natininja

My favorite Ohio chain pizzas are Cincy's Adriatico's and Dayton's Cassano's. I like Donato's, but it's not nearly as good as those. Don't know any of the chains from up north. Or I might but I don't remember. I agree LaRosa's sucks. Their wings are decent, though. Or, actually, they used to be. Last time I had them, they had changed them. Hoping that was a one-off thing. Having spent a number of years living in the NYC area, I still like Cassano's and Adriatico's. They are unique enough not to suffer from comparison. (Good pizza is ubiquitous in NYC, but there is no monopoly on good pizza there, as some people somehow get in their heads...what a weird idea. I'm sure if some Cincinnati chili parlors opened in NYC (which they totally should!) someone would figure out a formula which would compare favorably to the best in Cincy.) Oh and I should give props to MTS or whoever it was that suggested Lou Malnati's in Chicago. I never enjoyed a Chicago-style pizza until I ate there and OMG it was amazing. And Nati is in the name which is pretty sweet too. After gorging myself with wayyy too much, I temporarily turned into the Malnatininja. Oh and for anyone who is interested but uninformed... Graeter's ice cream can be had in much of the country now. Check out their store locator.

^ Dude, that's awesome! :D I love that Bob never left Dayton. I know he's still writing tunes but I am reminiscing back to the days of Gentlemen and Bee Thousand. A very special time for local music!

^ Adriatico's!

Love GBV! When GBV and Afghan Whigs were both cranking out tunes, SWO had more indie cred than anywhere.

For sure. Me, too. Although it's theoretically possible to do the same level of research prior to going to the polls, in practice it doesn't happen for me. So I am a much better-informed voter when armed with an absentee ballot.

My understanding of FBCs is that they are supposed to make sure of just that, and leave basically everything else up to the architect/developer.

True, but those lazy jobless bums who vote Democratic will be more likely to vote if they can do it from their couches. Seriously, though, I'm not sure what the party breakdown is for early/absentee voting, but there are reasons to think it would help Democrats (e.g. it mitigates the effects of transportation difficulties, which is a bigger issue for Democratic-leaning demographics). There are also arguments to be made the other way, however, like white-collar workers having more opportunity to vote (though that also affects the ubiquitous "liberal elites"). In the end, this might be best explained as a symptom of indiscriminate Republican slash-and-burn tactics, the application of which seems to have extended well beyond budgets these days.

I wouldn't deliver to you two either.

^ Hard to believe you would be surprised by that. Everyone knows turnout favors Democrats, so partisanship dictates that Republicans should support any legal avenue for voter suppression. That's cynicism on their part, not mine.

I love the Enquirer's link from the main page: What a complete mischaracterization of Qualls's proposal! "Shouldn't have to provide parking" would be accurate.

Bingo, bingo, bingo!!!! Here you sound like Henry George. Or Don Shoup.

this is just basic libertarianism You know we won't be happy with just that. Where are the parking maximums?

^^ For some reason, they picked this spot. I'm sure they looked at many alternatives. I doubt they're picking the spot just for the fun of experiencing negotiation and/or litigation. On the bright side, it seems with the CAF renderings released, the Enquirer is no longer running pictures of 100+-year-old streetcars. Could help significantly in changing people's perspectives of the project.

It sucks when it is used for private gain. I know someone who lost two parcels for an arena project, one which had a cool historic building which was subsequently demolished, the lot given to a private company in the parking lot business either for nothing or a song. What was once a historic building is now a pay parking lot. The other parcel just sits vacant, a small portion of it was paved over for street widening. That is a poor use of eminent domain. Using eminent domain for a public transportation facility in a dense urban environment is appropriate use of eminent domain. Still, I hope an agreement is reached.

Just as a point of reference, eminent domain proceedings can take up to a year. This is a project schedule constraint. I'm sure they'd like to have the maintenance/car barn facility all ready to go ASAP, but that is not to say they couldn't find a temporary solution. The potential for a project delay with everything in place except for this facility seems incredibly remote to me. Operations are well over a year away, anyway, so it's encouraging that they're working on acquiring the space already. There's time. I am also familiar with a few cases of eminent domain, albeit not in Ohio, and it is very possible for the land to be taken and used prior to most of the court proceedings. The question is generally "how much should be paid for the property?", which can be figured out in retrospect.

City picks OTR as site for streetcar maintenance Written by Barry M. Horstman http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120416/NEWS/304160110/City-picks-OTR-site-streetcar-maintenance

Apparently the Community Streetcar Coalition is unaware of the Cincinnati Streetcar. Strange.

Matt, why do you think you're often the only one arguing from a certain side? I mean usually there are different camps including a few people on both sides. But it's a frequent occurrence that you're the only one arguing your points. Why do you think that is?

I do too but I don't take pictures of it.

lolwtf

My one complaint about that article is the pictures included. Why wouldn't they show more of 3CDC's finished work? The article does a good job of showing off the neighborhood and its progress, but the pictures really don't. Missed opportunity.

^ Haha, I am looking through the pics you have at http://www.sabbathtribute.com ... some silly stuff.

Probably there are some in Omaha. Maybe Des Moines.

^ Nice shooping.

It matters, because municipalities are economic entities, and are somewhat self-contained as such. According to your logic, Detroit was doing a-okay up until about 2000. I agree there is a huge difference between a city losing population with a stable or growing metro and a city losing population with a shrinking metro. However, it's silly to act like it doesn't matter that the city is losing population. If Cincinnati and Hamilton County are losing population while the metro gains, it also means the metro is becoming more sprawly, and sprawl is economically unsustainable. If the footprint of the MSA is growing at a faster rate than the population, we have a problem. And Cincinnati definitely qualifies for that description. If Cincinnati's tax base and per capita income is shrinking, we also have a problem. Regardless of a growing tax base or per capita income in the region.