Scioto Mile began to develop along the riverbank, an area that already had the Miranova Corporate Center and The Condominiums at North Bank Park. The average age in the city was 31.2 years. The city's population by age comprised 23.2% of residents under the age of 18, 14% between the ages of 18 and 24, 32.3% between 25 and 44, 21.8% between 45 and 64, and 8.6% of those aged 65 or older. The gender composition of the city was 48.8% male and 51.2% of women.
North Market, a public market and dining room, is located in the center of the city, near Short North. It is the only public market left of the four original Columbus markets. Biographical museums include the Thurber House (which documents the life of cartoonist James Thurber), the Jack Nicklaus Museum (which documents the golfer's career, located on the OSU campus) and the Kelton House Museum and Garden, the latter of which is a historic house-museum commemorating three generations of the Kelton family, the use of the house as a documented station on the underground railroad, and Victorian life in general. Other notable museums in the city include the Central Ohio Fire Museum, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, and the Ohio Museum of Crafts. Columbus is home to many performing arts institutions, such as the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Opera Columbus, BalletMet Columbus, the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, CATCO, the Columbus Children's Theater, Shadowbox Live, and the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.
Throughout the summer, the Columbus Actors Theater offers free performances of Shakespeare plays in an outdoor amphitheater in Schiller Park, in the historic German Quarter. Columbus's annual festivities include the Ohio State Fair, one of the largest state fairs in the country, as well as the Columbus Arts Festival and the Jazz & Rib Fest, which are held on the riverfront in the center of the city. During the first weekend of June, bars in Columbus' North Market District host the Park Street Festival, which attracts thousands of visitors to a massive party in bars and in the Street. On the penultimate weekend of June, one of the largest gay pride parades in the Midwest, Columbus Pride, is held, reflecting the city's sizeable gay population. During the last weekend of June, Goodale Park hosts the ComFest (short for Community Festival), an immense three-day music festival that is touted as the largest non-commercial festival in the United States.
The Greek Festival of the United States is celebrated in August or September at the Greek Orthodox church in the center of the city. The Hot Times Community Arts & Music Festival, a celebration of music, arts, food and diversity, is held every year in the Olde neighborhood Towne East. The Juneteenth Ohio Festival is held every year in Franklin Park on Father's Day weekend. Founded by Mustafaa Shabaz, Juneteenth Ohio is one of the largest African-American festivals in the United States, including three full days of music, food, dance and entertainment by local and national recording artists.
The festival celebrates Father's Day, in honor of local parents. During Memorial Day weekend, the Asian Festival is held in Franklin Park. Hundreds of restaurants, vendors and companies open stalls and traditional music is played, martial arts are performed and cultural exhibitions are organized. The Jazz & Rib Fest is a free event held downtown every July and features jazz artists such as Randy Weston, D.
Bohannon Clark and Wayne Shorter, as well as rib vendors from around the country. As the capital of Ohio and the county seat, Columbus is home to numerous federal, state, county and municipal government offices and courts. Franklin County operates the Franklin County Government Center, a complex on the southern edge of downtown Columbus. The center includes the municipal county court, the Common Appeals Court, the correctional center, the juvenile detention center, and the sheriff's office. Suburbs have their own districts, which usually serve students from one or more municipalities, and districts sometimes cross municipal boundaries.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus also manages several parochial elementary and secondary schools. The second largest school district in the area is South-Western City Schools, which covers southwestern Franklin County and includes a portion of Columbus itself. Other parts of Columbus are zoned in the Dublin, New Albany-Plain, Westerville, and Worthington school districts. There are several weekly and daily newspapers in Columbus and Central Ohio.
Columbus' main daily newspaper is The Columbus Dispatch. There are also newspapers specific to neighborhoods or suburbs, such as ThisWeek Community News from the Dispatch Printing Company, Columbus Messenger, Clintonville Spotlight, and Short North Gazette. The Lantern and 1870 serve the Ohio State University community. Alternative newspapers focused on arts, culture or politics include ALIVE (formerly the independent publication Columbus Alive and now owned by Columbus Dispatch), Columbus Free Press and Columbus Underground (in digital format only).
The city's magazines are The Columbus Magazine, CityScene, 614 Magazine and Columbus Monthly. However, the address system covers nearly all of Franklin County, and only a few older suburbs retain egocentric address systems. The address scale of 700 per mile brings addresses closer to 10,000 at the county borders, even if they usually don't reach them. Rickenbacker International Airport, in southern Franklin County, is a major cargo facility used by the Ohio Air National Guard.
Allegiant Air offers a non-stop service from Rickenbacker to Florida destinations. Ohio State University's Don Scott Airport and Bolton Field are other large general aviation facilities in the Columbus area. Columbus is known for its contributions to history, its many parks and shopping destinations. It's also home to the Ohio State Buckeyes, famous for their soccer and basketball.
Columbus is also famous for its food scene. Many popular chains started in Columbus, and the city is often a testing center for new dining concepts. The clay from the mound was used to make bricks in most of the city's initial brick buildings; many were later used in the Ohio House of Representatives. The Columbus Youth Ballet Academy was founded in the 1980s by dancer and artistic director Shir Lee Wu, a discovery by Martha Graham.
Columbus is home to one of the most competitive interuniversity programs in the country, the Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio State University. The Ohio State Capitol Building, the Ohio House of Representatives, is located in the center of the city, on Capitol Square. The metropolitan area is home to the Battelle Memorial Institute, the world's largest private research and development foundation; the Chemical Abstracts Service, the world's largest chemical information exchange center; and Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in the United States. The football game between Ohio State and Michigan (known colloquially as The Game) is the last game of the regular season and is played in November of each year, alternating between Columbus and Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Columbus is famous for having more than 20 stations that were part of the underground railroad in the mid-19th century. A protest was also held during the dedication of the replica of Santa María, an event that was held in late 1991, one day before Hispanic Heritage Day and in time for the Jubilee. Columbus will also have one of the first Professional Volleyball Federation teams, which is scheduled to open in February 2024. Thanks to its central location in Ohio and the abundance of one-way roads, nearly every destination in the state is a two-to-three-hour drive from Columbus. Columbus is the largest city in the United States that elects its general city council and not the districts.
