Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001
It's probably just me and my fucked up way of thinking, but Columbus in some ways feels like a hybrid of Midwest and Sunbelt, if that makes any sense? Its got great bones, but its growth spurts really took off in the latter half of the 20th Century while Cincinnati and Cleveland were struggling with population loss and economic stagnation
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at the municipal level, the fact that columbus was able to strategically annex over 180 sq. miles of land into the city proper in the post-war period, while cincy and cleveland annexed very little, plays a big role in columbus's impression as a "midwest success story".
but at the MSA level, columbus has also outpaced the midwest urban growth average, so it's also not exclusively an annexation story.
unfortunately for columbus, metro area population growth is not directly correlated with skyscraper construction, as the graph below demonstrates.
columbus, indianapolis, and KC have seen some of the healthiest MSA growth numbers out of the major midwest MSAs over the past handful of decades, but not a single tower over 150m (~500 ft.) has been built in any of them since 1990!
meanwhile, in staganant rustbelters like milwaukee, detroit, and cleveland......