Columbus' growth comes with challenges. We went to another Boomtown - Austin - to seek solutions. Take a behind-the-scenes look at our visit in this 10TV+ original. 10tv.com/boomtown
yes, it's going to get more expensive, once the high-tech-companies start operation aka more people = more demand = same supply = higher prices = more traffic jams
Having just moved to Georgetown (next to Round Rock) I will say that the preference to widen already wide highways further and build elaborate interchanges instead of investing in mass transit is a HUGE problem if you live outside of Austin: you just can't get anywhere without driving. There was a study to build a commuter train between Georgetown and Austin, they spent $21M on the study, and then ditched it and decided to pour more funds in Hwy 35. Even now when they talk about building a high speed rail system it's between Austin -> San Antonio -> Monterrey, MX, but nothing north of Austin? There is a small commuter railway that runs up to Leander from Austin but that's it. Southbound from Austin their best effort is to build a rapid bus system (????) to some of the newer neighborhoods and the airport. But most of the housing is being build north of Austin I think. Georgetown is the fastest growing city in America (supposedly) but there's no bus or rail system to be found and there's no talk about building that. There isn't even a shuttle bus to the airport AFAIK which is something we did have in Marin Cty, CA (and so does Sonoma Cty and probably others).
Columbus is already ahead of Austin in terms of highway infrastructure. I also am willing to bet that Columbus didn't have some of the same, widespread NIMBYism as Austin does, which for the longest time was anti-density and the city council put all kinds of restrictions on new homes built within the city limits.
Another downfall of Columbus is the new airport terminal, if Austin & Columbus are going to be compared to each other. Columbus (CMH) new terminal will only add a handful of additional gates & be able to handle 13.5M passengers. In 2014, Austin-Bergstrom Int'l. Airport had 10.7M passengers. Last year, Austin had over 22M passengers & included 8 foreign airlines. If Columbus is expecting to be the boomtown like Austion, CMH will be obsolete fairly fast.
Columbus may currently have a leading high growth rate but it does not have the largest population gains in the nation. Google search showed Columbus metro with 950,000 residents in 1990 and 1,727,000 residents in 2024. Dallas Fort Worth had a much larger increase in population from 3,8 in 1990 to 8.4 million during this same time period. Austin metro had 465,290 in 1990 and 2,274,000 in 2024.
