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I had an unexpected visit last night from a cousin of mine who I haven't seen in many years. He was in town on business staying over at the Hyatt on Capitol Square and ended up heading over to my condo in order to visit with some family and I. He grew up in Baltimore but is now living the surfer's life in San Diego.
At one point in the conversation, he made the comment that he was surprised to see that Columbus had a skyline and felt like a city. He said he wasn't expecting this. When I asked him what he was expecting, he just shook his head and said that he wasn't sure, but didn't really expect it to be like a city. I quickly explained to him that Columbus had recently passed up his hometown of Baltimore to become the nation's 15th largest city. He seemed to be quite taken back by this.
That brief exchange really left me scratching my head. Is our image really that backward that many people honestly don't expect to find an urban center here??
I had a similar experience once when making an approach for a landing at Port Columbus. We were making a sharp banked turn right over downtown and the city looked very nice from that angle. Upon seeing this, the guy sitting next to me turned to me and said something like, "Wow....they have skyscrapers in Columbus! I had no idea!"
It would be interesting to ask random people around the country what the population of Columbus is and see what kind of answers we would get. Maybe there are a lot of people who think Columbus is a small town of about 50,000 people nestled in the farmland of Ohio.
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