Which city would you consider more Cosmopolitan / Hip

[dustin183]

Originally Posted by bgo

Sometimes I can't tell if the posters on this site are talking about Portland, Oregon, Tokyo, Japan, or Cowtown.... (a city with a young population and a university--couldn't that be quite a number of places--Ann Arbor, MI, Madison, WI, Charlotte, NC, etc.?) Just throwing that idea out there.

yes, that could be quite a number of places. ann arbor, madison, austin, columbus, etc.

[streetcreed]

Sometimes I can't tell if the posters on this site are talking about Portland, Oregon, Tokyo, Japan, or Cowtown.... (a city with a young population and a university--couldn't that be quite a number of places--Ann Arbor, MI, Madison, WI, Charlotte, NC, etc.?) Just throwing that idea out there.

There's a huge difference between madison or ann arbor and columbus.

A) Columbus has one of the largest universities in the world in the middle of one of the largest American cities. Ann Arbor is a college town. Columbus has Fortune 500 companies and is a diversified economy.

While Charlotte is similar it does not have a major university like OSU, only further proving that Columbus is unique in having a large economy, being a large city/metro, and having the largest university in the US coupled with being the state capital.


B) Having a university in the middle of the city has a ripple effect upon the rest of the city and metro. The university lowers the average age, increases world migration, brings in educated individuals, increases innercity population thus increasing consumer spending.

Having a university in the middle of a large city, like Columbus, has a major domino effect and is a large reason for the city of Columbus being so successful.

It is quite similar to the effect of Cleveland having so many manufacturing jobs at the base of their employment. You pull those jobs out of the city in the 80s and on and you have a major impact and thus the results of mass urban decay that is exhibited in Cleveland or Detroit.