natininja

With a couple more flights added from Delta, CMH will be their newest "hub".

^ I think I see the Cincy streetcar slipping off one of those rocks into the sea. Well, at least we might get a few weeks' use out of it, before reality 'splodes.

WARNING: :evil:

Not sure where to put this...

You don't have to make a sphere, you do need a hierarchy of priorities (or spheres, I guess, but together they cover the whole planet...and Mars. :D). Cincy > Ohio > 200-mile radius > Various cities I like > general America > American city/state I don't like > Western Europe > Eastern Europe > Japan > ... And that hierarchy can vary by product, current events, mood, etc. It can also be overruled by other influences at any level, of course.

It wouldn't be too cool to be a resident of North Coast, would it? With Cincy and Cbus in Sohio, there would be no strong economies left to bring home the bacon.

No, you don't have to pick a level. For example, if I'm in a bar in Cincinnati, and they have Christian Moerlein, I'll likely get that. If they don't, but they have Great Lakes, I'll likely get that. If they don't have either of those, in all likelihood, I will end up with a foreign brew. In that case, familiarity will win out over something outside the target region. But that doesn't have to be the case (if there's a beer I've never heard of from, say, somewhere within a couple hundred miles, or from a place I've been that I enjoy). I almost never buy mainstream American beers. Their flavor overrules the "local" utility. Proximity is a constant factor, as are political boundaries, in decision making. The further away, or even the less familiar, the weaker the weight on the decision. To say you have to pick a specific boundary simply doesn't make sense. (There are also political influences -- I'd be less likely to buy a brew from Texas/Wyoming/China than California/Washington/Germany.)

It's not just shipping costs, but also emissions. I agree it's not the be-all end-all of decision making, but I think it deserves a reasonably heavy weight.

I think of Cincinnati :evil: Nah, I think of Cassano's Pizza. Yummmm, wish I had some now. I also think of the airport and the Wright Bros. and the Dayton Air Show I used to go to as a kid. And really just various memories of times I've been there.

I don't disagree with you necessarily, but you sort of gloss over the distributional/geographical implications of economic evolution. Clearly this evolution has benefited some regions while others have declined. So it's not clear why, if I shouldn't care that economic dislocation is harming my region, that I should care that the country overall is "substantially better off for it". In my mind, this points to the practical political limits of Liberal (or libertarian) economics as national policy. Should I have any parochial interests at all? Should I not care about future US economic decline if I see it lifting more Chinese workers out of poverty? I think those are respectable positions but hard to sell politically. Is it even respectable, when you see that China is so indifferent towards workers' rights, pollution, etc. They also artificially devalue their currency to make their products cheap for export... They don't play fairly.

Death of manufacturing and death of the robust manufacturing workforce are two different things. The rote jobs have been co-opted by machines and outsourcing, whereas the "skilled"/"creative" jobs are alive and well. Free market principles and globalization killed the robust workforce, along with technology. Technology and globalism are scary, job-killing forces (technically, globalism is job-spreading). Once we have reached a critical mass of efficiency through machines and outsourcing, how many people are going to be able to afford to have the machines working for them, instead of against them? What will the working class do? Perhaps natural resources needed to run the machines will be a limiting factor, but even that is a frightening scenario. I fear that what's happened to Cleveland is a sign of things to come, on a much grander scale. Perhaps Western Europe, with its declining populations, will be at an advantage once they recover from the likely collapse of their welfare states. China could go either way, given their enormous population on one hand and their one-child rule on the other.

^ I'd almost be more worried about greater West Chester doing that.

Didn't you bring your boombox up there so you could blast Avril Lavigne? ;-)

New Orleans has less jobs and jobs growth than Houston, but I would rather model my city after New Orleans. Sorry to burst your one-dimensional fiscal conservative bubble.

If Dayton were to get it first, I would suspect it's due to Cincy's topographical challenges. Cincy seems to have issues with all these rail projects, due to the hills. Expense, complicated engineering, etc. One of Cincy's greatest assets, which also happens to be one of its greatest challenges.

I'm saying that just looking at the numbers is not a good way of picking a city whose policy you want to emulate. That holds generally, but specifically I was focusing on the fact that the numbers will not instantly tell you whether a city has any flavor. And the policies of a successful numerically, but flavorless city may not be the best policies to follow, lest you run the risk of losing the flavor you have. I agree, but aspiring to be like Houston just to foster a business-friendly environment seems, to me, ill-advised. It's also sunbelt, has oil off its coast, yada yada...yeah, they're not a great comparison. I suppose it's interesting, though. It's certainly a different perspective than your standard city-enthusiast would give, but that doesn't necessarily make it very useful. It doesn't necessarily make it not useful either, I guess.

The glorification of Houston really shows why many of these ideas are backwards... If all you're looking for is growing the city and attracting business by any means necessary, some of this stuff might work. But in following this formula, you just might become soulless, like Houston. IMO, a smaller city with a soul is better than a bustling metropolis with none.

You would love New Orleans for that. I agree with that, but I don't agree with refusing to call uncivil behavior "uncivil". I understand people act in many ways for many reasons. For example, lots of people are deprived of love and affirmation, and it leads them to act out in selfish ways. While patience and a degree of tolerance is called for, acceptance is not. Ultimately, people must be accountable for their own actions, and I do think almost everyone knows when they are doing something they shouldn't -- even if they are more or less primed to behave in a certain way, they still make that choice. I'm glad you did what you did at Tucker's; that takes special skill. I probably would have, on the one hand, felt guilty that I'd offended the guy, and on the other hand reassured myself that I didn't do anything wrong. And just leave it to that internal struggle. My difficulty in dealing with this type of situation is one reason why I gave up on teaching as a profession. I struggle with expressing empathy to someone who may not be open to accepting it.

^ I'm sorry, but using 'ghetto' to imply a high-crime area is colloquially accepted across all ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic divides that I am aware of. I realize that's not the original/literal meaning of the word, but it is used that way, across the board. You might make a case that the way this evolved is morally suspect, but I think it's a jump to accuse someone using the word in this way of being morally suspect.

Jim, have you ever driven down the street only to have some pedestrian mosey their way across the street in front of you (not at a crosswalk), forcing you to go from regular speed to an almost complete stop? I have, lots of times (people of all races). It especially happens in "ghetto" areas. It's not the same as quickly running across, so you make it out of the way before you inconvenience a motorist too much. It's a calculated "eff you, I'm important...for this one moment" gesture. Given the context of how edale was describing the scene, I find it hard to read "walking across the street in front of traffic" the way you are reading it. I also find it hard to believe that you would want to defend such rude (and dangerous) behavior. I do understand that you want to defend your neighborhood, though. And I also understand that some people have irrational fears/issues with minority areas. But I don't think you've been appropriately charitable in your interpretation of what edale originally posted. (While I see it reasonable to take issue with some of it, I think the traffic issue is exceptionally poignant and indefensible.)

Louise Nippert, whose husband Louis Nippert was the grandson of James Gamble, is the one who donated the house to Greenacres Foundation. I believe she is the head of the Board, nominally, but she is something like 98 years old. So it seems this Carter Randolph dude runs the show, and he's a pretty unsavory character.

Agreed. I know lots of blacks who are quite in touch with their "blackness" who would not approve of or identify with some of the behavior you described. They aren't all rich, either.

Ah, there are lots. Here's someone's blog which has a list: http://www.zettaphile.com/2010/03/02/list-of-cities-vying-for-googles-gigabit-project/ And here's a link to Cincy's Facebook page(s): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=300695942946 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cincinnati-Ohio/GOOGLENATI-Google-Fiber-for-Cincinnati/10150147963400355?ref=mf#!/pages/Cincinnati-Ohio/GOOGLENATI-Google-Fiber-for-Cincinnati/10150147963400355?v=wall&ref=mf :evil:

Why would they choose JC over Manh? No sense there. I guess maybe ease of installation, but then Dayton wins by a mile. What are the cities in the running? (I guess I could look that up... :P) Edit: Okay, I see, anybody can have a go at it. Does anyone know if there are other pitches made like the one for Dayton? It's hard to imagine anyone one-upping that; it's really freaking good.

IMO, CVG should more or less be written off as a major asset to the city. If it had to happen, though, this is not a terrible time. Air travel is becoming less and less convenient, so having the hub is becoming less valuable. Something needs to give, though, if the country is turning away from air travel. It's been discussed here that airlines should embrace rail travel as a complement to air travel (particularly since the shorter flights (i.e. those trips best suited for trains) are the harshest on an airline's budget). I wonder if any rail advocates are lobbying for using airports as locations for start-up high speed rail stations? Airports are removed from their cities, so obtaining ROW is likely to be a much easier endeavor than starting in the inner-city. Once there is an established vein between, say, CVG-IND-ORD, extensions to Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago could be constructed at a leisurely pace.