LincolnKennedy

^I have to agree with C-Dawg and jmeck on this one. I'm not trying to insult anyone, but honestly, I don't understand what on earth a journalism school is for. At least if you are simply trying to be a newspaper reporter. Six months on the job should be all the experience one needs. When I graduated from college in the winter of 2000 and came back to Cincinnati, I called a guy my dad knew who worked at The Enquirer to see if there was a possibility to get a job there. He said that basically they would never hire me without either first having gone to journalism school or having worked at one of those Community Presses, like the Eastern Hills Journal. I had made the call because it sounded like it might be fun and I actually enjoy copy-editing. I wasn't set on being a journalist for a career, I hadn't done anything yet with my life but go to school. But it seemed a bit ridiculous to me that people I had graduated with would be quickly snapped up by big New York investment banking firms or government agencies like the NSA or CIA but I wasn't qualified to watch a trial and write what happened, after which I might ask a few people some questions. Ridiculous. It reminds me of a quote I once read from some old Irish journalist at The New York Times in the eighties, "Did you ever notice how everyone here graduated from Harvard, Columbia and Mount St. Mary's College in Maryland?"

The Enquirer is owned by the Gannett Company, originally of Rochester, NY and now headquartered in Northern Virginia. Their biggest newspaper is USA Today, but they also own a number of city papers throughout the country, including The Indianapolis Star, The Courier-Journal (Louisville), and The Arizona Republic (Phoenix). They also own a number of local television stations as well. It's always been a bit of a mystery as to why The Enquirer takes such a conspicuously anti-city, anti-downtown stance. The most egregious example of this was their "comparison" some months back between Cincinnati's dead downtown and Indianapolis' thriving downtown. The biggest difference between the two, The Enquirer noted, was that Indianapolis had nearly 20,000 downtown residents. The Enquirer did mention somewhere in the middle of the article that The Enquirer was taking each city's definition of their downtown as the areas of comparison, and therefore they were comparing a 0.8 square mile in Cincinnati with a 3.5 square mile section of Indianapolis. Why this didn't strike the editors as a strange method of comparison, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised that the reason the newspaper business is slipping is because newspapers are owned by these faceless corporations that have no interest in the municipalities they serve except to draw revenue from advertisements. There is a huge disconnect between what these type of publishers expect to get out of the paper and what the readership expects to get out. The fact that they have become a natural monopoly doesn't help anyone. In between these two groups lie the professional reporters/editors, who dream of the days of The Front Page and attempt to live their dreams of influence through the limited opportunities that exist in the newspaper world. The Enquirer, for some reason, seems to have become a backwater that catches the pettiest and most bitter of these people.

I'm not a huge fan of the ranch-style home, but it looks extremely tasteful and organic compared to that monstrosity they are going to build in its place.

Anyone else digging that stone bridge over the lake in Lincoln Park?

The Washington City Paper (which is/was like Cincinnati's City Beat but a whole lot better, with real investigative reporting) had a great article on the development of the Washington D.C. Metro system (this article was from the late '90's). In short the Washington Metro came about in lieu of the highway system tearing through the capital as it did in so many U.S. cities. If you take a look at the configuration, or live in Washington and try to use the damn thing to get around, you'll notice that it is pretty much built to bring commuters in from outside the city into downtown D.C., the area where the offices of the federal government are concentrated. The folks who pushed for a subway in lieu of a interstate highway were a combination of preservationists and neighborhood activists. The fact that Georgetown doesn't have a Metro stop had more to do with the desire to preserve the Eighteenth Century village character of the place than to "keep out riff-raff". Obviously the high-end clothing stores and numerous bars on M Street currently draw the riff-raff in regardless. There also may have been some legitimate routing issues that I'm not aware of. Unless they built a tunnel that went west on M and then up Wisconsin, a subway tunnel simply paralleling the Potomac on the Maryland side isn't going to hit areas of dense population, even today. I doubt whether it would have in the seventies. Another interesting feature of the transportation history of Georgetown is that there is an elevated parkway that runs the entire length of the neighborhood, right into Washington Circle. If the Whitehurst Parkway were in Cincinnati, we'd be complaining how it cut off the rest of the city from river, and how it was the cause of a myriad of troubles, whereas in Georgetown, the shadows it casts merely obscure the faces of the freshman using their fake ID's to drink at Chadwick's. Also interesting to note is that the Whitehurst Parkway was built in the 30's when Georgetown was a run down area of DC and only just beginning to be refurbished.

Dixie Terminal? Not south of FWW but so tempting, with possible entrances on both 4th and 3rd Streets.

Ohio comes in at an impressive 5th place with the most headquarters of Fortune 500 companies (after New York, Texas, California and Illinois): http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/states/OH.html The dominance of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus shows in these rankings, but Ohio has a good amount of these corporate headquarters distributed throughout the state, particularly when compared with states like New York, Illinois or Georgia.

^This is good to know. I think it is important that when we build any public transit we do so with the intention that it will be used heavily in the future. Jake, do you have any pictures of the Wasson line from Edwards on through Xavier? I think the Oasis up the river onto the Wasson line is a pretty good ROW for a light rail line. Of course, we'll have to re-route the potheads and mountain bikers who use that bridge in Ault Park.

I doubt Berding was involved in any negotiations between the Bengals and the County, vis-a-vis the stadium deal. He did organize and run the campaign to get the stadium sales tax passed. That's why he has his job with the Bengals. Handicapping the current race: 1- Bortz © 2- Cranley (D) 3- Cole (D) 4- Cooper (D) 5- Winburn ® 6- Ghiz/Fischer ® 7- Thomas (D) 8- Berding (D) 9- Crowley/Harris (D) The above order is just a guess, though I'm pretty confident I will win and place with those picks. I don't think the Republicans are able to hold more than two spots on council anymore. Winburn's presence will bump the milquetoast Monzel off council. Ghiz is an egotistical, grandstanding moron- I'd love to see her go. This Fischer character looks like the return of Pat DeWine. Let's hope he's more intelligent than DeWine was, and that he replaces Ghiz on council. Cooper doesn't bring anything new to the table, but she was a pretty impressive vote-getter on old councils, which is why I ranked her as high as I did. If we end up with this council, the mayoral-aligned majority will most likely be: Bortz-Thomas-Cole-Crowley/Harris-Cooper, with Cranley and Berding as potential alternates or a 6th vote.

I've worked with Berding personally, and found him to be a douchebag. Though he's intelligent. I'd be skeptical of his development policies, if he really even has any. Remember, this guy works for Mike Brown. If anyone can get Brown to agree to help the city/county on the Banks project, it is this man. That will be his real test.

The sad thing is that I have the exact same pair of white golf pants and dark khaki Members Only jacket that "John" is sporting in the clip. The boys HBO really did their research.

^The clip was absurd, but for some reason I really enjoyed it. And it seems that this TV show is about surfing, from what I have read (primarily the review on Slate.com).

The preferred alignment has the streetcar running no further south than 2nd Street I believe, so its time frame is independent of the Banks project.

The silver lining of all these delays with the Banks project is that the streetcar gets built and well established before anything happens at the Banks, which in turn leads to development there that is more urban and transit oriented (getting rid of the ridiculous amount of surface parking the most recent plan called for), and therefore the supporting parking garages are devoted solely to be city/county owned capitalist revenue generators, leading to money in the municipal bank account and world peace.

Well, one certainly doesn't pay a higher percentage of income taxes if you live in Hyde Park or Mt. Lookout. Of course, since people in these neighborhoods tend to have higher incomes than others, and since these neighborhoods contain very desirable properties (and therefore one might find more persons here who work outside the city but choose to live in it); these two factor may result in HP and MtL generating more income tax per capita than other primarily residential neighborhoods in the city. But since the property values are greater in these neighborhoods than most, and since both of these neighborhoods are almost entirely built out (e.g. no new construction) and therefore the properties therein do not qualify for tax abatements that other high value property in the city may, then relatively speaking, yes the residents of these two neighborhoods tend to pay more in property taxes than others. You asked two different questions, one about income tax specifically and another about taxes in general, so I decided to respond to both.

Where would one find these old plans?

Man, I wish I had known about this in time for dmerkow's bachelor party. It would have completed the humiliation. Knowing three foreign languages isn't really going to do much for you unless you need to know three foreign languages. The definition of what constitutes a quality school is open for discussion, though this probably isn't the place for it. I don't know what you mean when you say that SCPA and Walnut, "drain the city of it's smart and creative students, leaving the rest to struggle and decay." It makes no sense, and how do you justify this statement? The economic prosperity of Atlanta is very much job specific. I have friends who are lawyers in both Atlanta and in Cincinnati, they make the same money, but the lawyers in Cincinnati can afford better houses, nicer cars, lower general cost of living, etc. They may spend more money to fly direct, and there are certainly fewer interesting restaurants in Cincinnati, but basically they are more prosperous. This doesn't hold in every case, but is relative to one's job and the socio-economic status under which one was born. Regarding the tangents that occur in these threads, aside from posting news stories that reference downtown, the heading seems broad enough to include many topics of discussion that influence downtown without specifically mentioning it. Public education, and the examples of specific schools seem to fall under that category. Or should we only speak of Taft High School on this thread?

My dad, a St. X grad, said essentially the same thing, that the school changed when they stopped having the scholastics (priests in training) manning the faculty. Without this essentially free faculty, costs rose. But I also believe that with the rise of confessional choice, and the stigma against Catholics that disappeared pretty quickly after the 60s, leadership of the school made a conscious decision to market the school as a premier private school, a la Cincinnati Country Day, etc. St. X has some pretty strong alumni loyalty, guys who give a lot of money, money that could go into keeping the tuition down. But then again, why not make those who can afford it pay the full rate? That's why Harvard does it. But you can't help but losing something of value to gain that type of liquidity. I can't say that this has been my experience. I know a lot of guys who went to X, and all but one of them were from the East Side of town (coincidentally, that one was from Batesville, IN). Definitely knew plenty of guys who went to X from the Hyde Park/Mt. Lookout area.

The point I was trying to make was that the whole idea that middle class or wealthy folks move to the suburbs for better schools is patently ridiculous. CPS offers more diverse programs than any other school district in the area- if your concerned about the best approach for teaching your child, CPS offers the most choice. But middle class and wealthy people move out of the city because they can get more house for their money, or to be closer to their jobs, etc. I suppose I was digging on the Catholic school system when I mentioned that Walnut Hills requires and offers more Latin than any Catholic school. So yes, it does make Walnut Hills better than St. X, and by your own standards. St. Xavier has a lot to offer the adolescent boy, particularly by providing an environment that encourages the more erratic youngster to discipline and apply oneself to their education. It is a very good school. But you've correctly criticized it in your statement above. The Catholic Church is certainly one for instruction they consider supremely relevent and timeless, and the Ratio Studiorum as created by the Jesuits is a good guide to that. The fact that after 1980 the school dropped portions of it's curriculum that were once considered essential belies the fact that St. X has changed its original purpose and become merely a home for the wealthy. It's incredible tuition increase over a similar time frame gives support to that fact.

^You know those things actually produce more methane than buses?

^Ed Rothenburg and the McRothenburg group are a joke. These are COAST guys, if not officially, than their fellow travelers. You probably were the only person watching. Also, I thought Pasadena, California was the City of Roses, not Portland.

I have to say that I think there is a vast potential downtown housing market. The property values of Prospect Hill are indicative of that potential. The streetcar will greatly facilitate this development in OTR. It is absurd to believe that a 19th century neighborhood can maintain it's fabric if it's residents are required to own a car. The "superior schools" arguments for the suburbs has always been something of a smokescreen- Cincinnati Public has always had more cutting edge programs (Montessori, Paidiea, Arts, Foreign Language, IB) than any other local public district. You can study Latin for more years at Walnut Hills than you can in the Catholic school system. When people move to the suburbs, it's primarily because they can get more house for their money, or to be closer to their job. And with house sizes growing while lot sizes are shrinking I don't see the "need a yard for the kids" argument holding much water. People don't garden recreationally like they used to. I'm cautiously optimistic.

^I think the answer to that question should be somewhere in the previous pages in this thread. If not, Cramer could probably tell you. It's amazing how many people enjoy repeating cliches simply to have something to add to the conversation (I try to limit my baseless pontificating to conversations about the Reds and Bengals). These cliches are extremely frustrating at times, particularly in this case. One should definitely call these people out, but by remaining calm and seeming to be in charge of the facts can do wonders for your credibility and great damage to their own, even in their own minds. Smile like your somewhat amused by their naivete. When you tell these people that the majority of that money went to fixing the parking garage, don't forget to add that the Fountain Square garage is one of the biggest revenue streams for the City. You can also round out the lecture with something snarky but true, such as, "When you spend money on something that creates revenue, it's called an investment. It's what smart managers do to win ballgames."

^If you think Atlantic Station is "completely out of touch with the fabric of the rest of the city" then you don't know Atlanta. It's a little bit of Buckhead west of Midtown. There are plenty of reasons not to like Atlantic Station (and I understand what you mean by saying that it is contrived, though I think using the word contrived to complain about a massive brownfield development is a bit silly. What hell else is it supposed to be like?) but those reasons are the fabric of the city of Atlanta. Atlantic Station is perfectly representative of the type of successful development that gets Atlanta such adjectives as as hip, happening or exemplary. I don't think it is what we should build at the Banks, though.

^If there is going to be a sticking point, this will be it. And don't expect any favors from the Brown family, unless you happen to be sitting in a luxury box with PB II and are just fiending for a hit of sweet chiba. Reliable second hand info.