Lake Darby is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Franklin County, Ohio, United States, located mostly in Prairie Township and partly in Brown Township. It is more commonly known among locals as Darby Estates, which is also the name of the older housing development there, with the newer development called "West Point". As of the 2020 census, the CDP had a population of 4,731.
Geography
Lake Darby is located in western Franklin County. The majority of the community is in Prairie Township, with two portions extending north into Brown Township. Big Darby Creek, a tributary of the Scioto River, forms the western border of the CDP as well as the Franklin County/Madison County line. The village of West Jefferson lies directly across the creek from Lake Darby.
U.S. Route 40 (National Road), a four-lane highway, forms the southern edge of the community, leading east to downtown Columbus and west to Springfield, Ohio.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the Lake Darby CDP has a total area of , of which is land and , or 1.15%, is water.
Namesake
thumb|Map of the proposed reservoir
While the origins of its name are speculative, it can be inferred what Lake Darby was named for. In 1967, The Columbus Dispatch published an article about how the City of Columbus had plans to purchase nearly 4,000 acres of land near Big Darby Creek to build a reservoir. With Lake Darby beginning construction sometime in the mid-to-late 1960s, it can be presumed that the neighborhood took its namesake from the proposed reservoir. The reservoir, however, was never built. Environmental concerns and other factors caused the project to be abandoned by the Army Core of Engineers sometime in the 1970s. Despite the project being fully abandoned, the residential neighborhood never had its name changed.
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, the median age was 33.5 years. 30.6% of residents were under the age of 18 and 7.6% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 96.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 97.8 males age 18 and over.
90.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 10.0% lived in rural areas.
There were 1,534 households in Lake Darby, of which 47.5% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 65.2% were married-couple households, 11.9% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 15.8% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 12.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 3.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.