This Wednesday, the Columbus Metropolitan Club will host a special guest speaker from Chicago, urban blogger Aaron Renn, better known as The Urbanophile from his popular online writings. Aaron will be presenting on the topic of how Columbus can position itself as a standout city both in the US and in the World. We spoke recently with Aaron to find out more about tomorrow’s event.
Walker Evans: Tell us a little bit about your personal and professional background.
Aaron Renn: I grew up in rural Southern Indiana on a country road outside a town of 29 people. So I am actual a rural person by heritage and still enjoy many things about country living. But being an outsider to cities perhaps is one reason why I’ve been so fascinated with them. Today I live in Chicago.
Professionally, I spent most of my career in management and IT consulting with Accenture. I left there about a year ago to engage in some entrepreneurial endeavors around my blog and civic improvement. I figured it was time to take my own advice about being willing to embrace change, risk, and entrepreneurship.
WE: As an outsider-looking-in, I’ve always found your take on Columbus to be refreshing and relatively balanced when discussing the pros and cons of the city. Your May 2009 piece “Columbus: The New Midwestern Star” is a great example of that. That article also goes on to list four main things that Columbus needs to accomplish in order to move forward as a more significant city. Do you have anything new that you would update or append to that list?
AR: One thing I might suggest, and it will be featured in my speech tomorrow, is thinking big. Not in the sense of bragging about measuring up to others, but in terms of setting a high ambition level for what you want to achieve as a city. I think Columbus has nearly unlimited potential as a city.
WE: In September 2009, you posted an interesting article “Imperial Columbus and The Principles of Regional Finance” that discusses the annexation policies of Columbus. It seems with that article you’re warning Columbus to halt annexation deals and instead pursue a regional governance. Is that a plan that you’d advocate for most large cities, or something more unique to a city like Columbus that has a very large geographical area?
AR: I actually admire Columbus’ annexation and have nothing against it. What I was cautioning against was getting dependent on other people’s money. Right now my understanding is that a large portion of the city’s income tax revenue comes from people who live outside of it but commute in. That’s an advantage, but it also creates a structural incentive for those other places to figure out how to change the game. Central cities do bear a particular burden of typically having a disproportionate share of the region’s poor and redevelopment areas, as well as sustaining regional amenities and dealing with the legitimate costs of providing services to commuters. But you don’t want to turn the knob too far. One way to address this instead is that regional amenities should be run and paid for on a regional basis.
WE: One of my favorite of your more recent topical articles was “Brain Drain vs Steel Drain” that took a new look at the “Brain Drain” crisis that multiple large Midwestern cities are frantically working to solve. You suggest that exporting college alumni should be thought of as something more positive rather than attempting to increase retention of a young educated workforce. Is there something specific that you think Columbus and/or OSU should be doing on this front?
AR: OSU is a nationally prestigious university. It doesn’t seem likely to me that most of its graduates will ever opt to stay in Columbus. Of course it is nice if some of them do, but how large a share can you realistically get? OSU has a very powerful alumni network, and you can also think of all the people who just lived in Columbus for a while and then moved on. For example, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, used to live in Columbus for a while I believe. How do you put connections like that to work for your city?
WE: Columbus has worked on rebranding efforts for years, if not decades, but in 2010 this became a hot topic of discussion, both on a local and national level with the appearance of Anthony Bourdain and the New York Times article that followed. You shared your own take on Rebranding Columbus (which also sparked a lengthy discuss here on CU) in August and recommended that Columbus start staking some claims in order to stand out. Do you think this recommendation is more of an action plan rather than a branding effort? Or that the branding would come more naturally following the execution of a more organized action plan?
AR: From a branding perspective, the most important thing is to define the brand promise of Columbus. What is the story of life and business in Columbus that is different and better than anywhere else? We can all think of the brand promise of a Portland, NYC, Las Vegas, or Miami. Columbus needs something similar. I’ll talk about this more at Wednesday’s luncheon event.
WE: Anything else we should know about the event tomorrow?
AR: I am going to focus on what Columbus needs to do to take its story to the next level and realize its potential to become one of the cities that people want to be in going forward. It’s really heavily brand-related and talent-related. Some of it will be familiar to those who’ve read my previous blog posts, but I’m also bringing new things to the table. And there will be a Q&A period, so I’m looking forward to interacting with the audience. And looking forward to being in Columbus again.
Aaron Renn will be the guest speaker at the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s weekly luncheon taking place at noon on Wednesday, December 1st at the Athletic Club of Columbus. To find out more information or to register to attend the event, visit www.ColumbusMetroClub.org. For more information about Aaron Renn, visit www.Urbanophile.com.