Young? Trendy? Really? Hello, Columbus!
San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. The sunsets. The bay.
Columbus has the Scioto River, the Rich Street Bridge and sculptures of deer posing like humans.
OK, San Fran might be cooler, but CBus now has the bragging rights that it has more people. And the numbers also suggest Columbus has become much younger and more affordable for those that want the big city feel on a budget.
At just shy of 900,000 people, according to 2018 estimates released last month by the U.S. Census Bureau, Columbus now has more residents. But San Francisco still has twice the number of people living in its metropolitan area than Columbus does in its.
One huge factor is that San Francisco is 47 square miles hemmed in by the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay and suburbs. Columbus is about 223 square miles and has room to expand.
Other, harder to quantify contrasts include San Francisco’s picturesque landscape — Columbus is doing its best with the Scioto River — and the weather. (The real San Francisco treat might be summer temperatures in the high 60s and less humidity.)
For its part, Columbus appears to be younger and becoming trendier. The median age of a Columbus resident is 32 years, old compared with 38 in San Francisco, according to data from the American Community Survey.
“San Francisco is less and less a place for experimentation, and art and art culture,” said Melanie Corn, who moved from San Francisco in 2016 and became president of the Columbus College of Art and Design. “A number of art galleries have had to leave San Francisco because (of) the cost of living.”
Officials with Experience Columbus, the city’s tourism agency, said they routinely host visitors from the West Coast who remark about the Wexner Center for the Arts and the Columbus Museum of Art.
Rents have soared to an average of $3,700 a month in San Francisco, compared with about $1,000 in Columbus, according to apartment websites that track the data nationwide.
The median home value has increased in the Bay Area to nearly $930,000, compared with Columbus’ median value of just under $140,000, according to the American Community Survey.
Nearly everything cheaper in Columbus:
Uber or Lyft rides are about half the cost from Downtown to the airport.
Movie tickets range from $23 to $25 in San Francisco, compared with $12 to $16 in Columbus.
Tacos are almost $1 cheaper in Columbus. Gas is $2 cheaper per gallon.
Joanna Arenstein, 37, agrees. The Bexley, Ohio, native moved to San Francisco after college and often posts pictures of the city’s beautiful sunsets on Instagram. is
“I want to gloat about the 60-degree weather we’re having in California,” she posted on Facebook in January. “But I have to remind myself that while those in the Midwest have sub-zero temperatures, they also have moneyintheir401(k)anda mortgage on a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house that costs less than a monthly parking space out here.”
“I say I am from Columbus with pride,” she said last week. “What I love about Columbus is it is a progressive city with a large gay population and is so accepting of people of all backgrounds.”