Standing out among Columbus’ multiple crises of identity is its refusal to make serious, accurate comparisons with any other cities anywhere: not in Ohio, the US Midwest, the US, North America, the world. This is a certain form of urban or place blindness, amnesia, and/or pathology—chose your metaphor and analogy. In other words, an unwillingness, even inability to find itself and therefore to develop and grow fully, responsibility, and honestly with respect to its human and physical resources, possibilities and limits.
This requires admitting and accepting all contradictions, limitations as well as strengths. The most distinctive cities admit the problems frankly. Most have a public sense of humor. Pittsburgh, for example, was long the pothole capital of the U.S. That is no longer the case. A local candy manufacturer now sells Pittsburgh Pothole Filler, an attractive box of popcorn dipped in delicious dark chocolate. Buckeyes, chocolate or plain, do not compare.
All knowledge including self-knowledge is comparative. Columbus’ willful blindness imprisons it.
