Saturday, February 7, 2009

Should Lexington emulate Columbus, Ohio

I have been to Columbus, Oh. three times in my life. Each of those trips were of short duration and left me with no great ambition to return much less move there.

Mrs Sweeper lived in Columbus for a year or so in the mid 80s(before I met her) and is not greatly enamored with the city, especially the downtown area.

A week ago this past Thursday, DLC and Business Lexington brought a delegation from Columbus to explain how and why their system of "one stop permitting" has enhanced their downtown area. I did not attend either of the sessions, because as I say, I am not that impressed with what I have seen or heard.

This past Thursday, the Urbanophile posted an article about Columbus.
The city of Columbus, Ohio is planning to demolish City Center, its struggling downtown shopping mall, and replace it with a park.
This is not a historic block, nor is it a block with a few thriving businesses and it is not a block with a proposed multi-million dollar project, so just how do the folk in Columbus feel about this.

Below is a view of Columbus with what looks to be twice the downtown area of Lexington and about five times the surface parking and fewer major buildings




Compare and contrast that with the view of Lexington below.



We have more active residential neighborhoods and fewer expanses of surface parking. We have fewer massive parking structures and a denser office building arrangement. The two each have the possibility of more residential buildings but Lexington has (in my opinion) a greater probability of achieving that goal. Both cities have a rail line in close proximity to the downtown so that passenger transportation is available in the future(hopefully , the near future).

Lexington may take some of the good points of the process and incorporate then into the local system but, as for the results in Columbus over the past twenty years, I'll take Lexington any time.

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