lot of money. Average salary is 60k+ starting.
Large presence of corporate headquarters. Banks, insurance, auto etc. All call home here providing numerous jobs.
Columbus is a sanctuary city for immigration and refugees.
From someone who came from a Democratic leaning state: taxes are cheaper here. Gas is cheaper, everything is cheaper here and there are a ton of jobs available. You can make a lot of money, without giving it all to taxes. Hell, my city income tax now is at 2.5% compared to my county income tax of 3.1%. Housing market is toxic.
OSU. But I find that doesn’t lead to students staying in the area. It does bring business to struggling bars.
Economy. I’m from Cleveland and while I still prefer their geography, parks, culture…I couldn’t see myself living anywhere in Ohio but Columbus. And there’s just a lot to do.
Cincy and Cleveland have great universities, but a lot of people graduate and then move elsewhere for jobs. A lot of OSU students graduate and are able to get jobs here. Obviously not a hard and fast rule, but it has to contribute to the growth.
(obviously a generalization, I’m not saying there are NO jobs in those other cities lol)
The city is economically diverse and can withstand economic downfalls relative to other cities. Companies can better retain employees and retain revenue during those times, drawing more people
I've lived in a few places (Texas, Indiana, and Iowa), and There are a few reasons I'd be wary of moving to many places in Ohio that are not Columbus.
I've seen the astro-turfing against wind and solar, but fracking is ok in state parks. I've traveled in NW Ohio as I've got family up there, and I've seen that shit up by Toledo, Sandusky, Findlay, etc.
The government. A lot of stuff coming out of the Capitol is pretty bad - it isn't Texas bad, but... Out tax priorities are out of whack - we're putting more burden in local communities, and not adequately funding education.
Jobs. I follow where I can get a paycheck. If there isn't the job for me and the wife, I have to look elsewhere.
Without knowing much im not suprised with what you’re saying. Ohio has a bad rep for some reason but Columbus does seem like an outlier which is why its growing so fast. Im sure there are other fine places as well
I would imagine the University plays a big role. A lot more people are taking advantage of higher education.
Several people have noted Columbus’ aggressive annexation policy that has brought in lots of areas that would be in suburban municipalities otherwise. To add to that, if you look at just the area that was within the city of Columbus before 1950, that area has seen a steep population decline. That area has lost almost half its population since the 50s.
Because where else in Ohio would people actually want to go? 😂
Columbus is awesome! Very grateful to be living here
Cincinnati is growing just not at Columbus’ clip
Education and government are our main "industries". They don't really contract much.
The suburbs of Cincinnati are huge and growing very quickly but this doesn’t show since most suburbs aren’t considered for the city population.
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this is true... Columbus is on pace to become the largest metro area in Ohio in about 6 years.
Cinci will connect to Dayton officially and put an end to those hopes!
I'm sure Dayton will have something to say about that
no suburbs are included in any other city population numbers. No suburbs in Central Ohio are included in Columbus's population.
Even if you do include the suburbs, the Columbus MSA's growing more than twice as fast as the Cincinnati MSA.
And many Cincinnati suburbs are out of state
Because state level government is anti growth, we just manage to weather the storm because our job market is backed by stable industries like government, education and insurance
What is your metric for exhibiting growth? We have grown, I’m just curious how you draw your conclusions on deciphering how a town is growing or not.
Columbus is the only city in the Midwest to grow by 100K from 2010-2020.
Its growing at a much faster pace than Cleveland and cincy. Just by looking at the census both cities didnt go up that much population wise
Does little growth not qualify as growth?
Well yeah. I edited my post to make what Im asking more clear
State government is killing the state and its economy
Nah here in Lancaster we have a bunch of Columbus fools flooding the area. This state will be the next California soon enough sadly
I think I once read that 90% of the people that are moving to Columbus are coming from other parts of Ohio, so it’s actually really bad for the state
This is unlikely to still be true. At one time, the city received almost all or all of its net domestic migration from Ohio. Today, the city has net gains from like 30 states. This is also not counting foreign immigration, which has long accounted for a good quarter or more of the city's growth rate.
Yeah it’s a couple years old so probably not still 90%, but probably still around 50% +
It’s not but I hate it.