Size Matters

Hazel Morrow-Jones is a professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State University. She conducted the study with a student, surveying residents of the outer reaches of Columbus.

Jim Wieker writes, "Crime, school quality and traffic matter but not as much as one might think.

"People have told us they were not leaving the central city because of the schools; the rating they gave the schools is largely the same that suburban households give when they leave," [Morrow-Jones] said.

But in both cases they do leave, and, through time, the pattern is clear: Homeowners leave the central city for the suburbs, and they leave the inner suburbs for the outer ones."