Columbus Dispatch: Can Ohio's big cities be saved?

Today's installment was about Columbus.  From the beginning the series admitted Columbus was different than the other six big Ohio cities.

 "Except for Columbus, Ohio's big cities have endured vast population and job losses."

Yet the picture isn't totally rosy for Columbus. I don't know what possessed me to try to write about each city each day's Columbus Dispatch coverage of one of the seven big cities on my ColumbusBestBlog.com and on ActiveRain.com / Localism.com each day this week.   I was so sick of the series by Saturday I did not even post anything on ActiveRain.com /Localism.com about Youngstown although I had dutifully posted to my other blog, Ghost Town:Can Ohio’s big cities be saved?  I could not bring myself to post to ActiveRain.com / Localism.com about Youngstown.

I wrote about Columbus today, Columbus: the end of the line… I really, really thought there would be a pitch for a light rail system in this last installment. If it's there... I don't see it. 

I knew Columbus was the only one of the seven big cities in Ohio to grow since the 1950's. I learned in the series that only Columbus and Akron have not lost jobs since 1983. I knew the plan of annexing land in exchange for water was what is credited for the population growth in Columbus.  I knew about the "win-win agreement" of the 1980's and how that affected the growth of Columbus.

I did not know....

"There are 100,000 fewer residents living within the 1956 boundaries of Columbus now than then, according to state Rep. Larry Wolpert, a Hilliard Republican who led a 2004 legislative study of Ohio land uses."

In an accompanying article in the Columbus Dispatch (link in the CBB.com link above) there's a poll of residents in Central Ohio about:

The full series On the Brink: Can Ohio's big cities be saved? The Columbus Dispatch 

"Ohio's cities, as we have historically known them, are dead. Forget the past."Except for Columbus, Ohio's big cities have endured vast population and job losses. 

City leaders realize the glory days are not coming back. They are working on strategies to reinvent, transform or do an extreme makeover of thier towns in order to compete in the new global economy.

The Dispatch takes a look at the issues, through the eyes of those living in those cities."