Local Independent News

Columbus Residents – Speak Up Now or Be Drowned Out by Speedway Noise

Imagine buying a home in German Village, Merion Village, Victorian Village, even on the East side of Downtown, maybe Olde Towne East. On your first Saturday in your new home you bring some coffee outside to enjoy the beautiful day. The birds are chirping, the sun is out, and your ears are bombarded by noise from racing cars getting their rev on at the old Cooper Stadium space. The Arena District, Grandview and Westgate areas are all likely to be in the path of noise from this race complex.  What if it’s only around 50-70 decibels? Well play this video and you tell me.

Allowing this racing complex to be built will negatively impact the personal enjoyment of homes in and around Downtown Columbus. Period.

Beyond the Bus – Panel Discussion – March 18th

From lwvcols.org:

Is central Ohio ready to go “Beyond the Bus?” Hear different visions for the future of public transit in the metro area.

Gulsah Akar, a visiting assistant professor in city and regional planning at OSU’s Knowlton School of Architecture, will moderate a discussion of transit prospects among a panel that will include:

The Short North gets lots of National Attention –


"Drawing crowds since it started in 1984, Gallery Hop helped transform the formerly neglected, crime-ridden urban district into the vibrant, independent arts enclave that it is today. "

Not only is the Short North a nice place to visit, you WOULD also want to live there. Call me, I can help.

Most Recently, there was a great shout out to the Short North in a nice sized NYT Travel article…..

City of Columbus Wastes Money on Ineffective “Visual Road Diets”

Road diets can be a great thing because they accomplish slowing traffic which makes it safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists to get around. The problem with what the transportation division has done in some instances is that they merely re-striped lanes to be narrower without physically narrowing the lane. They call it a “visual road diet”, i.e., “useless”. Take the stretch of Champion mentioned in the document above; it’s a wide residential street signed at 35MPH and cars were going at least at that speed.

Fort Hayes and Forest Park added: North Central updated

The Northland area neighborhood of Forest Park and the Fort Hayes compound  is now here and North Central has been updated to include a pdf I found on American Addition and the map now shows all sub-neighborhoods vs.just  the general area.

A Mapumental Effort at home search

via youtube.com

Only available in the U.K. but….
I like the fluidity of the software and I love the idea of this kind of real estate search. Often it is about the price but just as often it could be about something else like commute times or scenic value.
It would be interesting to see how this could be done using the sliders and something like an overlay of homes actually on the market with additional criteria. This pretty much exists from certain home search providers but not in such a good looking format.

Posted via web from Sights and Sounds of Columbus, Ohio Real Estate

The Importance of Way-Finding Signage and Columbus’ Lack Thereof

For visitors to any city it’s  necessary to point them in the direction of places to visit. In this department Columbus has made improvements Downtown but is lacking elsewhere. Way-finding signage is important because there are lots of interesting places in this city, but visitors aren’t going to instinctively know which ones are worth seeking out and these tend to only be known to a small number of Columbus residents.

Coming soon, however, the Short North Business Association will be installing kiosks with maps for visitors. From Downtown there’s way-finding  for sites in Downtown and signage to only two neighborhoods: German Village and the Short North.

iPhone simulator

I recently bought a MacBook. I love it. One of the reasons for buying it was because I wanted to play around with iPhone development.

Speaking of the iPhone, this blog post was drafted in the iPhone simulator. I downloaded the source code for the app so I can peek at its guts. I ran the simulator and wondered if I could post from it. So here goes. If this goes live, then it works.

Geek out.

Downtown Columbus Condos – Evening Views

From a couple nights ago when I was showing condos. The 9th floor
West facing common patio and party room in Carlyle’s Watch is under-
rated IMHO.


See and download the full gallery on posterous