Here’s a link to an interesting post on ColumbusING: “Re Brand Morse Road and Cleveland Avenue into Little Africa“. Give it a read. It’s an interesting concept, and I think something bigger could be done to embrace the recent shift in demographics and businesses in this region.
My only problem with the area up there is that it’s a case study in poor urban planning. Only now is Morse Road undergoing streetscaping to make the area more pedestrian friendly. It still doesn’t help that you’re walking on a sidewalk next to an 8-lane highway where cars will zing by at 50mph. I can’t imagine people doing any sort of “hopping” up there as they would in the Short North.
Ethnic neighborhoods in NY and SF have roots in the urban core and are mixed-use neighborhoods filled with places where people work and live and everything else. The “Little Africa” Eddy described is two commercial corridors where people drive to shop. I love that the area has taken on a second wind from the influx of immigrants but it still needs a lot of retro-fitting work before any name-changing will make it feel like a real “neighborhood”.