Columbus
Designed as state capital compromise in 1812; now Midwest's fastest-growing metro. Intel's $28B 'Silicon Heartland' fab largest Ohio deal ever. Institutions beat factories.
Columbus exists because it was designed to exist. Unlike Cleveland or Cincinnati, which grew organically at natural advantages, Columbus was planted on blank prairie in 1812 by a state legislature tired of capital cities fighting. Ohio's General Assembly accepted land from speculators on the 'high banks' of the Scioto River precisely because the location was in the state's center—equidistant from established interests, beholden to none. The first lots sold on June 18, 1812, the same day the War of 1812 began. Columbus was a compromise made manifest.
That manufactured origin proved to be a feature, not a bug. While Cleveland, Detroit, and other lakefront cities tied their fates to industrial monocultures—steel, automobiles, refineries—Columbus built its economy on institutions: state government, Ohio State University (1870), and the insurance companies that followed. These anchors didn't prevent booms, but they prevented busts. Columbus never experienced the catastrophic deindustrialization that hollowed out its northern neighbors.
Now the pattern accelerates. Columbus was the fastest-growing Midwest metro from 2010 to 2020, and its 1.38% growth rate outpaces Denver, Seattle, and Washington D.C. Regional GDP has jumped from $110 billion to $180 billion in a decade. Intel's $28 billion semiconductor fab—the largest economic development deal in Ohio history—christens the area 'Silicon Heartland.' JPMorgan Chase operates its second-largest global hub here. Honda and LG are building a $3.5 billion battery plant. Tech investments total $54 billion.
The contrast with Cleveland is instructive: Cleveland built factories; Columbus built institutions. Cleveland's peak came in the 1950s; Columbus's is happening now. At 915,427 people, it's the second-largest city in the Midwest, trailing only Chicago. Nine of the ten fastest-growing large metros are in the Sunbelt—Columbus is the Midwest's only representative.
By 2026, Columbus tests whether deliberate design beats organic evolution. The city was created as a political compromise; it's thriving as an economic one. State capital plus flagship university plus geographic centrality produces a stability that purpose-built industrial cities couldn't match. Sometimes the planted tree outlives the forest.