Columbus

[updated september 2024]

SO, roomiematch.com's Columbus roommate rundown:

Columbus is where many Americans meet. About a million converging right there in the center of Ohio.

It's where the Rust Belt, the Bible Belt, the Farm Belt, and Appalachia intersect - and equidistant from several other nearby cities, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Pittsburgh.

Columbus is the capital of Ohio and hosts The Ohio Supercomputer Center, among the top 10 academic centers for computing.

All this proximity plus opportunity mean Columbus also hosts one of the nation's largest college student bodies at Ohio State University, Ohio's largest university. Go Buckeyes! (That's about 37 varsity teams, all encouraging "Buckeye fever.")

Most of Columbus mostly drives a car. There is a bus service (COTA) and a bike share (CoGo) but frequent reliance on both could turn into a time suck. While campus and downtown are walkable, most of the rest are mostly driving. You'll want to as well unless you really never leave campus and downtown.

Parking is abundant, but towing is notoriously aggressive, so never leave your car anywhere you're not allowed or it'll likely go on another drive without you.

Try not to drive anywhere near a home OSU football game, unless you actually are trying to tailgate.

And no U-turning anywhere ever!

The rest of the Columbus roommate lowdown:

• crime rate is fairly low
• along the Scioto River, 4 small rivers run through the city
• summers are warm and humid, fog is common - winters both rainy and snowy, sometimes severe, with lightning, hail, and occasional tornadoes, while blizzards and ice storms are less common
• diverse economy with recent urban revitalization
• citizens better educated than national average
• home to College of Art & Design, Denison University, Mount Carmel College of Nursing, Ohio Dominican College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Capital University, Franklin University, Otterbein College, and Ohio State University
• hosts a lot of museums: Columbus Museum of Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio History Connection, Ohio History Center, Columbus Historical Society, Orton Geological Museum, the Thurber House, the Central Ohio Fire Museum, and the National Veterans Memorial and Museum

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience Columbus's:

• North Market: Shopping mall meets supermarket meets food truck = no one leaves hungry
• Columbus Arts Festival: Huge event on the riverfront in June
• Columbus Jazz and Rib Fest: Great food and music for about half a million people downtown every July
• Italian Village: Near downtown, prominent Italian-American community since the 1890s
• Columbus Metropolitan Library: With more than 3 million items, it's one of the largest, most used and highest ranked libraries in the country
• Franklin Park Conservatory: Over 400 species of plants in a large greenhouse. Biomes include mountain, desert, and rain forest. Opened in 1895!
• Columbus Park of Roses: 13 acres with thousands of blooms
• Jeni's Ice Cream: Flagship location of James Beard Award-winning gourmet ice creamery
• Ohio Roller Derby: Competes internationally in Women's Flat Track Derby Association

Here's the city of Columbus's official .gov for Housing & Renters' Programs.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.


7.   From hoodmaps.com: a collaborative map where residents use tags describing social situations you're likely to find. Other users can thumb up or down, so the largest tags have been thumbed up the most.