2LiveCarew

The first two comments to that article are maddening. "OH PLEASE," and then "probably because more people are leaving the city!" You can lead a horse to water. . .

http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance Cincinnati's 17th out of 30 in MLB, so that's not that bad. In the past few years, it's been consistently below the average marker, but not by THAT much, generally. http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2011 Dead last (32nd) last year in the NFL. But I think the Bengals' crap attendance last year had more to do with fans feeling crapped on by the Brown family (season tickets-wise). Historically (you can scroll back), it's been around the 20-23 marker, which isn't great, but it's not awful. I think "can't support two pro teams" is an overstatement, but yeah, the Bengals' attendance especially isn't great. But I do think that has more to do with the Bengals' (and the Brown family's) reputation than with a lack of enthusiasm for pro sports. Sorry if this is way too off topic.

I agree with a new arena, but one will really only make sense with a major tenant to gobble up a large chunk of the dates - an NHL or NBA team, in a perfect world. Metro Cincinnati's expanding population, not to mention the population within an hour's drive in Dayton and Lexington, should be enough to support such a franchise. Personally, I'd prefer the NHL since I think the NBA is mostly forgettable loser franchises with only about six or seven traditional winners to support the entire league. Even an MLS franchise is a possibility; it could play its home games at PBS. Seattle is wildly successful with the MLS Sounders playing in an NFL stadium. But how likely is it that the stadium deal allows the city to market PBS to an MLS team? You'd think that Mike Brown would have rights against that, and MB being MB he might decide to exercise them. Also, my concern about MLS/NHL teams in Cincinnati is that we're very, very close to Columbus, which has MLS and NHL teams itself. I guess the response is "but Indianapolis has an NFL team, and we have an NFL team, and Indy isn't really any further from Cincinnati than Columbus." I think there may be more of a sports fan overlap in the markets between Cincinnati and Columbus than there is between Cincinnati and Indianapolis, though. I could be wrong. With that said, I would die of happiness if Cincinnati got an MLS or NHL team.

Legislative intent matters to the interpretation of provisions of a bill. Statements by Chabot saying "this bans new funding for the streetcar" are worth pointing out here, in the unlikely event that COAST or others try to shut down Amtrak or something.

Alternatively, the bar on funding at the state level could be undone at some point--maybe by electing democrats, or less fervently anti-streetcar republicans. I do think that once the initial system is built, it will become much less of an issue to expand the thing. EDIT: by which I mean there will be less of an impetus for Chabot/others to insert lines like this into bills. But I'm not optimistic about unseating Chabot, given the gerrymandering.

So just to absolutely clarify here--none of this applies to the money that was already in the streetcar's budget? This is only a prospective loss of funding, i.e. funding that Cincinnati may have received pursuant to this transportation bill? A (poorly written) Enquirer op-ed suggests that it's otherwise: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120628/EDIT01/306280143/Streetcar-should-get-federal-funds?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s Anyone?

The use of buzzwords and catch-phrases like "streetcar to nowhere" belong on bumper stickers, and not in the mouths of elected leaders during Congressional proceedings. I'm just glad that this is prospective only.

Well, what Congress giveth, Congress taketh away (or rather what Congress taketh away by legislation, Congress can giveth back via legislation). It's not like this is a constitutional amendment. From what the user above quoted, it looks like it applies to this transportation bill, and ties the DOT's hands as to this one. But these are periodic bills, are they not?

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/28/u-s-house-bars-federal-money-for-streetcar/ US House Bars Federal Money For Streetcar ...does this have to do with the money that was ALREADY GRANTED and a part of the budget for the streetcar? Because if so, Chabot is never getting my vote again. Wow.

First of all, RIP to this girl, and it's a shitty thing that either she didn't get the help she needed, or that she rejected it. I'm not a smart enough man to apportion blame to her individually, to "the system," to her parents (or their absence), or to society at large (or to her killer, who is conspicuously absent from the blame allocation in the comments section of the article). I'll leave that to others. Second, the Enquirer is using (in at least one version of the article) a graphic with the streetcar route plotted against this murder location. That strikes me as gratuitous, arbitrary, and unwarranted. And it detracts from (and distracts from) what should be the focus of the article--this girl's life and death.

Nah, 107 Shillito Place is the name of an apartment complex (Garfield Tower is a bit north of it, I think--I looked at it at one point). http://www.shillitoplace.com/home.htm

Hey all, I'm relocating back to Cincy with my girlfriend, and am planning on living near 7th and Race (we both wanted to live in OTR, but we can't find anything available between mid-July and early August). Does anyone know the area/has lived nearby? What should I be expecting? Also, any thoughts/word on 107 Shillito Place as an apartment complex? Thanks, 2LiveCarew

Pretty glowing (but a bit superficial) assessment of The Banks/riverfront park/other development from the New York Times. Also, they put the initial streetcar line at 2.6 miles--I thought it was a bit longer than that, am I wrong? An Ohio River City Comes Back to its Shoreline CINCINNATI — The shoreline of this Ohio River city, which in the 19th century hummed with 30 steamboat visits a day but faded in the 20th as pollution and industrial disinvestment pushed people and businesses inland, is emerging again as a hub of civic and economic vitality. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/realestate/commercial/cincinnati-comes-back-to-its-ohio-river-shoreline.html

Totally agree with you. Which is why I don't lament the existence of (say) Toby Keith's at the Banks, or the fact that some bars in OTR may start attracting bros. A healthy urban Cincinnati will be attractive to more people than just fairly liberal-leaning young professionals, hipsters, and empty nesters. I might find [insert name of stereotyped class or group of possible resident or visitor] annoying, but it seems like you can't make a city attractive and inviting without making it attractive and inviting to almost everyone. The more the merrier.

This is really good news. (1) It suggests that the Banks/the Riverfront Park matter to Third Street a hell of a lot, especially to lower-to-the-ground or street-level space; (2) it will potentially start to fill up parts of PNC Tower, which if I recall correctly had a TON of office vacancy, which was part of what contributed to downtown's fairly high vacancy rate. Here's a view of what it looks like:

What an informative post. Thank you, Sherman Cahal. This is why UrbanOhio is a great website.

This is truly a grave problem for our city.

My girlfriend is a (brilliant) UChicago BA (2010) moving with me to Cincinnati in a month or two. Awesome GPA, blew the LSAT out of the water, but opted to not go to law school. She works as an analyst at a law firm, but is looking to switch to nonprofit or government if possible. If anyone knows of anything, definitely message me.

A nonprofit did a count of OTR's population in 2007, and put it at under 5,000 (compared to a 2000, pre-riots 7500 or so). The 2010 census put it at a bit under 7,000 I believe. So it looks like there's reason to think that OTR is gaining people, even if some black residents are leaving. OTR was really, REALLY vacant prior to 3CDC. I don't think there are a ton of families living there who stand to leave in the first place.

I'm not so worried about the long-term prospects of any individual restaurant/bar here (with the exception of maybe the Lager House, which I have a homeristic fondness for). The idea behind the Banks (or at least one of the ideas behind this phase) is to make it a nicer proposition for people to stick around downtown after Reds/Bengals games instead of driving back to the burbs. The idea seems to be to put on a nicer face to visitors (local, regional, national, whoever). I don't have to like what's actually there to like that SOMETHING is there that isn't an enormous pile of gravel and dirt. What would worry me is if restaurants/bars start systematically failing at the Banks, and if the whole project looks a bit like a ghost town eventually. People won't want to come downtown (to work, eat, drink, etc.) if it seems that way.

^Nothing is showing up for me... is there a link that I'm missing?

^It could probably be made more apples-to-apples by comparing murder rates for the metro areas, maybe? Or maybe the murder rate of Hamilton County to the murder rate of Columbus, since (I think, I might be wrong) that Columbus has annexed a bunch of suburbs while Cincinnati hasn't to the same extent.

How neatly do the census tracts in OTR track the actual borders of the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood? I know that in 2000 the Census placed OTR's population at 7,638. In 2007, a study commissioned by the City put it at 4,970 (see: http://www.uc.edu/cdc/urban_database/citywide_regional/cinti_drilldown_report.pdf). Can we figure out the actual population of OTR from these tracts, or is it an imperfect match? If not, does anyone have any idea what OTR's population numbers look like currently? I'm only interested because between, say, 1900 and 2000 it was 100 years of uniform decline, every single census period. It would be interesting if there was actually a rebound from 2007 to 2010.

I second mcadrenaline--I'd love to get involved. My girlfriend and I are moving to Cincinnati (hopefully to OTR, pending finding a good apartment) in June/July, and I'd be interested in whatever's available--picking up litter, sweeping, etc. Pending what my job commitments allow me to do, I'd also potentially be interested in doing pro bono legal work, or administrative stuff, or whatever, if an organization needed that. (Also, assuming I pass the bar--that would be nice.)