Growth spurt will require precise planning, analysts predict

Flying cars never took off. Humans haven’t colonized the moon. Hoverboards that fly high in the air still haven’t materialized outside the big screen. We'll forgive the prognosticators of the past for missing the mark. Predicting the future is tricky business.

But as central Ohio lights the fuse for a population explosion, it’s important to anticipate the effects of that growth. We wonder what that will mean for neighborhoods. What will the Columbus skyline look like in 20 years? Will most cars drive themselves?

We asked city leaders, futurists and neighborhood experts to gaze into their crystal balls, and some common predictions emerged.

The city's skyline will continue reaching toward the clouds, and the parking lots and other empty spaces between existing developments will continue to disappear as more people populate the city center.

Suburban evolution will be watched closely. Living far from the urban core, once reserved for the affluent, might become the affordable alternative to living in the city, where home prices have risen steadily in the past two decades.

Our steering wheels are likely to disappear — eventually. Autonomous vehicles are an inevitable symbol of a transportation revolution that is very real and which experts believe could revolve around Columbus.

Automation also could wipe out many low-skill jobs, potentially setting up the city for an employment crisis among low-wage workers.

Many of the city’s struggling neighborhoods likely will emerge from decades of population loss and economic turmoil. While they rise, though, others could fall.

Columbus and the seven-county metro area are getting bigger, and signs indicate the growth will only accelerate. Columbus already has bumped out Indianapolis to become the second biggest city in the Midwest, and it now is 14th largest in the nation, the latest census estimates show.

“The exciting part of the next 20 years is how we’re going to thrust ourselves into the top tier of big cities in America, but doing it our way," Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said.