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YouTubeThe Columbus Dispatch wrote Columbus being outpaced by its near-equivalent in Indiana in population growth, jobs, economy
Thursday, April 5, 2007 3:51 AM
By Tim Doulin
There is a rivalry between Columbus and Indianapolis in which size matters. And Indy is catching up.
In some regards they’re mirror-image towns: two Midwestern state capitals straddling I-70, each with two major-league professional sports teams.
And both are growing. It’s just that metropolitan Indianapolis is growing faster and could soon overtake Columbus and central Ohio, according to U.S. Census figures released today.
Indianapolis had about 59,500 fewer people than Columbus. But from 2000 to 2006, it grew by 9.2 percent, compared with 7 percent for Columbus.
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Is Indianapolis outpacing Columbus?
By: The Hegemo
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I had to stop in downtown Indianapolis a couple summers ago to pick up something for work. It was the first time in years I’d been in downtown Indy (I have family in Carmel, but we usually stay out on the north side when we’re visiting them) and I was impressed at how much seemed to be going on downtown. Even their downtown mall looks to be busy.
Cutting back to the expressway, though, it looked like the neighborhoods right around downtown weren’t as gentrified as the comparable neighborhoods in Columbus.
Minor nit-pick…I’d hardly compare MLS and NHL teams with NFL and NBA teams. But whatever. I guess they’re “major-league professional sports teams” even if the difference in attendance is in the hundred thousands.
Interesting numbers in the article though. Even though they beat us in growth by 2%, our growth of 7% in 6 years is nothing to sneeze at. Especially in Ohio’s economy.
Yeah, I noted that too. But since I’m a fan of the NHL and MLS and not the NBA or NFL, I just took it as a representation of how things should be in a perfect world :lol:
I’ve spent a good amount of time in Indy.
It’s okay…I would not say their downtown feels larger however and I far prefer Columbus to Indy.
I second that.
Their downtown doesn’t seem bigger, nor busier.
Every time I go there for a sporting event, I mean to stay the night and check out their nightlife… but I always decide to just drive back instead.
I’ve never been to Indy. Perhaps it might be worth a road trip this summer.
Hi all. First post here.
I’ve often wondered about Columbus’ need to compare with other cities (Cinci, Cleve, Pitt, and now Indy). Seems silly, but geographically I guess it makes sense. And let me be clear – I love Columbus.
I think Indy has it going on, or at least in the right direction. Huge convention center brings national conventions (and $$) to town, and does it’s share to support their downtown equivalent to City Center. Large number of downtown hotels obviously helps this.
The sports comparison is interesting – Indy also has the racetrack and two enormous races (totalling over 500,000 in attendance) – I guess Columbus counters with 5-6 OSU football games with similar totals. Both cities generating real revenue.
For urban growth, check out http://www.fallcreekplace.com, a development just north of downtown that is very similar to what is happening in the Short North/Italian Village area.
Conclusion – I think they are doing fine, but so are we. Both lack serious mass transit, suffer from suburban sprawl, and inferiority complexes to close neighbors, but at least the conversation is continuing.
Sup UB – welcome.
You are right about their convention center…I attend an annual convention there that fills the entire convention center, every hallway nook and cranny ouside of it and the RCA dome. It’s unbelieveable.
Crap, I’ve been so busy worrying about Austin, and all this time Indy’s been creeping up on us.
I hate to say it, but their downtown is much nicer. It has the canal, and plenty of pedestrians even at night. However, it does feel “small-townish” more than “big-cityish”.
I know next to nothing about the rest of the city.
Let’s face it, until we decide we want to be a city we’ll be lumped alongside cities like Indianapolis. Even downtowns of cities of 100,000 in Canada have much more going on than ours and that probably goes for Indy too. Lucky for us, we have a variety of urban neighborhoods to pick up the slack.
I’d say that this is proof…if you stand still, you’re actually falling behind. If you move forward, sometimes you’re still falling behind.
We need to invest in our city if we want it to be great. That means more caps, parks, money for the arts, tax incentives, self-promotion, and streetcars followed by light rail. :D
yeah, really. like what is the lenght of downtown from nationwide blvd to Mound? 2-3 miles? it’s not like you are going that far for entertainment
Downtown Indianapolis is very nice. It has Monument Circle, the War Memorial, Circle Center Mall, and the canal among others. I have been their a number of times and have always enjoyed it.
What? From Nationwide to Mound? Much less than 2-3 miles!
It probably just feels longer because it’s too empty. :lol:
at least now you can stop off at Gay st along your journey.
When I went to Indy in the past, I kind of felt it was like a giant Dayton. But it seems to be nicer than it used to be, and the amount of sporting events they have there is kind of ridiculous. You have the Pacers and the Colts of course, but then they have a world class natatorium, the NCAA is based there, the final four is there sometimes, and of course the major auto races there too.
I think one thing Indy has going for it is it is the only major city in Indiana, nothing else even comes close. So a lot of young adults who want to stay close to family or just stay in the state they grew up in will move there for work. In Ohio you have at least 3 options, with Dayton and Toledo probably being 2 other options. I mean Chicago and Cincy are pretty close, but they are still out of state.
this is funny, i constantly talk about columbus vs indy to people. when i was in indy years ago like 1998 i would have definitely said indy > columbus by a long shot. However, i stopped in it when i moved back to columbus from chicago this summer, and my opinion now has definitely changed and besides the pro sports i would pick columbus over indy any day of the week. indy just seemed so zzzzzzzzzzzz. this is only from me being there for a few hours though, but still it seemed zzzzzzzzzzz.
Interesting; according to Wikipedia, Indianapolis is actually more populous than us, but of course, that’s with a “consolidated city-county,” and also ignores the point that population alone does not a great city make. Some of the cities we’ve cited as benchmarks for development clock in well below us: Charlotte is #20, Portland is #30, and adding Minneapolis and St. Paul together (no idea why those two are separate if we’re considering consolidating Cincy and Dayton …) would put them at #18.
Also, this dealt with actual corporation limits, unlike the other thread dealing with MSA’s. My guess is that a lot of Columbus MSA job growth is happening around the beltway–shorter and less expensive commutes for suburbanites.
Does it really matter?
Does anything?