Columbus Connects

There is a new Face Book page that is highlighting things going on in our fair city

Columbus Connects - if you are a business or organization that wants to get word out send "whoever" a message and they will put it up.
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It's Customer Appreciation week at the Columbus Antique Mall!  Did you know that of the 1000 people that visit the mall each week, less then 10% are from Columbus?   
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I hear people complaining about all the empty store fronts downtown.  Guess how many are empty. I'll have the answer later.
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I've read perhaps 8 books and on small town Urbanolgy and the latest one lists Waterloo as one of the top 397 Agurb* towns in the U.S.  A town that embraces the 7 1/2 keys to success and quality of life.      

Agurb = a prospering rural town with a tie to agriculture and a location outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).  They have experienced growth in population and employment and have a per-capita income growing at more the 2% 

I have no idea how to pronounce that word

Waterloo is out gaining Columbus in population % in the last 12 years but not by much.  Waterloo grows at 1.94% a year while Columbus grows at 1.85% a year. Of course there is Sun Prairie where I hear people complaining about roads and tax's (I believe 95% of the U.S. population complain about roads and tax's) is growing at something like 4.1% a year which is too fast.

But I digress 

Did you know Columbus is 48.8% males and 51.2% females?  And the average age is 38.8 compared to the Wisconsin median age of 44.3?  We're actually a young town.

The median house or condo is $159,529 and the Wisconsin average is $166,700.

Our crime rate is at historic highs (well, for the last 12 years at least) for Columbus as of 2012 but still way way way below larger towns and not a worry in my book.

A fun toy I was playing with is a cost of living calculator.  If I made $50,000 and moved to Madison I would have to make $51,882 to have the same quality of life. $51,373 for Sun Prairie, $84,777 for New York. 

Looking at all sorts of towns, the smaller the community the less you have to make . . . .except Beaver Dam.  

I have no idea how this calculator works but it was fun until I got bored.  
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We all know I'm a chart and numbers geek and this one was interesting.  The average work week for a manufacturing job is 42 hours now.   This chart shows average work week length in manufacturing and what it was when "we" went into a recession. 

Does not look like we will be recessioning for a while. 

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How many empty store fronts?   Unofficially we have 50 stores that are occupied and 13 empty.  What we need is to occupy those 13 stores with something that draws people down town.

Have a great day

Rod