Again, the Dispatch is pulling no punches with their coverage of the importance of revitalizing our central city area to help keep the entire region strong. (Check out Ben’s editorial here).
Reading through the article, I can’t even believe that some people have the perception that crime or traffic in downtown proper is any worse that it is in suburban areas. Sure, there’s a couple of bad neighborhoods on the outskirts of downtown, but it’s not nearly as bad as the local tv nightly news makes it out to be. People need to experience things for themselves instead of buying into whatever fear mongering the local tv news tries to shove at them to keep their ratings up.
Anyway, check out the story below. I’ll have some more BIG urban living news posted up in next week or so.
Poll: Some don’t link ‘burbs, city
Sunday, December 9, 2007
BY DARREL ROWLAND, ALAN JOHNSON AND MARK NIQUETTEExperts say Ohio’s big cities will never get turned around until people who live in the surrounding suburbs and exurbs realize their areas’ fates are linked to the health of the core city.
Without that understanding, the “why-should-I-care” attitude will not only thwart the cities’ comebacks, but will contribute to a spread of urban problems into the very areas people fled to escape them.
But only about a third of the people who live in the areas surrounding Columbus buy into this concept, judging from a poll by Saperstein Associates. That portion agrees a “strong link” exists between the health of the city and the health of the rest of central Ohio. Another 36 percent see “somewhat of a link.”
“Suburban folks don’t see the link between downtown Columbus and the quality of life in the ‘burbs,” he said. “If the suburbs viewed the link as stronger they would be more committed to revitalizing Downtown than they are now.”
Still, 90 percent of Columbus-area residents have come Downtown in the past year. The most common reasons: to dine or to attend a cultural activity.
The perception of Columbus’ crime rate and public school system was cited most often as the main reason more people don’t live in the city.
Do anyone else feel the very suburban POV of the stories in this series, less analysis from inside than what suburbanites think (and worse “feel”) about urban areas? Especially on Columbus, they pile on with bad impressions of older suburban or rural types, or a state representative from Hilliard, with little context, focusing more on fears than facts. This story could have been much more balanced and interesting… but instead seemed to also be all about the past, without recognition of the huge changes of recent years on economic development, regionalism, growth strategy, etc.
I guess it just felt superficial on a lot of levels, feeding suburban mindsets without sharing any substance on what is actually happening contrary to those prejudices.
Also worth noting, not one of the reporters (Hallet, Niquette, Johnson) on the story has been on Columbus’ City Hall or even the County story beat, to actually cover urban issues, in more than a decade, they were all Statehouse reporters.