kendall

Wow, a great look at the city! Very thorough thread. And I'm jealous of your rail transit! Cincinnati should be embarrassed for not having any.

Fantastic paint jobs!

I would look to age distribution statistics first...

Wow! Thanks for the photos, I haven't been by there in a while. Let's hope this project spurs investment in the surrounding existing housing stock.

Check that last line. It is unreasonable to expect a center city in a midsize region to contribute to a region's overall population growth when it has no greenfields to build on. Even generating that statistic is an insult to intelligent discourse. I would say the city of Cincinnati's contribution to regional growth is almost 100%. That is, if Cincinnati had never been, you better believe almost nobody would be living in Liberty Twp., Mason, etc. To disparage an aged, landlocked city for not growing is the product of flawed reasoning and a feeble mind. But that's what I've come to expect from Wendell Cox.

And here I always thought mixed-use meant that the different uses were in the same building. I agree with the above comments, this is junk. I just don't see why anyone would consider this a good thing, except the developer.

Ahh, the power of LEDs. They should rig it up so the color can change with the musical act on the square.

Wow, sometimes it takes a fresh eye to get the best angles.

Morton's is at Tower Place and has been for a decade. There's no news here. Read both of the articles announcing the restaurants, they are going to be new to this area and one will be new to the midwest.

I can assure you that birth control is not widely used in my neighborhood.

Broadway Commons. I haven't decided if I'm kidding or not...

Isn't the Ollie's Trolley in Covington still in an actual trolley?

Best introduction ever. Welcome!

I've never listened to Cunningham, but I do see the local news from time to time and it's not pretty. It's an inane, lowest-common-denominator trough of "news" that feeds the vicious cycle of fear and blows negative news way out of proportion. I've overheard people who I know live in the suburbs who actually think there is a chance they are going to get shot if they come to Cincinnati! That is so utterly, outrageously blown out of proportion. Maybe a few murders a year are random and they aren't going down in the neighborhoods or at the times of day that any suburbanite is going to be conducting legitimate business. People are so much more likely to randomly die in a traffic accident on the freeway than to get shot in Cincinnati, yet you don't see our media outlets fomenting a ridiculous hatred of the freeways.

The insurance redlining in Detroit (and apparently Hamtramck) is unreal. The insurance companies claim its because the theft rate is high, but even policies that don't cover theft are 3-5x what they are in the suburbs.

I wonder how many of the people leaving have: (1) been personally affected by this violence; (2) seen or heard this violence occur; or (3) directly known a person affected by this violence.

That actually could be a plus for downtown. Hmm... Saks, Tiffany, Brooks Brothers, Contemporary Galleries, contemporary gifts (CAC gift shop, Metronation), persian rugs, handmade hats, Cappel's costumes, a classy dinner, and a shoe shine come to mind.

In a few weeks I will be celebrating my second anniversary of living in OTR. The only thing that bothers me about living here is the uninformed drivel about the neighborhood that belches forth from the gaping maws of overfed and under-exercised suburbanites. I want to tell them that I lived more on my walk to work this morning than they have all week. But they wouldn't understand, because to them living is watching American Idol and griping about traffic. My point is this: OTR has a future, but it is not in catering to chain-worshiping, car-oriented suburbanite cogs. There are a lot of people in this town that are capable of appreciating a walkable city neighborhood full of variety; people for whom OTR is *this close* to being within their comfort zone. I applaud the efforts of Michael and others who are dedicated to making OTR the phenomenal neighborhood that it can be.

Is this an article about income segregation or the dwindling middle class? Rich and poor people living in the same neighborhood does not make it a "middle class" neighborhood. Middle class people make middle class neighborhoods. So if middle class neighborhoods are disappearing, then would that mean the middle class is disappearing as well. Or is the author using the term "middle class neighborhood" to mean those that are not highly segregated by income.

Did the cop issue you a citation? Did the cop say you are responsible for paying damage to the other car, or just your own? Yep, Kaldi's is still here.

Just to set the record straight about NoTL with respect to nightlife: add Funnybone, Shadowbox Cabaret, Tropicana's red hot bar scene. There's Bar Louie, and now Jefferson Hall. Across the street: Arnie's, Hofbrauhaus, Southgate House. By my count, that's five bars, movie theatre, stand-up comedy, and sketch comedy, plus a great live music venue.

You walk in on a Saturday, write a check for, say, $175, and they'll give you $150 in cash. They'll hold your check until the next Friday and deposit it then. When you fill out the paperwork, Truth in Lending laws require that they show you what that fee is, in terms of an APR, and they often work out to being 500%+; but that's deceptive - it's not an APR, because interest doesn't continue to accrue on the debt at that rate. It's a fee. If your check bounces, and you don't pay it back for a year, you're not going to have to pay back $750 or something - they'll collect $175 on you. Your "effective APR" has dropped below 17% - that's better than a lot of credit cards. So the consumer is informed of the effective APR - how many of them understand what that means, that I don't know. But really, it doesn't matter - I'm sure they fully understand that they're writing a $175 check, and they're walking out of there with $150 in cash. That's very straightforward. It's a straightforward ripoff. There must be a lot of ignorant suckers out there to keep these places proliferating.

I wonder what kind of cut these places take when you cash a check. Most banks offer some kind of no-fee checking account these days, and they will cash your check for free. I'm willing to bet these places make most of their revenue from "payday" loans, though. The effective interest rates on those can be 200% a year or more, though I'm sure the average customer has no informed idea.

I can vouch for that Buick.

Yeah, that was me. I would have posted the article, but I couldn't find it online. I think Urban Sites put the reporter in contact with us. They got a couple details wrong, such as the square footage (it's really only 1,050, not 1,959) and the building is Italianate (not Federal). And they said we moved here in 2004, when I moved here in 2003.