edale

Did you go to Miami University? All of their campus maps show North to the right and I have a pet theory that it has skewed all of their students away from the typical North-is-up mindset. No I did not. The first orientation of the map just aligns more with my mental map of the park. Probably because I’ve always lived east of 71, and my approach to Clifton and Burnet Woods usually was from the east. Plus, the Ludlow side of the park is the “front” of the park, so having it at the “back” in the north pointing map is disorienting for me.

^ I find that orientation much more confusing for some reason.

Cranley does no favors to downtown, but he is not the reason Cincinnati isn't performing as well as Austin or Nashville. First of all, almost no cities are performing as well as those two are right now. They're going through extreme periods of growth- the likes of which Cincinnati hasn't seen since its very early days. Is Nashville booming because of bike lanes? It doesn't have any transit to speak of, and neither does Austin. Sure, downtown Cincinnati should be growing at a faster clip, and the issues with the streetcar should have been ironed out long ago (at least the quick fix ones, though I think there are some big flaws with the design of the system, too). But these things are not the reason for the under-performance of the region. Nashville struck gold with its music tourism industry. It became a hot place for people from the coasts, especially creative types, to relocate to. Because of this, it got an incredible amount of buzz and publicity, which only made its tourism industry further grow. Austin was a sleepy, weird alternative to the other big Texas cities and all of a sudden took off to become a nascent giant. Texas as a state is growing extremely fast, and Austin has been able to capture, if not drive, a lot of that growth. They had some success stories with tech companies and Whole Foods, and like Columbus, they have the huge state university + state capital thing going for it. But I don't think there was one single factor that led to Austin's seemingly over night success. I think Austin, Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta, Phoenix, etc. are growing fast primarily due to the large population shifts that have been underway in this country for a very long time. People move to the South and West for cheap housing, better weather, and a new start. Austin and Nashville just happen to be the boomtowns de jour. In earlier decades it was Dallas and Atlanta. These cities are all doing some great things, but they didn't magically create growth, just like Cincinnati can't. Last point. As far as stifling downtown development projects, I think the story of the most recent downtown tower projects speaks way more to the reality of the situation than the Cranley boogeyman theories. Skyhouse had to walk away from their project because they just couldn't get the development to pencil out. 4th and Race is having a hell of a time getting built because the market economics just aren't favorable here. Whether it's high labor costs, high material costs, conservative lenders, low expected rents...whatever, Cincinnati appears to be a challenging market for high rise development. A project that receives $5.5 million in city subsidy and STILL can't get off the ground (4th and Race) is a bad sign. I don't fault Cranley for not throwing insane amount of subsidy at these projects, IF he is supportive of offering smaller subsidies to a greater range of projects. When I think about the state of the city now, you have neighborhoods that are finally starting to turn around in a meaningful way. Walnut Hills, Madisonville, Westwood, College Hill, hell, even Evanston are all showing new signs of life. OTR continues to redevelop at a pretty fast pace, too. The city needs more than just downtown to be stable if it wants to grow, and I think we are finally seeing that. I would love to see Cranley get out of the way more. Fix the low hanging streetcar issues. Stop spending money on stupid shit like interchanges no one needs or wants. Implement a sensible parking reform for basin neighborhoods. But I really don't see him being the total hindrance to Cincinnati becoming Nashville and Austin style boomtowns.

Nah, you can't blame decades of decline on Cranley, as easy and tempting as it may be. The issue of why some cities decline while others thrive is so complicated and requires such a comprehensive understanding of municipal history and economics. It really can't be explained in a single message board post.

^ Not if spaces are sold off to developers of nearby projects. I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of totally getting rid of parking requirements in the absence of any real mass transit*. I agree with others who desire a real parking study to be completed before any moves are made here. There are plenty of ways to solve parking problems, but you have to really understand the problems first. *please don't say the streetcar. It is not mass transit.

I think the city, in conjunction with 3CDC, should be looking at sites to build more parking garages in OTR to satisfy residential demand. It's unpractical for each building to have its own on-site parking, but it seems like relaxing the on-site requirements to allow for more off site parking would be a sensible solution for alleviating parking shortages. Making most of the streets with commercial development be metered would better serve visitors, and it would allow for the city to collect more revenue this way, although I admit that should not be a primary concern when evaluating parking needs. It seems like residents, many of whom might not use their car frequently anyway, would be better served by having off-street garage parking. I am still kind of perplexed why the OTR community shot down the dense garage and apartment plan at 15th and Race, as a garage here would have probably allowed for much faster redevelopment of the surrounding buildings. Now, that site is home to only a handful of townhomes (plus a modest number of apartments now under construction), and is served by surface parking. Yet the defeat of that parking garage is seen as a win by the community, it seems.

Columbus is a hot market. Something else will come around. Given the hideous project Kaufaman produced by Columbus Commons, I'd be thankful that they walked away from this project. Especially with that proposed black building. That might look decent in renderings, but I bet it would look terrible in actuality.

I actually like one way streets as a pedestrian. When you're crossing, you only have to look one way. Jay-walking is extremely common in Downtown Cincinnati because you don't have to travel far to get to the other side, and you only have to worry about traffic from one direction. I know the argument is normally that two way traffic is better for pedestrians, but in a downtown environment, I'm not so sure. The one ways in places like Walnut Hills are awful because cars really do speed through and treat it like a freeway. Downtown has small block sizes (which is more important to the pedestrian experience than street width, imo) and each intersection has a traffic light, so cars are constantly stopping. It's very rare to be able to go more than a couple blocks downtown without hitting a red. I believe the streetcar has exposed this point well... Perhaps this discussion could be moved to a different thread? I think it's very interesting, but yeah, doesn't have much to do with homelessness.

Hm, I guess this is a situation where we will need to agree to disagree. The streets in Cleveland felt very wide to me on each of my visits. The sidewalks are also wider. I do appreciate that Euclid has a median and dedicated transit lanes, and the median does help to break up the street a bit, just like the Central Parkway median does. But overall, Cleveland's downtown streets feel much too wide, and I've never felt that about the majority of Downtown Cincinnati streets. You think E 9th feels like less of a highway than Vine St.?! E. 9th: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5037838,-81.6898234,3a,75y,311.06h,88.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4QhoPqOr-wtfb8GKX0koPA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Vine: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1000906,-84.5126913,3a,75y,346.25h,91.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2sW3v4SYIUYvEOU4nLySRQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 I'd say 4th St is just as much of a "main street' for downtown as anything, and you simply don't see anything like this in downtown Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus, Indy, etc: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1001607,-84.5113619,3a,75y,274h,94.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sX5a54n9C_-XCdkWl_yBQSw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Isn't that just normal? The further back you are away from the blockage (bus, stopped car turning left) the more time you have to react and get over to get around it. If you're right behind the blockage, you normally just have to wait for it to go away, or for there to be a lull in other cars going around on the right. I know I wouldn't just let someone over in that situation...maybe I'm an asshole driver, but I always thought that was just the way it goes. Part of the reason why I tend to stay in the right lane when there are no left turn lanes. Also, it is funny how individual regions and cities have their own unofficial rules of the road. One of my early roommates in LA was a born and raised Angeleno and had never lived anywhere else. He thought it was an actual traffic law that 2 cars got to turn left when the light turns red. I always operated under the understanding that if you're waiting to turn left and in the intersection, you can complete the turn if the light turns red. Here, it's at least 2 cars, and often 3 that make this turn. Just happens literally all the time, and with the amount of traffic here, it's often the only way you can make a left turn. I guess I could see how someone who has spent their whole life here would think that 2 cars turning left on red was a legit traffic rule, but it's still funny to me.

Street widths are absolutely not a problem in Downtown Cincinnati. There are a few stretches that need to be improved and narrowed, such as the aforementioned 2nd and 3rd on the riverfront, and 5th over by P&G, but most of Cincinnati has very narrow streets for a midwestern city. I think most Cincinnati streets feel about right sized downtown. Certainly better than the huge wide streets found in Cleveland or Detroit, or even the big wide streets of LA or San Diego. People are happy to live on Madison or Erie in Hyde Park and Oakley, both of which are busier and wider than most downtown streets. Hell, even the new residential building in Columbia Tusculum that is literally built adjacent to Columbia Parkway is a popular place to live, and they charge high rents! The problem with parts of downtown is the inactivity and the dead zones that are created by surface lots, parking garages, and institutional users (library, courthouse, etc.).

In the case of San Francisco, unless a business was ready to leave the West Coast entirely, they couldn't really move to another urban location to avoid the homeless. Across the bay in Oakland, the homeless situation is just as bad. Same with LA, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle. It's just a part of life out here. It is interesting to hear about this apparent spike in homelessness in Cincinnati, though. It's often claimed here in California that the high housing costs are directly related to the homeless population. But if a market with just about the lowest housing costs in the country is also experiencing a spike, it would seem to discredit this argument. In Cincy, I would bet any spike in homelessness could at least partially be blamed on the heroin/opioid epidemic. Cincinnati seems to be about ground zero for that stuff, so all the junkies who lose their jobs and housing in SW Ohio, and large parts of Kentucky and Indiana make their way to the streets of downtown Cincinnati. I also wonder about the demolition and relocation of the drop inn center, and if that has resulted in more homeless on the streets.

I wonder if this spring’s floods forced a lot of the homeless out of the riverfront camps and into downtown.

In like '02 I was sitting in the top section of the Shoemaker Center reading the program and minding my business during the halftime show of a UC basketball game when I suddenly got hit in the face with a t-shirt shot out of one of those cannon things. I had no idea they could reach the upper decks. Anyways, it was a UC themed cheddar mett t-shirt lol. That's as close as I've ever gotten to a cheddar mett.

I assumed it was sudden death overtime in the World Cup, and shamefully fell asleep after Croatia scored the header in OT! The only way I could get the game was on Telemundo, so I had it on mute and just closed my eyes after the goal, thus missing the dramatic comeback goal from Russia and the PKs, of course.

All sports rely on a certain amount of luck. Here's an infamous play from a last minute loss the Bengals experienced at the hands of the Broncos where a pass got tipped and ended up landing in another Bronco player's hands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I74BG0YFKUc.

^Amazing! Ask and ye shall receive for real! Looking at the map now. Wow, the entire West side is completely red outside of Cincinnati city limits, 1 district from Green Twp., and 2 in Colerain. The core blue area is the city and the diverse northern central burbs, as one would expect. But Blue Ash, much of Montgomery, Mariemont, part of Symmes Twp. are also blue, which aligns with my perception of these areas, but appear to be outliers given the rest of the county map. It's also interesting that both Norwood and St. Bernard went red despite being totally surrounded by city neighborhoods that went heavily blue, again aligning with my perceptions of those areas.

Does anyone know if there is a map that shows how the various communities in Hamilton County voted in the 2016 election? I think it would be endlessly fascinating to see how different neighborhoods voted in the red/blue/purple map that they use for counties and states. The New York Times has a map of Ohio that shows how each county voted, but I can't seem to find anything more detailed.

^ That is most definitely true. I used to sneak up to visit friends at UD when I was in high school, and I managed to make it up a few times in college, too. It's a pretty crazy environment there, and you can reliably count on just going from party to party all throughout the neighborhood, basically all night. UC does have a little party neighborhood kind of over where the frat houses are, and yeah there are a few bars, but its campus party scene is pretty weak, too, especially compared to OU and UD. Xavier, however, literally has like zero nightlife. I had plenty of friends who went to Xavier, and they all commented that it was super boring around campus, so they tended to go out other places in the city. With Uber and Lyft, it does make it much easier to get around. No more waiting on a sketchy corner in Norwood for some equally sketchy cab to pick you up an hour and a half after you called.

Xavier is still pretty tiny, and is about half the total size of University of Dayton. I think comparison between the schools is superficial at best, and probably stems from the basketball rivalry of the two schools. Dayton has a much larger research presence, an engineering school, law school, etc. I think it's great that XU has grown its profile in recent years, but it still has such a small impact on Cincinnati. There is no real student neighborhood with the amenities (bars, restaurants, coffee shops, retail outlets) one would associate with a major university. The campus is basically one linear stretch, and is very insular with nothing much to see from the street. I'm glad it exists in Cincinnati, but I wish it would be more like a UD and less like a Mount St. Joe.

Not having any restaurants isn't suiting anyone- yuppies included. Again, the neighborhood isn't just losing the nightlife, it's losing its business district entirely. :-/

I'm not as optimistic, I guess. I lived in Mt. Adams for 3.5 years before moving away from Cincy, and even in that time, I saw the vitality of the neighborhood decline pretty significantly. It'd be one thing if the neighborhood was just losing nightlife, but it's losing everything. Teak, a Mt. Adams staple, is closed. The Rookwood, which had a pretty decent menu and was a destination type of place following Rookwood Pottery's closing, is gone. The Celestial is now closed. Sprout, which was another pretty nice (non-bar) restaurant, closed pretty soon after opening. Maybe current residents are happy with just having a UDF, a couple bars, and the Bow Tie Cafe (I'm shocked they're still in business, actually), but it's pretty sad to see so many closures. The renovation of the old church next to Towne's headquarters into an event center was a positive development, and I suppose turning the Celestial into an event center is better than it sitting vacant, but I would love to see that space return to a real restaurant. I believe the Playhouse in the Park is renovating and expanding, so if they can bring more people into the neighborhood, that might help things as well. Mt. Adams really needs to try to grow its population, and increase transit linkages to downtown. There was a big new building proposed for...Elsinore? Somewhere on the western side of the hill. Any word on whether that is proceeding? There isn't much space for Mt. Adams to grow, but that site would provide a nice big boost, I think. I know there are also $million+ townhomes going in on the front/downtown facing side of Mt. Adams, but I think that's only like 8-10 new townhomes total.

I hope it can be renovated and turned back into a nice restaurant. It has such a great view, and Mt. Adams could use a few good restaurants, especially given the recent closures.

I'm curious to learn of the methodology, too. I think Cincinnati and Pittsburgh probably benefit from having huge swaths of densely forested hillsides. I don't think of Cleveland as being particularly void of trees...

^ Idk why you keep making the same argument about state capitals not making a difference in the trajectory of a city by showing that there are states with small capital cities. Obviously having a state capital in isolation is not going to make a city into a boom town. Same thing with a large university. But these huge institutions certainly help the economy of wherever they are. What would Jefferson City, MO be without the capital? Probably just like any of the other dying small towns that litter Missouri. When you add in a capital to an already sizable city, it certainly makes sense that it would help sustain the city through periods of economic downturn, and help to support other, ancillary industries. Is much of Columbus' current growth the result of it being a state capital? No. Has being the capital helped Columbus over the years? Undoubtedly yes.