Newark's Steady Population Growth Leads Ohio Cities

 

Population estimates are in.

Newark is Ohio's 16th largest city and estimated to be growing, year over year, at a steady pace. In the 2020 Census, Newark was 18th.

Newark's pace leads Ohio cities. Newark's 0.67% pace is the largest percentage growth among the Top 20 in Ohio.

Newark remains Central Ohio's second largest city and has built it's spread over the third largest city, Dublin, by more than 2,000 people.

With multi-family apartments and single-family homes under construction in Newark, the population growth steady pace can be predicted to continue.

The steady growth is a positive sign for workforce development and economic development.

The source is World Population Review's 2025 report.

Population Preview: Newark's Population Gains Stand Out

The annual look at U.S. Census Bureau estimates for cities isn't due out until May.  However, WorldPopulationReview.com has given us a preview based on 2018 Census estimates.

Newark is now Ohio's 15th largest city.  The preview predicts Newark will stand out with another rise in the rankings again this year.

Newark's 1.8% estimated population increase versus 2017 estimates is best among Ohio's twenty largest cities.  There were four Ohio cities--Columbus, Lorain, Newark, and Middletown--that predicted population gains among the top 20 cities.

Further, Newark will retain its status as the second largest city in the Columbus metro area. It's hard to ignore a rise like Newark has seen among its peers.

Population growth is a measure of as well as a predictor of economic success.  Newark's growth among it's Ohio city peers stands out as a sign of its economic gains as well as a strong predictor of its ability to sustain a growing workforce to accommodate future growth.

Congratulations, Mayor Jeff Hall and Newark.

Newark: We're Moving On Up, Again

The 2016 Census estimates were recently published.  It means adjusting Newark's numbers again. We're moving up, again.

Now, Newark is the 17th largest city in Ohio and one of only three in the top 20 that are growing.  A 3.3% increase in population is significant compared to it's fellow city brethren.

It also means that Newark is the second largest city in Central Ohio.

Here's the chart:

Challenging Those R-Belt Myths

Richey Piiparinen must appear as stern as this photo of a nun in a Cleveland area restaurant to some "cool and hip" city thinkers.

Though he favors throwing around the "R" word too much to my liking (that is his thing, though), I label his NewGeography.com piece a must-read.

He pins to the ground the whole premise that population growth is a measure of success for a region, and its economy.  There's lessons for urban and suburban economic development policy makers in his message.  Take off those rust-colored glasses.

His summation sums up a lot of data:  "Regaining focus entails removing the rust-colored glasses. Rust Belt leaders will see there are assets to work with, not to mention feel the freedom that comes with no longer being a study in contrast for those touting a future that really isn’t."

See The Ugly City Beautiful:  A Policy Analysis.

Cleveland Brain Gain Explained

Today, Cleveland.com features the work of the Cleveland "Rust Belt Chic" guy, Richey Piiparinen, and Jim Russell under the title "Unexpected Brain Gain Boosts Cleveland Toward New Economy, Study Finds."

The upbeat story puts on its ear those who paint Cleveland as a population sinkhole in a death spiral.

And the piece cites a pretty interesting fact that caught my attention.

The 2010 Census greatly favored cities with big universities to be seen as population-growing, educated locations.

Indeed, anecdotally, I know that the takers of the 2010 Census were extremely aggressive about counting college students where they went to college rather than their permanent address with their family.  My then-college-housed daughter would have gotten counted at her college if I hadn't aggressively intervened and coached her to shoo off the Census hounds who were stalking her dorm's hallways to add to their numbers.

I tend to think there were some politics in that Census approach, but that's another topic.  One of the impacts of counting college kids where they go to school rather than where they make their permanent address is to give cities with big universities a boost in population and educational attainment.

It's a false boost for those cities and a false drain for others.  The impact is negative on older cities with no big university.  Those places' population, by comparison, are older and less educated.

What Piiparinen and Russell's study points out that it is more proper to measure working age population and newcomers to that group as a measure of the demographic ups and downs of a place rather than the conventional measures that come from the Census.

They're right.

Here's hoping the story isn't just a one-time blip in the Cleveland narrative.  There are real reasons to be more upbeat than meets the eye.

What Now? Boost Manufacturing

I was asked to supply my opinion on what one could say to an urban-oriented audience about economic development.  Yes, it's true. 

I didn't miss that chance. 

Regular readers will find this material a bit redundant, but here's an excerpt of some of what I suggested:

"In one word, it’s manufacturing.  Given the fact that Ohio’s largest cities are not seeing manufacturing’s presence like the rest of Ohio is seeing, it is critical that you be the voice of manufacturing.

 

"Manufacturing is making a comeback in Ohio.  It’s outpacing the rest of the economic segments in job growth.  It is growing, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary. 

"This fact may not be well known to urban-oriented leaders, though, as the comeback is occurring in the suburban and exurban parts of Ohio. Too many people are still trying to take away the tools from the non-urban areas that allow us to compete against other states for manufacturing jobs.

 
"We are seeing foreign direct investment, because they see that the U.S., and Ohio in particularly, are ripe for manufacturing growth.  It no longer makes sense, if it ever did, to manufacture high value products overseas for import to the U.S. 
   
"Manufacturing in the U.S. is being aided by better demographics and better energy costs.  The Utica/Marcellus Shale boom  translates into lower cost access to natural gas and other feedstock.  Both being supplied from and supplying to this sector has been a draw to Ohio.  German-based xperion, brought to our Aerospace Center campus, is a prime example of this.  Samuel Strapping Systems is an example too.
  
"The demographics aspect is mostly unknown.  Here’s the facts:  Our key international competitors for manufacturing GDP (China, EU, Germany, Japan) are all experiencing declines in working age population or actual population decline.  Meanwhile, the U.S. is adding population and is attractive for immigration, positioning us to provide a manufacturing workforce in the future when others cannot be so predicted.

"Manufacturing, though, needs a workforce to be there for them when the timing is right for expansion.  We need a campaign to change attitudes about manufacturing as a career.  

"Too many of our kids have been dissuaded from manufacturing for all the wrong reasons.  Too many have been pursuing college for college’s sake when a technical degree or certification would do them better.  It starts by informing opinion leaders about the resurgence of manufacturing and its importance to our economy.

 
"Hope this helps."

Step 1: Population Density. Step 2: ?. Step 3: Innovation

This headline comes from the latest piece at NewGeography.com titled "Density, Unpacked" and written by Ohioan Richey Piiparinen, the Rust Belt Chic guy.  He takes on the failed logic of linking population density and innovation.  That's a topic I follow with great personal and professional interest.

His first paragraph explains why one needs to critically challenge theories like Florida's.  "The stories we tell affect the lives we lead. . .literally, the stories that are told make up a kind of meta-reality that soaks in us to form a 'truth'. This 'truth' affects policy, which affects investment, which affects bricks and mortar, pocketbooks, and power."

Piiparinen takes on Richard Florida's linkage between population density and innovation.  He even lists some of the Top 25 innovation hot spots in the U.S.--Snohomish County, Washington and Madison County, Alabama.  The bigger of these two places is 417 people per square mile.

The Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 thing in the last third of the article is right on.  He points out, with a simple "?" in the middle of the three-step logic chain that there isn't any definition to the leap of logic.

Though he makes a little bit of a leap of logic himself by taking a Cleveland developer's quote and making it the reason behind Florida's illogical theory, it's still worth a read.

The Measuring Innovation Trap

In my book, where you choose to live doesn't make you any more or less innovative.  It's my strong assertion that innovation knows no population density.  In fact, I would warn those places that equate their higher density to their innovation superiority are brewing a recipe for a failing economy.

Saturday, Steve Layman wrote about the innovative people to come out of little Homer, Ohio, population 300.  I've written about Derwent, Ohio and the amazing energy and manufacturing industry innovation happening there.  Computers per capita in Hanover, Ohio are higher than most anyplace. Joel Kotkin points out "spread-out urban newbies" as the new model for growth.

I know these are mostly anecdotal measures of innovation.  Measuring innovation isn't something that's so easy to do though.  Those that have tried tend to get caught manipulating the results. It's a trap.

Two cases in point.

Richard Florida wrote a piece "The Density of Innovation" in 2010, and it's the whole premise of his "creative class" approach to economic development.  He's advised cities, including developers in Ohio, on how attracting creative people to dense places is the key to a trickle down of innovation in the economy.

He wrote, "Patents are the conventional measure of innovation. Despite their various weaknesses, patents represent a systematic, quantitative measure of innovation and are used by economists as the single dominant measure of innovation. But, as with other measures, economists tend to measure them on a per capita basis. . . Our measure of innovation density is patents per square kilometer."

This 2010 map is Florida's measure of innovation using patents per square kilometer.

The devil is in the details though. His measure wouldn't work for his point if he didn't then aggregate the data to only metro areas.  If he truly only used patents per square kilometer, there would be a ton of small census tracts that would dominate his list and tend throw out his results altogether.



A clip of the Brookings Institution interactive metro areas patents map.

Brookings uses patents per capita as its measure and did in a February 2013 study.  However, they also aggregate to metro areas which means they don't show us all the data.  Since we don't get the whole picture, we are left to suspect that rural and suburban areas are every bit as innovative per capita as dense, urban areas. 

Don't fall into the trap.  In the end, the wise thing to conclude is that innovation knows no population density.

Give Me 230 People Per Square Mile Any Day

Licking County, via Google Maps
 

With roughly 160,000 population in 687 square miles, Licking County has a population density of around 230 people per square mile.

Compare that to Orange County, California with 3,606 per square mile or 5,686 per square mile in Cook County, Illinois.  Even our bigger neighbor, Franklin County, has 2,183 people per square mile density.

We are truly a mix of suburban, exurban, and rural communities all rolled into one. 

It's a delightful mix, and I'll take it.

Pollution is higher where the density is higher.  So is crime.

Ohio's resurgence in manufacturing is happening in Ohio's less dense locations.  2013 data shows 93% of Ohio's top economic development projects happened outside of Ohio's three, most dense counties.

These are all profound reasons to like less density.

Yet, those denser than us will claim innovation is greater where population per square mile is greater.  Author Richard Florida has made a living boosting urban areas by belittling those suburban places that are less dense.

Many, like Joel Kotkin, dispute Florida's thinking with good reason.  I have disputed Florida's equating population and innovation over the years with more than a few anecdotal reasons.  Computers per capita in Hanover, Ohio are higher than most anyplace.  Derwent, Ohio has every place on the planet beat on manufacturing innovation per capita.

With the World's last hot roll aluminum line, the ability to calibrate high-precision equipment to the arcsecond, and no less than four corporate R&D and innovation centers, Licking County does not concede to those that claim innovation follows population density.

Give me 230 people per square mile any day.

Kotkin: How Can We Be So Dense?

The latest column at NewGeography.com from Joel Kotkin takes on the density advocates with the right question, "How can we be so dense?"

The Kotkin answer is summed up as this:

The movement (don't blame it on Obama he points out) to advocate for development policies that favor denser, urban areas are counterproductive for our nation's development.  His premise is to tip the scales in favor of policies that answer market demands for single-family housing in affordable suburban and exurban areas.

He didn't say it, but I can.  It's places like Ohio that suffer from urban-focused, national development policies.

He's right.  As he often does, Kotkin looks to a future where such a policy left to run amok has wreaked havoc.  He writes:

The density agenda need to be knocked off its perch as the summum bonum of planning policy. These policies may not hurt older Americans, like me, who bought their homes decades ago, but will weigh heavily on the already hard-pressed young adult population. . . . All for a policy that, for all its progressive allure, will make more Americans more unhappy, less familial, and likely poorer.

R-Word Alert: June 25th New York Times

Some publications just can't let good news happen without a hint of negativity attached.  The pejorative "Rust Belt" is one way to ensure that always happens when it comes to stories featuring Ohio.

Frankly, this pattern of associating a negative term with just about anything positive that happens in Ohio is just plain lazy journalism.  The "rags to riches" story angle is taught in Journalism 101 and must get reinforced by every editor along the way.

The only way I know to combat it is to call them out on it.

So here's the call out.  Let's call it a R-Word Alert.

The celebration of the opening of a new headquarters for Goodyear in Akron was the example du jour yesterday in the New York Times.  The headline "Akron Shakes Off Some Rust With Goodyear Tire's Help" makes my point all on its own.

Apparently, a story about a $160 million new HQ and associated redevelopment wouldn't be complete without saying, "Akron was a gritty and polluted city that employed 58,000 rubber industry workers." Then, adding in for good measure, "Just like the other industrial cities of the Midwest that formed the Rust Belt, the end of tire manufacturing, and the loss of over 20,000 jobs, was the start of a long period of civic trauma that sent the city’s population sliding."

I guess we can be glad it was buried on Page B6.

Ohio Just Being Ohio Proves a Winner

An Associated Press story on recent Census data didn't get much play. It's a shame. There's good news in there.

AP reports Ohio gained in the category of youth population that, just this last 2010 Census, was a loss. Ohioans have come to expect "brain drain" every Census report.

Why the reversal of this long, negative trend? The story doesn't make a good case.

It quotes Governor Kasich as saying something about being cool, as a state. The Governor, if he said that, distanced himself from that remark by the time a widely-distributed email come out. His email said, "A key to maintaining Ohio's momentum is the belief by job creators that our state is growing, innovative, and supportive of its business community."

That's better.

Ohio doesn't have to be anything it's not to retain our population of young people in my book.

I tend to think homesick Ohioans, inspired by Ohio job options, are returning to their home state too and that is part of the good news story.

To be fair, some of the reason may be that our college graduates aren't finding out-of-state job opportunities as well as the past so they are staying home until the national economy improves.

Whatever the case, here's hoping this trend continues. Ohio can win, just being Ohio.

In Response to An Urban Elite

“This is kind of in the sticks.” 

Those were the first words out of a recent VIP visitor’s mouth to our Port Authority's Aerospace Center in Heath, Ohio.  

I don’t have a poker face so I looked something like the photo above I’m sure, and he could immediately see my displeasure at his comment.  Thankfully, my impulse to turn him around instead of thump him kicked in.

We’ll let the name of the visitor who said that remain anonymous, but it doesn't stop me from labeling him.  I'd label him an urban elite. He fits the category of someone who assumes that one's capabilities and abilities are somehow tied to the population density of one's living space.

His crassness helped me make a point, though.  I sent a list of talking points out to some of the people who overheard the VIP's comment and a little wider audience too under this premise: What do you say to a misinformed skeptic who comes in with a perception of our location so completely different than reality?

TALKING POINTS TO TURN AROUND A SKEPTIC

Here are some of the things I recited and some I wish I had recited to turn around someone who came in overladen with misperceptions about Licking County:

·         Central Licking County is home to a presence for Boeing, United Technologies, Dow, Bayer, Owens Corning, and a host of Fortune 500 companies’ plants.  We have pretty good company “in the sticks” I guess.

·         The Aerospace Center has a 50-year track record of attracting a unique mix of engineers and technician-level talent.  There are few places that can say that.  Urbanized places may have more engineers, but can’t attract technicians.  Rural areas may have technicians, but can’t attract engineers.  Licking County has proven to bring both.

·         The combination of the Air Force Primary Standards Lab and the Type II metrology lab capabilities which are second-most within Boeing, makes this place home to the greatest concentration of aerospace metrology in the World.

·         With 249,000 sq. ft. of clean room space, the Aerospace Center stands out on a very short list of places that can boast such a capability in one site.

·         The list of one-of-a-kind equipment on this campus is amazing too. 

o   Kaiser Aluminum’s hot roll process for making hard alloy aluminum is the only one of its kind in the World.

o   The AWACS-ESM anechoic chamber at Boeing is the only one on the globe. 

o   Samuel’s heat treat line uses bismuth to anneal steel in a “green” process unique to North America. 

o   Bionetics houses the NIST standard for lasers.

·         With 11 million sq. ft. of build out industrial space, Central Licking County’s SR79/I-70 Corridor is home to the largest concentration of manufacturing in Central Ohio and, arguably, among the largest concentrations in Ohio.

·         Newark is Ohio’s 20^th largest city and one of only two in the top 20 that grew in the last Census.

If it’s density a person is all about, tell them this:  How dense do you have to be to think a place with all these capabilities is "in the sticks?"

Lessons From The Election: Embrace Immigration Reform

I think there were lessons galore in Tuesday's election.  I think one, though, stands out.  It's time to embrace an immigration reform policy that favors more working visas and more legal, working class immigration.

For Republicans, a more moderate stance on immigration could have turned enough key swing states that the whole Presidential election could have turned the other way.  Though that's arguable, as one piece says.

Cuyahoga County almost single-handily pushed President Obama over the top in Ohio.   You can't spend two minutes in Cleveland, the county seat, and not sense the ethnic culture that abounds. Though most of the current residents are multi generations in the U.S., they still value their ethnic roots.  An anti-immigration stance doesn't appeal to them.

Does anyone want to bet Florida turns too if the immigration issue moderates?  New Mexico? Colorado? Nevada?

Secure borders for security's sake make sense, but blanket opposition to immigration reform does not.  There are workforce development reasons that immigration reform makes sense, especially when a skills gap exists in this country.

Opposition to immigration reform especially doesn't make sense in the Midwest. This region has seen two generations without significant immigration and, not without coincidence, has seen two generations of population and economic decline. Immigrants start businesses and create jobs.

The economic development benefits of immigration are there too.  A recent study commissioned for the St. Louis region found that income growth and job growth there would have been greater had they experienced more immigration.

This is an election lesson that can't be ignored.  It's a national issue that needs to be addressed too.  It's past time.

Life In a Swing State: Keeping Manufacturing Top of Mind in Washington

Before the election season, mere mention of manufacturing was less commonplace.  Many even well informed people would have just simply thought manufacturing was dead and gone. 

The election put a spotlight on Ohio and, thus, the topic of manufacturing gained the spotlight in a huge way nationally as well.

However, will mere mention of manufacturing by politicians and policy makers go away when the election spotlight leaves Ohio after November 6th?  Will the issue fade away from top of mind in Washington?

Let's hope not.

Demographics tell us that the U.S. is growing population while the countries with which we compete for GDP growth--China, Japan, and the European Union--are seeing population declines now and into the future. 

What Joel Kotkin calls the "Demographic Dividend" can get spent in favor of increased manufacturing in the U.S. if we have policies that are equipped to seize it.  But it all starts with embracing manufacturing and making policies at the national and state levels that help manufacturing thrive. 

That all starts with keeping the momentum going and keeping manufacturing mentions going.

Technology, One Generation to The Next

The computer network of the early 1980's looked like this.

One computer.  My high school had a dot matrix printer connected to a rotary dial phone with a big old "modem" box.  It printed out career information after a few bleeps and whirls.  The whole school had one computer.

What a difference one generation makes.

Most schools, even my old high school,  graduated from the dot matrix machine to computer labs and banks of computers in the classrooms to share by the late 1980's.  That's still the norm today.

This year, Licking Valley High School in Hanover, Ohio took a quantum leap forward.  They call it one-to-one computing.

A Netbook computer like the type used at Licking Valley HS.

Every student at Licking Valley High School has a computer. Yes, every one of 700 kids and teachers has a computer.

Spurred by the success of a school program at Defiance County, Ohio and a few other schools in the country, Licking Valley High School began a transition that saw 700 notebook computers turned on at the school on day one this year.  This local story could catch on.

It's easy to see, now one month in, that their entrepreneurial, risk-taking superintendent and principal have spawned a modern example of innovation and collaboration in the classroom.  A student showed his teacher an application he had discovered and shared on the first day of class.  It's been used in the classroom by that teacher from Day 2 and since.

Though no one will claim the total costs saved on paper, textbooks, and cash outlay for computer labs makes up for the whole cost of the program, what's the value of getting an even playing field with computers and Internet access in to the hands of students at least 15% of whom did not have such access before?  The real world has entered the classroom in Hanover, Ohio.

It's not a social program either.  The parents have skin in the game with a $50 annual maintenance fee.  The students' peers man a help desk to help their fellow students navigate computing and, even, repair broken machines.

The fact that this innovative approach is taking place in a rural school district all the more makes the point this column frequently tries to make too--innovation knows no population density.  Indeed,  Hanover, Ohio now has a ratio of computers per kid most likely higher than any big metropolitan city in the country.

Good stuff.  Well done, Licking Valley.  Stand proud.  Share your story.  Here's hoping others take notice and follow your lead.

Life In a Swing State: The Swing Places To Watch

I've written about Ohio's swing state role with an eye toward trying to increase its value. Here I go again.

Joel Kotkin wrote about it in his column last Thursday. The swing places--all likely suburbs--in the swing states hold the key.

While the candidates focus on turn out having already media-saturated the state, the race remains a toss up in a fewer and fewer places that could still turn the tide.

My past career includes working for four statewide Ohio campaigns between 1989 and 1994. I've experienced Ohio in extraordinary ways having visited every one of Ohio's 88 counties at least five times. My past experience and current observations tells me these are among the top suburbs worth giving attention (aka campaign promises and issue positioning) in the remaining weeks:

Newark -- Yes, I live here but as Ohio's 20th largest city it is a populated swing place in an otherwise red county. Stop by the Aerospace Center. Open invitation.

Mansfield -- Red county. Swing place, though.

Zanesville -- This media market is relatively small, but every swing vote counts in Ohio and this market has the best chance to swing still based on media messaging. A helicopter tour through this market would swing votes too.

Plain Township, Stark County -- Stark County is always a bell weather county because of its city and rural population mix, but it's the very large Plain Township that swings it. Almost no candidate ever comes here. It's time one found their way to Hoover Park or a Market Street venue.

Steubenville Media Market -- This would be a blue county in most everyone's book, but it defied margin of victory for Obama in 2008 and the oil and gas boom coupled with a threat of negative government intervention in it could swing this blue but otherwise conservative voter base. The Franciscan University presence and influence here can't be overlooked either.

The Rest -- The profile of Ohio's remaining swing places is clear to me. Suburban and non-rural exurban places are still election toss ups. They are manufacturing-oriented places with blue collar traditions. They are home to Democrats (remember Reagan Democrats?) who tend to be more likely Catholic and more likely conservative than their national brethren. they may be answering polls saying one way, but still could be persuaded to vote another.

BOTTOM LINE: Talking policies giving our nation a better manufacturing future, letting the shale energy plays proceed with the right kind of government role, and talking fair trade are the messages that play here.

One more thing. Ohio has been a swing state for some time now, but that hasn't translated to more cabinet posts, a bigger piece of the pie, or anything that stands out on any President's post-election agenda. Will these places hear something that causes them to believe that the things they care about won't just go away after the election? There's skepticism.

As Joel Kotkin's piece points out, suburbs often get forgotten by both parties when it comes to policy-making time. Ohio resembles that trend.

It's time life in a swing state translate to real action. It's time.

Ammunition Against the War on Suburbs

Wendell Cox's piece at NewGeography.com titled "Regionalism:  Spreading the Fiscal Irresponsibility" is a must-read for those on the suburban side of the alleged War on Suburbs.

It's great ammunition, actually, in any debate where cutting up a piece of the pie favors big cities over their smaller counterparts.  Facts always make great ammunition.

Metropolitan areas are mostly suburban areas.  Too often, the core city of a MSA is perceived as the dominate populator.  The truth, often, is that it is not. Wendell's piece says, "America is a suburban nation. Nearly three-quarters of the residents of major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) live in suburbs, most in smaller local government jurisdictions. Further, outside the largest metropolitan areas most people live in suburbs, smaller towns or smaller local government jurisdictions.."

Smart growth is neither smart, nor growth.  The Ohio experience is that smart growth tends to be biased towards density for density's sake and anti-suburban.  Smart growth, in Ohio, tends to miss the fact that infrastructure is needed to accommodate growth and expand the tax base so that previous infrastructure can be maintained.  Cox writes, "Smart growth, from our research, also is associated with higher housing prices, a lower standard of living, greater traffic congestion and health threats from more intense local air pollution."

Regionally-concentrated decision making does not automatically promote growth or save costs.  The chart on Cox's piece makes this point very well.  His charts provide facts proving that smaller governments, per capita, perform services for lower costs sums it up:  "The superior performance [of smaller governments] stems from the reality that smaller governments are closer to the people, and decision-making tends more to reflect their interests more faithfully than in a larger jurisdictions."

Now, armed.

Article Review: Urban Living or Urban Lieing? You Be the Judge

I'm taking a break from the day-to-day for a few days and article and blog reviews are the diet for that period of time.  Enjoy.

I stumbled on this article from GreaterOhio.org website, a website that likes to tout smart growth in Ohio and plugs urban living in everything it spews.  The article is titled "Urban Attraction in Ohio."

The piece purported a "6.04% increase in urban living by Generation Y" between 2000 and 2010 in Columbus. The piece purports that this stat and other ones that have the Census as the source are signs of a trend toward increased urban living.


Consider these facts instead:

Generation Y was born between, roughly, 1981 and 1996.  The article used 2000 as the last year of that generation.

Columbus is home to Ohio State University and the Census, in 2010, essentially forced people to show college students where they went to college rather than their permanent residence. 

Generation Y didn't have many college students in 2000, but sure did by 2010.

So, why didn't the Generation Y population in Columbus increase more than 6.04%?

You be the judge.

RickOHIO Revisited: The Ohio Thruway?

This is a web column written before blogs were blogs at RickOHIO.com.  This July 1997 column is revived for publication. It was first published 15 years ago on this date. I failed to disclose back then that my late father was Executive Director of the New York State Thruway at that time. 


The Ohio Thruway?
by RickOHIO

July 1997 [UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 1999]
-----------------------------------------------

In the early 1980's, a first-term Ohio State Senator from Southwest Ohio championed a piece of legislation through the Ohio General Assembly that mandated Ohio county stickers be a part of Ohio's license plates. It's just trivia that that little-known state senator is now well-known U.S. Senator Mike DeWine.

DeWine never intended his county stickers to be anything more than a tool for law enforcement officials to more readily identify vehicles' owners. Today, though, those little stickers have many uses. Oxford, Ohio police use them to distinquish "locals" from visitors and students when issuing parking tickets around Miami University. An entire web site is devoted to a game--The Great Ohio License Plate Hunt--in Chicago.

Drivers and passengers find identifying those little stickers on the highway to be a great way to pass time on a long trip. It was such a use of time that came my way Sunday, July 6 while returning to Ohio from a trip in Upstate New York over Independence Day.

Interstate 90, between Albany and the Pennsylvania line is the New York State Thruway. Any Ohioan who ventures outside the state to destinations in New York, New England, or Niagara Falls uses this stretch of highway, or part of it, to get there and home. From east to west, the highway passes through Rochester and Syracuse on its way to Buffalo. It passes near Lake Erie and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

At least this weekend, believe it or not, there were no orange barrels blocking traffic. That fact alone made it worth the $10.55 in tolls.

The Thruway is no stranger to Ohioans. During this particular afternoon drive, a total of 29 different Ohio counties were identified. Ohio seemed to dominate the license plates. Many counties repeated.

It seems there are so many Ohioans here, you have to ask, "Who's highway is this anyway?"

The closest Ohio county to the Thruway is Ashtabula. There was only one of those though. The farthest-away county, Hamilton County, was on the list though too.

Ohio's most populous county, Cuyahoga, probably had the most. Though, Lake County was a close second. All the largest counties, except Lucas County, made an appearance on the Thruway. The smallest population county represented would have been Coshocton County.

A personalized plate, actually quite a rare thing for Ohioans, bore the name "CALLER" and chalked one up for Stark County.

A bad driver who sat in the left lane for a long time was driving on the highway with Lorain County plates. Somebody from Franklin County kept flicking their cigarette butts out the window while they drove in front of my Oldsmobile for a dozen miles.

The six-hour trip from Albany, though, was made shorter by this strange little game. Try it some time. Like me, you'll find that the New York State Thruway is really the Ohio Thruway.

--------------------------------------------------

Ohio Counties Seen By RickOHIO

On The Thruway July 6, 1997
in order of appearance

Jefferson
Columbiana
Cuyahoga
Summit
Mahoning
Lake
Erie
Franklin
Fairfield
Montgomery
Stark
Wood
Medina
Richland
Morrow
Hamilton
Tuscarawas
Trumbull
Warren
Clinton
Lorain
Coshocton
Greene
Ashtabula
Scioto
Portage
Geauga
Hancock
Butler