Northland Neighbor

February 14, 2007

Guest Editorial by Teresa Tomlinson

The most frequent question I get is:  Why should I care what happens in MidTown?  You should care about MidTown because if you are a Columbus taxpayer you have already paid for the solid infrastructure that sustains MidTown – the roads, the schools, the public safety coverage.  If MidTown has a number of underperforming properties, such as vacant storefronts or vacant land lots, then MidTown is not returning on your investment as it should.  If MidTown were to become revitalized, if a concerted effort was made to identify under-utilized properties, find investors and developers, and coordinate with government officials to make something good and sustainable happen in MidTown, then all of us benefit from that economic activity. 

 

There is no reason why Columbus should be a city of just one or even two economic engines.  To ride on the lone economic wave of North Columbus is short-sighted and foolish.  We should be a city firing on all cylinders – those cylinders being at least North Columbus, Uptown, Columbus South and MidTown.  Imagine the options we could offer our current and potential residents with that number of economic engines.  Multiple economic hubs also will spread city and other public resources around.  No longer do millions of taxpayer dollars have to be spent on the massive widening of 10 and 12 lane roads because every car in Columbus is at one location during the holiday season or peak shopping hours.  No longer should there be economic segregation of housing options or schools.  We can plan our communities better in a more balanced and sustainable fashion.  This is not a notion created by MidTown, Inc. but one that has been employed and has been successful all over the nation (and in this state) in communities just like ours:  that is, the notion of re-developing existing in-town communities and in-town infrastructure.  They already exist.  They are functioning.  The challenge is to make them function better. 

 

To allow our in-town communities to go under-utilized, to fail to optimize that which is good in so many ways and has the potential to be so much more, would be the epitome of public waste.  MidTown, Inc. exists to prevent such waste.  That is our charge: to take a relatively stable six square mile area in the geographic heart of Columbus, with some of the most desirable neighborhoods, some of the best performing schools in Rigdon Road Elementary and Columbus High Schools, and some of the most distinctive Columbus character, and optimize that economic potential through rebuilding it as a community. 

 

All across the nation, people are moving back in town.  They are tired of the isolation, the sameness and the commutes that the suburbs and super-suburbs offer.  These people have a desire to be connected again to their neighbor.  They want to know their pharmacist personally, like they do at Dinglewood.  They want the guy at Wynnton Hardware to know what kind of light bulb they need.  People want to be connected and have a sense of place.  They get that in MidTown now, and we are striving to preserve that lifestyle, make it better and make it sustainable.