The Dispatch wrote On the brink: Columbus
Sunday, December 9, 2007
BY JOE HALLETT, ALAN JOHNSON AND MARK NIQUETTE
The aggressive growth policy Sensenbrenner spun in motion during a record 14 years as mayor, beginning in 1954, catapulted Columbus from a cowtown with a good football team to a dynamic urban gem that sparkled as its Ohio sister cities rusted. And it still has a good football team.
Potent economic engines — state government, Ohio State University, Nationwide and other insurance companies — give Columbus advantages that are the envy of other Ohio cities.
But annexation is as much, if not more responsible for Columbus’ growth and relative prosperity over the years.
Columbus has, in some ways, become the default destination for people from other parts of the state, the nation and even foreign countries who are seeking jobs and a better quality of life.
Columbus also needs the state and its big cities to do well because it doesn’t have some of the same built-in advantages of other growing cities nationwide.
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