Standing out among Columbus’ multiple crises of identity is its refusal to make serious, accurate comparisons with any other cities anywhere: not in Ohio, the US Midwest, the US, North America, the world. This is a certain form of urban or place blindness, amnesia, and/or pathology—chose your metaphor and analogy. In other words, an unwillingness, even inability to find itself and therefore to develop and grow fully, responsibility, and honestly with respect to its human and physical resources, possibilities and limits.

This requires admitting and accepting all contradictions, limitations as well as strengths. The most distinctive cities admit the problems frankly. Most have a public sense of humor. Pittsburgh, for example, was long the pothole capital of the U.S. That is no longer the case. A local candy manufacturer now sells Pittsburgh Pothole Filler, an attractive box of  popcorn dipped in delicious dark chocolate. Buckeyes, chocolate or plain, do not compare.

All knowledge including self-knowledge is comparative. Columbus’ willful blindness imprisons it.

As a native Pittsburgher, who then lived in Chicago, Toronto, Dallas, and San Antonio, I recognized this disability quickly after moving to Columbus in 2004. Personal experience is one guide. Being an urban historian who long taught, researched, and wrote about cities past and present is another perspective. Continental and international travel is a third. The practice of comparing simultaneously with criticizing—that is, of self and others is a third lens. Columbus’ lack of any traditions of either factual or fictional writing is debilitating. Its institutions, especially Ohio State, are largely responsible for systematic neglect of their home grounds. Local studies, in general, were “beneath” the attention of OSU researchers and graduate students, especially in history. There are no serious local or state historical societies or museums compared to cities of similar age and size.

For almost 20 years, I observed and explored Columbus. I gained multiple understandings of its contradictions. In the past two to three years my perspectives expanded and deepened in two dimensions in particular. The first is the relatively short period in which a few exceptional city council legislative assistants who were willing to speak honestly with a homeowning, taxpaying, knowledgeable senior citizen decided that their bosses should meet with me, and possibly learn from my understanding of cities in general and Columbus in particular.

That window did not open long. The three best assistants and the most open, intelligent councilor all left their positions in the never-stopping merry go-around of City Hall that almost completely prevents any accumulation of relevant knowledge and expertise.

To extend that point, if Columbus had a qualified urban planner, a 32-story tower on top of a well-known burial ground towering over the two story Old North Market would never have been approved. It is unclear when and if it will be built, even with the city’s and the county’s outrageous subsidies of a private for-profit development.

Similarly, the University District and especially Clintonville would be rerouted into a circulating wrap-around one-way system. Downtown, or what I call Colemanville, would not be a planless set of bad dreams—or is that wet dream?--with a few band-aids. Nor would anyone confuse the Short North streets of bars, coffee shops, and empty store fronts with a fictitious “arts district.”

All these phrases are lifted out of physical, socio-cultural, and historical context as misapplied, inappropriate stick-on labels with no adhesive. They are like the bird-killing unaesthetic, non-sculpture web that must be taken indoors in inclement weather, forced on downtown by a private commercial developer. It adds nothing beneficial to the environment aesthetically or physically. I predict that it will not last long.

Perhaps most telling with respect to Columbus’ identity crisis is its years-long inability to deal publicly and responsibly with its two boxed statues of namesake colonist and murdered Christoper…. There are tried and true approaches, beginning with reinstallation in a historical museum with interpretation. But Columbus can’t do that. On one hand, it makes too much sense and leaves out layers of grifting middle persons. On the other, it has no historical museum.

Two city councilors were led to my dining room in late 2022 by one former legislative aide who wanted his boss to learn from me. Upper Arlington realtor Emmanuel Remy dragged Nick Bankston and his assistant along to protect him from notorious honest critic Professor Graff.

Trying to set an informative agenda and promote exchange, I asked if either of them considered learning about Columbus’ possibilities and choices by examining other cities. Both were startled, as if such a radical idea never occurred to them. Not for the first or last time, Bankston attempted to trip me up by asking incredulously, oh, which one, as if the answer would be singular or otherwise out of the ordinary.

I first listed Ohio cities, beginning with Cleveland and Cincinnati, with more established and recognized institutions especially in the arts and culture, written and recognized history and historical identity, more lively downtowns, genuine professional sports teams, and rising socially and economically. I also mentioned aspects of Dayton and Toledo including historical districts and museums.

I added Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and suggested certain elements of more genuinely metropolitan centers all in the broad midwest, including Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto. Seeming to know nothing about any cities, the then newbie councilors sat dumbly with mouths hanging open. One aide took notes on his laptop, never speaking. The other watched the clock.

The concept of learning from other urban places—of learning at all, in fact--was and is alien in private dominated, in many ways anti-urban Columbus. Not one of them, no member of council or the mayor have either educational or experiential qualifications to lead a substantial, growing city especially one with great challenges and nationally ranked urban problems.

In fact, during that conversation as well as in their public statements, council proposals, and votes, Remy and Bankston join the rest of council, the mayor, and City staff is knowing amazing little about the city they presume, that is pretend, to govern in the most undemocratic, unrepresentative structure in the U.S. It is no wonder that none of them want specific constituents to whom they would be directly responsible. Early in the session, I commented on the failings of City Communications. Remy immediately quipped, “everybody knows that,” as if it were an inalienable, unchangeable aspect of the City of Columbus. My asking, “and so…?” prompted only silence.

Since that meeting, neither councilor has acknowledged an email from me, including direct questions and requests to Remy about failing in public safety across the city whose supervising committee he officially chairs, or his sloganeering-based “Litter League” and a few times a year “Keep Columbus Clean” volunteer strolls, neither of which touch my corner student garbage dump lawn. Yet, Remy plugs them with endless empty slogans in no-bid contracted ads on Channel 4.

Before that unsatisfactory, unproductive gathering, I published “Columbus, meet a ‘real’ city: Toronto,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Oct. 1, 2022, and “Columbus meet another ‘real’ city, nearby, smaller, but….Pittsburgh,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 30, 2022, as well as other essays probing Columbus’s lack of, foolish attempts, and basic misunderstandings of urban identities, plural and often conflicting. (See references below)

Bankston’s novice legislative assistant J.P. Dorval refuses any comparisons at all, certainly not with larger, internationally noted Toronto and older, rich in history and identities Pittsburgh. He cannot tell me what comparisons he would accept. I assume that there are none.

Raised in Rochester; educated in anti-urban, isolated Hyde Park, on the south side of Chicago; and resident of Upper Arlington, he is unfamiliar with Columbus. At his request two years ago, I personally gave him a guided tour of the University District when he began his brief stint with the agendaless Neighborhoods Committee. When asked its charge, chair Stanley Gates responded, “we have meetings” and elaborated “we are small but mighty.”

Shortly after my pointless meeting with Remy and Bankston, in late winter and spring 2023, city council along with USA Today/Gannett commanded Columbus Dispatch and failing WOSU sputtered into one of their episodic ignorant fantasy imagination rounds of “what is Columbus’ identity, if any?” Bankston and Remy looked for it  in a solitary metal sculpture of a deer on the bank of the Sciotto creek (not river).

The entire council misconceives public art, its substance, roles, and functions. Nonetheless, they hired a consultant to look into it for a considerable sum of money—but not to conduct research or prepare a proposal. (See references below especially my  “Columbus City Council muddies, no--defaces art in public: $250,000 in uninformed boosterism for the ‘little city that can’t,’” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec. 8, 2022; “Columbus searches for its Downtown with historical, urbanist, and developers’ blinders,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec. 22, 2021; “Columbus, Ohio, searches to be a city: The myth of the Columbus Way,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan. 9, 2022; “Is Columbus really a City?” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Apr. 7, 2022; “Columbus isn’t Cowtown or Silicon Valley Heartland; It’s the lawless wild-wild-Midwest,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, April 20, 2022)

Fantasies about the present and fictional future state of Colemanville, that is, downtown led to the radical proposal to reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour there, but ignore much more dangerous intersections elsewhere in the city despite decades of pleas from residents. It does not matter: no traffic laws in Columbus are enforced.

Meanwhile, council continues its self-appointed mission to award public funds to private or pseudo-public corporations and interest groups to advance undefined self-profiting developments with no metrics for accountability. Mayor, council, and especially development heads lie brazenly about results, either purposefully or ignorantly confusing Ns and percentages, as  if they did not pass eight grade arithmetic.

The result is a broken, dirty city—as every visitor immediately comments—without adequate public safety, social services, housing and job opportunities, transit, ever growing inequalities in all indicators, and health and food deserts.

Mayor and councilors neither see nor admit this. Together, when not throwing away money unaccountably, they lie about safety and the benefits of private development. Columbus leaders who do not lead from mayor to council to unelected private Columbus Partnership based in New Albany, and more influential than when in office Michael Coleman and his unproductive Columbus Downtown Development Corporation together sound like the US of 1920 or 1950 before all the nails were driven into “trickle-down economics.” Tutored by the nonacademic wing of the Harvard Business School, these undemocratic Democrats unknowingly subscribe to the right-wing Chicago School of Economics.

Doran’s current charade of a reckless removal of largely unenforced zoning guidelines cedes even more undemocratic power to the private over the public. “Zone Down” is actually “Zone Up” and “Zone Out,” guaranteed to benefit the advantaged few, not the many. That is synonymous with limited plans for street repair and public transit. That is the Columbus Way, Republican or undemocratic Democrats. The Columbus Dispatch’s Wolfe family reinforced the way, selectively and self-profitably, blurring lines of public and private, to the great advantage of the latter. Genuine identity requires crossing such lines, however incompletely.

That is Columbus’ history and identity. That is why OSU and its supporters ensure that there are no professional football, baseball, or basketball teams. This clashes with Columbus’ aspirational peer cities. With limits, such teams often contribute at least in part to  a city’s identity. As loud and over-present as OSU’s Buckeyes football, led by cartoonish Brutus and the revealingly named BDBITL (Best Damned Band in the Land), it cannot not compete with Cincinnati’s, Cleveland’s, Indianapolis’, Pittsburgh’s, let alone Chicago’s or Detroit’s professional teams.

A city’s identify, contra the series of silly OpEds in last spring’s Dispatch or WOSU’s endlessly repeated talk shows, is developmental and interactive, sometimes also contradictory. It is inclusionary and exclusionary, contradictorily and interactively selective and dynamic. Contra OSU Marxist geographer Kevin Cox, urban identity cannot be “organic.” It is historical and dialectical. Contrary to other facile, acontextual and antihistorical views, urban identity cannot rest on a single entity like one college team or one building, or an Intel plant miles outside the city and county.

As opposed to “brands”—including one marketer who invited me to develop an image or object for sale based in one or another purported, more or less fictitious “identities,” a genuine identity can be marketed. But an established, accepted identity rooted in concrete reality and channeled imagination, based in complicated historical development, is not a brand like Columbus’ national standing as one of the consumer franchise capitals of the US. That is not an identity; It is made by marketers.

As I argued in this publication a year ago, Columbus can learn from cities like Toronto and Pittsburgh, especially in the relationship between their historical and developmental similarities and differences. My travels last fall allowed me to probe that in person and in writing.

In September 2023, the Graffs made a midwestern road trip that included Cincinnati; Indianapolis, Goshen, and South Bend, Indiana; Chicago; and the Detroit area. A historically and culturally underdeveloped but growing center like Columbus can learn an enormous amount if it does not ignore any of them, especially Cincy and Indy. Comparisons are enlightening and instructive.

Each time I visit Cincinnati, I find it more attractive. It is sited on a major waterway, the Ohio River, historical gateway to the “West.”. It has a dynamic and developing downtown with maintained streets and sidewalks. Both downtown and the nearby traditional Museum of Art and Terminal collection of museums constitute more and more major cultural institutions than its central Ohio rival. This includes the downtown theatre and symphony center, convention center, relatively new architecturally award-winning stunning Museum of Contemporary Art with the modern landmark Hotel 21C and its superb restaurant and roof garden directly beside it. The hotel itself includes a multi-story art gallery. Columbus has nothing like it.

The professional sports arena and stadium are a few blocks away, easily accessible from the interstate. The Queen or River city, a major Gateway to the West, has a recognized identity and documented history.

Slightly more than half the size of OSU, the University of Cincinnati has an attractive hillside campus and interesting modern architecture. For what they are worth, UC is competing with OSU in national rankings, passing it in some. In the last few years, its basketball team has surpassed Ohio State’s in record and rankings. The city has first rate medical school and hospitals.

The redeveloping historic Over the Rhine district with its Washington Park rivals and likely exceeds the Short North. Columbus imperialism does appear as Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream begins to challenge Graeters directly.

Columbus can learn much from its western Ohio urban rival that also hares a border and river front with urban Lexington, Kentucky.

State capital Indianapolis is internationally known for the Indy 500 far more than Columbus for The Arnold. Its stunning Children’s Museum is almost certainly the best in the world, undoubtedly the best in North America. The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s grounds with walks and sculpture gardens rival its collections. Nothing in the midwest compares to the relatively new Eiteljorg Museum of Indigenous Peoples’ and Western American Art, in the middle of downtown beside the Indiana State Historical Museum and Veteran’s Memorial Plaza. The major hotels, city and state offices, and the Colt’s Lucas Oil Stadium are within a few blocks. Downtown Columbus and its institutions pale in comparison.

Downtown is surrounded by a mix of diverse historical neighborhoods. We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast in a renovated estate in the historic Old North Dide two blocks from President Benjamin Harrison’s mansion and surrounded by the late 19th and early 20th century Robber Barons’ mansions and a distinctive mix of domestic architecture. The commemorative Martin Luther King Jr Park in a racially mixed area marks the northeast side of the area. There is nothing like it in Columbus.

Oh, neither Cincinnati nor Indianapolis, small Goshen and South Bend-Notre Dame, or Chicago including Evanston and Hyde Park, Detroit and Ann Arbor have Columbus’ unregulated City government and university-based plague of scooters. That is now a recognized part of Columbus’ identity along with its filthy, unrepaired streets and sidewalks. Not Chicago or Detroit, Cincinnati or Indianapolis…..

All these elements contribute to recognized identities. All these cities, despite periods in their histories, have greater respect for their publics (plural), beginning with representative city government, urban development and redevelopment uneven as they may be, and a better balance between private power and public interests (also plural).

No city is perfect. No identity is without limits, conflicts, and contradictions. Columbus is exceptional, and is so identified.

“Columbus’ identity crisis and its media,” Columbus Underground, July 23, 2021

“Response to Columbus Alive, ‘The list: Reasons that Columbus Underground opinion piece is

trash,’ by Andy Downing and Joel Oliphint, Columbus Alive, July 26: A visit to journalism

fantasy land,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 7, 2021

“Columbus City Government is Undemocratic and Disorganized: It’s 2021 and we need a

revolution in this city,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 20, 2021

“Columbus searches for its Downtown with historical, urbanist, and developers’ blinders,”

Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec. 22, 2021

“Columbus, Ohio, searches to be a city: The myth of the Columbus Way,” Busting Myths,

Columbus Free Press, Jan. 9, 2022

“Columbus’ major ‘news media’ against democratic politics and the public,” Busting Myths,

Columbus Free Press, Mar. 10, 2022

“Is Columbus really a City?” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Apr. 7, 2022

“Columbus isn’t Cowtown or Silicon Valley Heartland; It’s the lawless wild-wild-Midwest,”

Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, April 20, 2022

“Franklinton, 1797-2022 and Columbus’ Contradictions, Part 1,” Columbus Free Press, June 5,

2022

“Franklinton, 1797-2022 and Columbus’ Contradictions, Part 2,” Columbus Free Press, June 9,

2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of residents, Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free

Press, June 21, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of residents, Part Two, Busting Myths, Columbus Free

Press, June 24, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of residents, Part Three,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free

Press, June 27, 2022

“The Columbus Way versus the rights of residents, Part Four,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free

Press, June 30, 2022

“Remaking the City of Columbus for the 21st or is it the 20th century?” Busting Myths, Columbus

Free Press, July 5, 2022

“Is Columbus the corruption capital of a corrupt state? Mismanagement, no management, and

corruption in the 2020s,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, July17, 2022

“Mr. Mayor and City Council: May I introduce you to the city of Columbus? Beyond the Short

North and the Scioto River Bank, there is a diverse complicated city,” Busting Myths, Columbus

Free Press, July 31, 2022

“Still searching for Downtown: ‘Ideas considered for Downtown plan,’” Busting Myths,

Columbus Free Press, Aug. 14, 2022

“Columbus continues as franchise and fast-food chain leader: Columbus Classical Academies,”

Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Aug. 24, 2022

“Columbus, meet a ‘real’ city: Toronto,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Oct. 1, 2022

“The City of Columbus and The Ohio State University: Two peas in a pod, one bigger than the other, relatively speaking, but so much the same. Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Oct. 8, 2022

“The City of Columbus and The Ohio State University: Two peas in a pod, one bigger than the other, relatively speaking, but so much the same. Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Oct. 14, 2022

“Why won’t Columbus, Ohio, grow up?” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Oct. 22, 2022

“Andy Ginther as Columbus, Ohio’s very own shabby 21st century limitation of New York

City’s 1860-1870s Boss Tweed,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Nov. 19, 2022  

“Columbus meet another ‘real’ city, nearby, smaller, but….Pittsburgh,” Busting Myths,

 Columbus Free Press, Nov. 30, 2022

“Columbus City Council muddies, no--defaces art in public: $250,000 in uninformed boosterism for the ‘little city that can’t,’” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Dec.            8, 2022 

“Columbus, Ohio: Rude and Crude: The little big city that refuses to represent. serve, or

respect its publics, Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan. 15, 2022

“Columbus, Ohio: Rude and Crude: The little big city that refuses to represent. serve, or

  respect its publics, Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan. 19, 2023

“A city versus its neighborhoods: Columbus, Ohio,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Jan.

25, 2023

“Appreciating—so to speak--Columbus and Ohio humor, such as they are…,” Busting

Myths, Columbus Free Press, 1, 2023

“How can a city with no history destroy its history? The Columbus Way,” Busting Myths,

Columbus Free Press, Mar. 18, 2023

“A call for reparations from the City of Columbus, the large corporate landlords, and The

Ohio State University for the destruction of neighborhoods with a focus on the

University District,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Apr. 1, 2023

“The plague of Columbus’ streets and sidewalks: Electric scooters illegally fueled by the

City’s Division of Public (aka Private) Services,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free

Press, Apr. 14, 2023

“Why does Columbus have no legitimate media” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, Apr.

2023

“Ohio State University and its Dying University District: The Oval and the Campus

Beyond,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, May 5, 2023

Columbus’ identity failure: The mad scramble to fabricate a ‘brand’ for the biggest little

city in the US,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, May 11, 2023

“The private city and the secret city: Columbus is dying and no one in Colemanville knows

or cares. Part One,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, May 20, 2023

“The private city and the secret city: Columbus is dying and no one in Colemanville knows

or cares. Part Two,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, May 25, 2023

“The private city and the secret city: Columbus is dying and no one in Colemanville knows

or cares. Part Three,” Busting Myths, Columbus Free Press, June 2, 2023

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Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History, inaugural Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies, and Academy Professor, Ohio State University . Author of many books on social history, the history of literacy and education, and interdisciplinarity, he writes about social history and higher education for Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, Washington Monthly, Publishers Weekly, Against the Current, Columbus Free Press, and newspapers. Searching for Literacy: The Social and Intellectual Origins of Literacy Studies was published in 2022. My Life with Literacy: The Continuing Education of a Historian. The Intersections of the Personal, the Political, the Academic, and Place is forthcoming. He is now writing Reconstructing the “Uni-versity” from the Ashes of the “Mega- and Multi-versity.”