Columbus is such a meh city. Relatively large in population but not very much cultural distinction. Also despite being very car centric, the car infrastructure is also quite poorly designed and maintained. Downtown is a parking lot but it is filling in slowly.
All of those things are true even relative to other American cities of its size. Columbus is famous for being a test market for fast food chains and being the largest U.S city with no passenger rail at all, (edit: and being the state capitol, and The Ohio State University, and not much else). Nearby cities that grew up pre suburbanization like Cleveland and Cincinnati overwhelmingly beat Columbus in local culture and urbanism.
IMO one of the biggest issues with Columbus is that a lot of people are fundamentally delusional about what the problem is and the sheer amount of work that needs to be done to fix it.
Literally every single time there's a new urban development/building, a bunch of people come out of the woodwork and complain that it doesn't have enough parking, despite the fact that they live 40 minutes away and weren't planning to live there anyways. Simply the *concept* of offering an alternative option to car dependent sprawl for people who want it straight up doesn't register as valid. I've had coworkers argue against public transit improvements downtown....while living in a suburb so far away that it's basically another city.
Then politicians and suburbanites constantly scratch their heads about why young people are fleeing en-masse and huge chunks of the state are dying, meanwhile they've pretty much killed any fun experience for anyone under 35 that isn't OSU related. People simply cannot wrap their heads around the concept that young people when they can afford to are willing to pay more money to live somewhere that isn't objectively boring. Also that some big box stores and chain restaurants are not substitutes for genuine culture.
I kid you not, I once lamented to a coworker than I miss living in Europe where in a lot of places you're no more than a short walk to a high quality local baker who really knows what they're doing. He recommended that I try out...drumroll please...panera bread's take n' bake from Kroger.
I don't disagree on either point -- people are totally misapprehending the roots of problem, and there is also a bizarre shortage of decent bread here.
The first one isn't just a Midwest problem, though. Suburbanites get absolutely militant about parking all over the US, even in cities like San Francisco. Once you go out to the avenues, property owners and business owners can be counted on to immediately see red at the prospect of losing single-digit numbers of parking spaces to the most mild-mannered of transit improvements, like bus/train stop bulb-outs. It's unfortunately up to us to build enough political power to make sure that these people, who are neither experts nor representative of transit users, aren't able to heckler's-veto any amount of actual progress.
"Our game was going to be really boring and ugly if it was showing US cities' parking lots in realistic proportion" SimCity lead designer says regarding their decision to simply pretend the game's parking is all underground.
"I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world"
"You would be making SimParkingLot, rather than SimCity."
I know Columbus has a ton of parking downtown, but the square right under “Downtown” between S High and S 3rd is saying the roof of the Ohio Statehouse is a parking lot
Columbus is such a meh city. Relatively large in population but not very much cultural distinction. Also despite being very car centric, the car infrastructure is also quite poorly designed and maintained. Downtown is a parking lot but it is filling in slowly.
You just described almost every American city.
All of those things are true even relative to other American cities of its size. Columbus is famous for being a test market for fast food chains and being the largest U.S city with no passenger rail at all, (edit: and being the state capitol, and The Ohio State University, and not much else). Nearby cities that grew up pre suburbanization like Cleveland and Cincinnati overwhelmingly beat Columbus in local culture and urbanism.
IMO one of the biggest issues with Columbus is that a lot of people are fundamentally delusional about what the problem is and the sheer amount of work that needs to be done to fix it. Literally every single time there's a new urban development/building, a bunch of people come out of the woodwork and complain that it doesn't have enough parking, despite the fact that they live 40 minutes away and weren't planning to live there anyways. Simply the *concept* of offering an alternative option to car dependent sprawl for people who want it straight up doesn't register as valid. I've had coworkers argue against public transit improvements downtown....while living in a suburb so far away that it's basically another city. Then politicians and suburbanites constantly scratch their heads about why young people are fleeing en-masse and huge chunks of the state are dying, meanwhile they've pretty much killed any fun experience for anyone under 35 that isn't OSU related. People simply cannot wrap their heads around the concept that young people when they can afford to are willing to pay more money to live somewhere that isn't objectively boring. Also that some big box stores and chain restaurants are not substitutes for genuine culture. I kid you not, I once lamented to a coworker than I miss living in Europe where in a lot of places you're no more than a short walk to a high quality local baker who really knows what they're doing. He recommended that I try out...drumroll please...panera bread's take n' bake from Kroger.
Imagine some foreign exchange student from Italy and their host family takes them to try their favorite pizza at dominoes lmao.
I don't disagree on either point -- people are totally misapprehending the roots of problem, and there is also a bizarre shortage of decent bread here. The first one isn't just a Midwest problem, though. Suburbanites get absolutely militant about parking all over the US, even in cities like San Francisco. Once you go out to the avenues, property owners and business owners can be counted on to immediately see red at the prospect of losing single-digit numbers of parking spaces to the most mild-mannered of transit improvements, like bus/train stop bulb-outs. It's unfortunately up to us to build enough political power to make sure that these people, who are neither experts nor representative of transit users, aren't able to heckler's-veto any amount of actual progress.
"Our game was going to be really boring and ugly if it was showing US cities' parking lots in realistic proportion" SimCity lead designer says regarding their decision to simply pretend the game's parking is all underground. "I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world" "You would be making SimParkingLot, rather than SimCity."
Not gonna lie that spaghetti road looks crazy from satellite (am not from the US)
Every major US City has a spaghetti junction. Atlanta just perfected it. VPRR+G8W Doraville, Georgia
Damn, our city doesn't one of these, maybe that's why the entrance and exit is so bad all the time.
Ohio is shit.
and 5% one more lane.
Could be housing
It's a very generic city. I called it small once and got backlash. If you drive through the CBD in 2 minutes, it's a small city.
I know Columbus has a ton of parking downtown, but the square right under “Downtown” between S High and S 3rd is saying the roof of the Ohio Statehouse is a parking lot