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I had to go to Columbus last May for a business trip, spent a week there. Spent time in Worthington and Dublin as well. These leafy burbs honestly did feel like Connecticut to me. Worthington in particular.
I didn’t get the impression that downtown Columbus was used to its potential. I was there during the NHL playoffs, when Columbus hosted the B’s. The crowds were light, there was no real festive feel. I get that hockey doesn’t have the same cultural weight in Ohio that it does in New England, but If I hadn’t known better as a huge hockey fan, it would have been hard to tell an event of any importance was even happening. Downtown looks healthy enough, no abandonment issues, light volumes of new construction, clean. But it’s clearly not a destination. Short North was probably the liveliest place near downtown. German Village had some killer brick vernacular that’s stylistically different from Boston’s Federalist rows yet still evoked Charlestown or lower Beacon Hill. I loved it. |
Not Chicago, eh? Evanston, IL has it all: a vibrant downtown with high end retail, a heavy rail system, commuter rail, apartment neighborhoods, etc.
If that’s being cheeky, how about Madison? Being serious, though, midwestern big cities other than Chicago are great, but they really need to improve their downtown retail and dining options. The comparison to Seattle is sobering; Seattle was smaller than most of the Midwestern cities we’re debating in 1940 but, today, its downtown is more vibrant than all of them by a wide margin. |
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On the surface it appears that that was a bad urban planning choice |
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Every city has changed since then. Unfortunately many in the midwest declined since then. Some declined and bounced back to become even better than before, think Boston, New York. Some have steadily grown, think Los Angeles and some have steadily declined, think Detroit, Pittsburgh etc. Isn't it amazing what 80 years of growth will do compared to 80 years of decline? |
Downtown is a secondary issue here
Generally in the us the cities that are adding the most urban format infill midrises are those with the highest rate of increasing urbanity. Houston inner loop, dc, Austin, portland, Chicago west loop, Minneapolis are at the forefront of this trend. In the Midwest, maybe Columbus. Meanwhile Milwaukee’s downtown, St. Louis central west end, and Cincinnati’s OTR are architecturally extraordinary. But they lack the new investments in sufficient numbers to make these assets yield the benefits they should. |
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My son had a blast at multiple playgrounds on a South Loop street with this typology. Great in-town location, not particularly urban: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8640...7i13312!8i6656 IMO there are multiple typologies that prefer urban cores. Some prefer urban cores because they're intensely dense and active, and polar opposite of suburbia, some prefer because they're convenient to work, going out and friends. The South Loop generally attracts more of the latter. |
minneapolis! the other toronto.....honestly its the only midwestern city id be excited to move to. lots and lots of quality neighborhoods and tons of outdoor sh!t to do. their park system and bike network is amazing...
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I defy anyone to compare inner loop Houston today to 30 years ago and tell me midrise construction everywhere hasn’t contributed to gains in urbanity.
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In many ways it is one of the midwest's most urban cities. People focus a lot on the Historic Third Ward but to me, its most urban areas are its north lakefront. Those are not "museums". They are functional urban neighborhoods with a long row of highrise apartment buildings and adjacent walkable commercial strips. In a way, they are sort of a mini-Chicago in their layout. |
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Dearborn Park? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! Everybody knows that DP is a giant planning mistake from a prior generation. Please don't hold that against us. Every city has douchey parts of town, that's Chicago's. Points further east which have been getting developed over the past 20 years are much, much better. |
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We stayed in Central Station, which is basically the same thing. Townhouses with attached garages on quiet, leafy streets. The people living there are probably more "invested" in Chicago than transient renters in the high rises. But hard-core urban? Nope. |
^ DP is a hellhole. It needs to be bulldozed yesterday.
Those people aren't "invested" in Chicago, they are "invested" in DP remaining an insular community with no through streets and remaining uninviting to outsiders. Tear. It. Down. |
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You would tear down like 90% of the South Loop, because it isn't wall-to-wall tenements like in the Bronx? Why, exactly? There would be no one living there but college students, 20-something transients and divorcees. The professional families would move out. What's wrong with a streetscape like this? Affluent families in Chicago's core neighborhoods live in neighborhoods like this. They generally aren't living in 50-floor towers: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8630...7i16384!8i8192 |
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Also, what are these "architectural influences from the Northeast" that Cincinnati has? And that additionally brings up the question of where does Cleveland get its architectural influences from? I'll answer the second one... from the Northeast. :haha: |
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http://minneapolisblog.jll.com/2017/...ers-residents/ |
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The greater South Loop east of Michigan Ave is still generally well connected to surrounding streets. It is not the same thing as DP. DP is an insular hellhole like a suburban subdivision with nearly no outlets. It also completely turns its back on State St, a major thoroughfare, south of Roosevelt. People who live in DP come out with pitchforks and torches whenever there is a proposal that threatens that status quo. They came out in full force against a subway station that would've been built on the edge of their district, so now it will get built across the street. They used "inside connections" to prevent a street from getting cut to create a new intersection at around 15th st or so. |
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