Cincinnati vs Cleveland vs Pittsburgh vs Detroit vs Louisville vs Indianapolis

[Peter1948]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I guess it’s a matter of perspective and how loose the term small and mid-sized are for different people. Certainly Cleveland is a larger urban area than Louisville and from my perspective a larger city that is in a different tier than Louisville, but where someone places the marker for different tiers is pretty loose. In regards to Detroit being a separate tier than Detroit for size/influence, yes, that’s the same issue and for me, Detroit is definitely in a separate tier from the others and Louisville is another tier down. All of these still have some good neighborhoods or areas to explore though.

I can live with that assessment that seems more logical. If we are saying CLE is a "tier" above Louisville, I'd argue that's a soft call and maybe it is a half tier but the gap is closing FAST.

I'd argue with the exception of Detroit and probably Pittsburgh, the rest all feel like varying degrees of medium large cities. They all have some similarities.

Urban area is not a good way to look at cities south of the OH river as evidenced by the fact that Louisville's UA is larger than Nashville. The development patterns in the sprawlburbs are different and typically people have more land 20 miles out which can artificially lower the urban area by decreasing the amount of tracts contiguous containing 1,000 people per sq mile.

[HueysBack]

Originally Posted by Peter1948

Dude....Cleveland is MUCH closer in size ANY way you slice it to Louisville than Detroit. MUCH closer. It feels that way too. CLE and Louisville are 800k apart even in UA and Detroit is 2 MILLION bigger....but somehow CLE is similar to Detroit and not Louisville? Give me a break.

Get over yourselves Cleveland. You are a midsized city just like Louisville. Anyone looking at relocation would consider them both to be mid sized cities. Cleveland is NOT a large city compared to Louisville or any city on this list. NE Ohioans are very parochial. Some have never been outside the region except for FL and maybe the NE megalopolis their whole lives. The whole world meantime is passing them by!

See this is the problem. You strawman into arguments NOBODY is making because, on its face, Louisville cannot stand with these other cities head-up. Maybe one day it will. I hope it does! But NOBODY is comparing CLE to DET. In fact, the opposite. We're saying DET is a much larger metro than the others on the list and Louisville is much smaller than any on the list. Hence, why both should be dropped. You're the only one that has a problem with this.

And your whole "NEO's are very parochial" is just an ad hominem that, again, doesn't address the point. It also certainly DOESN'T apply to me or many of the other posters here (some of whom actually aren't living in NEO right now, AFAIK). Remember, I was one of those seeking to relocate and considered both? Cleveland was very obviously much larger and more urban. That doesn't mean Louisville is bad, or even worse.

Here is a few more stats to wrangle with... so beyond the fact that Louisville's pop is 60% of CLE's while having more land area, let's look at GDP's:

GeoName----------------------------------------------------------2015---------2016----------2017
Cleveland-Elyria, OH (Metropolitan Statistical Area)----------------128,887.2-----131,727.0-----138,980.0
Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN (Metropolitan Statistical Area)--71,698.7------73,908.2-------76,063.5
Source is bea.gov

So Cleveland's GDP is nearly double Louisville's and is GROWING faster (contrary to your narrative).

[creeksitter]

Good lord, Peter. You go on and on about how CLE is not a peer of Detroit just below a quote where I say the exact same thing.

As for urban areas, Nashville is an outlier because there are a lot of hobby farms closer than the suburbs. I suppose because a country music star wants to live in a country setting. Maybe the health insurance executives do as well. That's why the land is not sold for subdivisions. Charlotte is a bit of an outlier as well - maybe it is the effect of Lake Norman.

RoM, Dayton has an urban area of 724,000. So it won't add to Cincinnati until the subdivisions abut. I saw a lot of rural or vacant land between Akron and Cleveland so I don't expect those urban areas to join.

[_Buster]

this has gotten way off the thread topic, and into MSAs CSAs and urban area (which is very misleadingly named - its actually mostly suburban area). and now even into what "would be" the urban areas if they were bigger! lol. OP was only interested in walkable nice areas within the urban neighborhoods of the cities.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by _Buster

this has gotten way off the thread topic, and into MSAs CSAs and urban area (which is very misleadingly named - its actually mostly suburban area). and now even into what "would be" the urban areas if they were bigger! lol. OP was only interested in walkable nice areas within the urban neighborhoods of the cities.

Yup. Thread closed.