Northland

Just east of I-71 along Morse Road within the I-270 outerbelt, Northland best known to Columbus residents as home to the now-defunct Northland Mall (open from 1964 to 2003) and Northland High School. Although the area is often grouped into the vague region of "North Columbus," Northland would be Ohio's eighth largest city were it to be incorporated. Some Northland neighborhoods have been transformed by immigrants. Once a mostly white and black working-class neighborhood, Northland now is multiethnic. The neighborhood is home to many of the 30,000 Somali refugees in Columbus, one of the largest concentrations in the United States. They're helping revive an area that became depressed after the Northland Mall, once one of the region's most successful, closed. The land has been purchased and will be redeveloped into a retail, residential, office and recreational complex.