Did anybody live in Columbus Ohio?

[Anonymous]

Lived in Columbus for 7 years. It is a nice town. Friendly, low cost of living, midwest sensibilities. But not all that exciting. Depends on your priorities.
I don't recall the weather being that different from here other than not as hot and slightly longer winters.

It is definitely a college town. It would behoove you to love OSU. But compare to DC. You don't have to be in politics or government to live a satisfying life in DC. In Columbus, you don't have to care about OSU to live a satisfying life. Find your niche.

BTW, I grew up near Cleveland and have no plans to ever live there again. Columbus is WAY nicer than Cleveland.

[Anonymous]

A man with a vest used to live there. I grew up in Ann Arbor so I don't have much of an opinion about C-Bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A man with a vest used to live there. I grew up in Ann Arbor so I don't have much of an opinion about C-Bus.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention to the OP....we used to say that to get to Ann Arbor you go north til you smell it, and west til you step in it!

[Anonymous]

My best friend moved to Columbus. Not really by choice but both she and her husband are academics and got jobs in the same place at OSU.

Upsides: they live in a beautiful suburb (Worthington) where they got a big, gorgeous house with a huge yard for what would seem to DC folks to be laughably cheap. Columbus has a decent amount of arts, theater, museums, etc. Amazing ice cream. Some decent restaurants. Some qutie intellectual aspects. A pretty vibrant gay culture. Not too hard to get other places via airport.

Not so good: cold winter, humid summer. If you don't like football you're in a minority--the fandom is crushing and odd. A lot of colorless, midwestern types, restaurants, suburbs, etc. Not terribly diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is better than Cleveland. Have you ever notices that most people you meet from Ohio don't want to move back there?

huh, interesting. i went to graduate school at CWRU in Cleveland in the early 2000's and it seemed like everyone I met had gone to school or lived elsewhere as a young adult but couldn't wait to get home to Cleveland. I had never experienced this "homing pigeon" behavior to this degree before and found it pretty striking. Lots of "well, NYC was okay but it's great to be back in Cleveland" talk. As a non-native, I enjoyed my 2 years but knew I wasn't cut out for a long time tour.

This is a pretty accurate statement. My parents were born and raised in Cleveland. They moved away because my dad had gotten an acceptance letter to Loyola (oddly enough he never even applied) and they moved to Chicago after they got married. My dad worked for one company that moved us around a lot and we just never got back to Cleveland as a family. My three oldest siblings all moved there to go to school and all of them met their spouses there. Only my brother remains in the area but the majority of my cousins and surviving aunts/uncles live out there.

DH and I both like Cleveland. His job is specific to this area though and it's unlikely that we will ever move there. Which is too bad. I have become the family historian and our roots are firmly planted in Cleveland. My grandfather was a community leader and my uncle is a local celebrity of sorts.

On the subject of Columbus. My sister had lived there for a few years, in Hilliard (newer development) and she was very happy there. I was always impressed with her neighborhood and how great her neighbors were. It was a safe area, light traffic, summers were nice and people know how to deal with snow. Yes, it's colder than here in the winter, but isn't that what you'd expect?

I drive through Columbus every Labor Day weekend. Traffic is always good and the lanes are always well marked so few people suddenly have to maneuver out of the lanes they are in. There isn't the road rage there seems to be here and people will let you in when you signal for a lane change. The most exciting thing I had seen driving through there was John McCain's motorcade the day he announced Sara Palin as his running mate. I wish I could go back to the innocence of that day and not knowing who she was................

[Anonymous]

I think many of us left Cleveland not because it was a terrible hometown overall, but because the job opportunities were so dismal. I spent a year after college back there and got nowhere finding a decent job, and back I went to DC.
See this column from last Sunday's Post about Lebron James (and others) leaving Ohio: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lebron-james-just-followed-a-trend-leaving-ohio/2011/06/02/AGPEqMIH_story.html

That said, I have relatives in Columbus. It has better weather than Cleveland, but is just all-around duller. I think Cleveland (and DC, of course) have more diversity, more interesting landscapes (Columbus is just soooo flat), better arts choices, etc.

[Anonymous]

That's a pretty interesting article. My brother moved to Akron about 15 years ago because there were several job opportunities for him there. He's making a killing and the cost of living is really low.