Eigth and State

I don't have the answer to that. If anyone did, we would be able to solve the problems of the world!

The answer isn't spreading out the poverty, concentrating the poverty, or moving the poverty to a different community. The answer is <b>reducing</b> the poverty. Of course, the best strategy for reducing poverty is debatable, but it is fairly clear that subsidizing poverty is a step in the wrong direction.

It is unquestionable that public housing coorelates with lots of social problems. The usual disclaimer, of course, is that not all public housing tenants are bad, but there are more bad ones in public housing than in the general population. The distinction has to be made whether one is trying to help people, or trying to help a place. If you want to help a person, your best chance might be to get him out of the failed neighborhood that he is currently in and move him to a community that will give him some support. Kids growing up in broken families in failed school districts don't have much of a chance, and moving those kids to a successful school district might just give him a better chance at life. Young men living in a neighborhood with no jobs don't have much of a chance of improvement, and moving them to a more successful neighborhood might give him more opportunities. The flip side is that crime, poverty, drugs, etc. are bad for communities. If you want to increase the average health, income, and prosperity of a community, one way to do it is to exclude the lowest percentile. I know of a school that is having trouble meeting the state proficiency test standards just because the kids from a single section 8 apartment complex are scoring so low on the test that it brings the average down significantly, to the point of the school acquiring a bad reputation. So, a strategy for improvement is to exclude those members from the community, or, prevent them from joining the community in the first place. The feds are trying to help people, or at least that's their stated goal. The locals in Green Township are trying to help a place.

Randy, thanks for the Portland photos on the other thread. That's what I was trying to say about 100 pages back. ;)

The Licking is navigatable about 6 miles up. It is not uncommon to see a tow entering or exiting the licking. During tall stacks, the Coast Guard cleared the way for a tow exiting the Licking. A very large private yacht ignored the warning and there was almost a collision - the yacht had to gun it to get out of the way. Another thing that's neat to see is a tow making a 360 in the river. Sometimes this can be seen from Mt. Echo park. I heard that a drawback to those LED streetlights is that they don't get hot enough to melt snow and ice in the winter.

My grandfather told me that the trawlers sometimes came off the wire by themselves, and especially on the trackless trollies when they strayed too far away from the wire. The trolley would be stuck there, and a truck would have to be dispached to push them back online.

^Looks like that Wal*mart still has pretty big footprint. The only difference is that the parking lot is stacked on top of the store. I went to Wal*mart the other day. I shop there infrequently. It seems that the foot traffic near the entrance rivals the traffic in many urban areas. Also, the Wal*mart I went to has an indoor "street" with storefronts including McDonalds, so geometrically it's not so different from a traditional urban area. If it wasn't for the huge parking lot, Wal*mart wouldn't be so bad.

The tower and surrounding plaza sort of resembles the former World Trade Center in New York City on a much smaller scale and without being surrounded by more skyscrapers. I had the chance to visit Frankfort for just a few hours on a business trip and the difference in the street life between the plaza and the traditional urban areas was remarkable. When I was there, there were a few people on the plaza. I went during the workday about 2:00. Sherman, what time were these photos taken?

Wow, I guess that finally got started. I remember when they were doing planning work for that back in the 1990's. By the way, a SPUI was considered for that interchange. One of the drawbacks of a SPUI is that it does not offer much relief in the event of an accident. A single fender-bender in the middle of the intersection can tie up the whole interchange, and even back traffic up on I-75. Considering that Mitchel already carries a lot of traffic, the interchange is perhaps the most congested spot in the whole local highway system except for perhaps the Brent Spence Bridge, and since the geometry wasn't too favorable, it was probably a wise decision not to use the SPUI. I'm a bit disappointed that we are still spending so much on highways. Part of the problem is that Mitchel carries so much local traffic anyway, and there are not any good alternate routes. Interstates are like rivers; you can only cross at the bridges. There are no good crossings in the vicinity of Mitchell; Ludlow Viaduct has a bottleneck at Knowlton's Corner, Clifton is very steep, and Vine is pretty far away. The only way to cross I-75 is at Mitchel. I have wondered what a second crossing of I-75 would do for traffic ON I-75, since the Mitchel traffic affects the interstate.

What's going on at I-75 near Mitchel? Trees are being cleared on both sides of the highway. Is this in preparation for a widening project?

I thought that people changing behaviors was a factor in economic expansion or contraction. If a man lands a good job, buys a more expensive car, takes more trips and dines out more often, then that is economic expansion. If he loses his job, keeps his car as long as it will run, travels less and cooks at home more often, then that is economic contraction.

^ I don't know the answer to that question but I think that new construction is definitely easier to measure, since most new construction requires building permits. Just send a correspondant to the building department in each county in the country and ask how many new permits were issued. I don't know if any allowance is made for the value of the construction. Like the other indicators, construction is just a very general index of economic activity.

^ The immigration policy of the United States was wide open until about 1905. Prior to that, any person of any nationality could come here. Nowadays, legal immigration is restricted. So, instead of hiring cheap Chinese labor to work our factories, our factories have moved to China. Keeping the cheap labor out has caused the average income in the United States to go up, but the number of working class families in cities has gone down. So, there is less demand for cheap housing, less demand for public transportation, and fewer opportunities for Urban Ohio forumers to photograph ethnic neighborhoods. I saw a TV campaign ad the other day promoting even more restriction on legal immigration. "Legal immigrants are taking our jobs," it said. So, I don't expect our immigration policy to become more liberal. The United States as a whole would be losing population if it wasn't for immigrants and the children of immigrants. Most of the population growth is in the border states of Florida, Texas, and California.

Like watching a tree grow, some changes are so imperceptibly small that they are hardly noticed, but over the long term the changes are huge. For a given population, would you rather live in a society where you are expected to live to be only 40 but there are lots of young people, or would you rather live in a society with a life expentancy of 90 but you are surrounded by old people for your whole life? Ohio used to be the former but is shifting toward the latter.

At least we ranked fourth in infrastructure and transportation.

You didn't mention the concept of pedestrian - only plazas. When I was in Frankfort, I remembered a National Geographic article from about 1970 about the future of transportation. One of the schools of thought at that time was that automobile and pedestrian traffic should be grade-separated. There was a concept in the magazine that resembles the situation in Franfort. Essentially what they did was to bridge over the streets with a plaza. It is easy to walk around, and pedestrian connections to the surrounding area are not bad, but in this case they simply made the plaza too big, and they followed through with boxing up all the office space in a skyscraper instead of a traditional street with storefronts. Brodie Plaza at the University of Cincinnati follows the same concept. Brodie has been improved by better pedestrian connections on one side and by using up some of the space with landscaping.

If it's bigger than the city I grew up in, it's a big city. If it's smaller than the city I grew up in, it's a small city or a town.

Sorry, I forgot about Christ Hospital.

So, when is it going to be finished? :-D I asked a buddy of mine what he thought of the tower as we were passing by. He told me that he was glad that Cincinnati has a new tower, although it may be too much office space for downtown, and with all that steel exposed it just doesn't look finished.

Thanks KJP. That was helpful. So here is the Megabus company offering service from Cincinnati to Chicago with just one stop in Indianapolis, and it is growing in popularity. It is clear that the demand is there. Is there any hope that Amtrak will ever offer service between Cincinnati and Chicago at convenient times and reasonably fast?

Unfortunately, the Cardinal is not very useful to Ohioans in the Cincinnati area. meanwhile, the Megabus route to Chicago seems to be doing well so far. I know, "Never send a bus to do a train's job," but the bus seems to be winning hands down. It looks like an opportunity to improve Amtrak's performance, but I don't know enough about the operation to tell if it is a good idea or not.

^Most campaign donations come from business interests that support some particular issue or a political party in general. For example, Mike Brown supported the stadium tax campaign because the stadium project was favarable to his business, the Bengals. Business people think of campaign donations as investments. A handful of enthusiasts without business interest just can't afford it, unless they happen to be rich. Quite a few business interests think of the streetcar as a boondoggle that will lose money; therefore they do not support it. (They may be right or wrong). Logically, the streetcar support should come from the business interests that will benefit from it, which should obviously be the owners of land near the route. One would expect the Reds, Bengals, P&G, Kroger, Macy's, Over-the-Rhine property owners, and moving on to uptown, the University of Cincinnati main and hospital campuses, VA hospital, and Zoo to support it. So far, I just don't see support from these businesses, except Over-the-Rhine property owners. Noticeably absent is 3CDC. I can only conclude that either: 1. The business interests do not believe that it will be successful. 2. The business interests think that the streetcar itself will be successful, but that it will hinder rather then help their business. For example, if everyone rode the streetcar to the football game, then the Bengals would not be able to collect parking revenue. So, where is the support?

Hey KJP, could you take a break from railroad politics for a moment and take a question about railroad operations? Over the years, there has been talk of splitting the Cardinal route into two, which both routes terminating in Cincinnati. Apparently the Cardinal acts like two separate routes anyway from a rider's point of view, since most riders either go to Washington or Chicago from a point on either side of Cincinnati. There are very few through riders at Cincinnati. From where does the Cardinal operate now? Do they have facilities at both ends, or just one? If they did split the route, would they have to turn the trains at Cincinnati? Was the proposal to split the route taken seriously, or was it just a thought? Thank You.

I happened to be driving southbound on I-75 this morning, and I bailed off at Hopple Street when I saw the brake lights. You could just about see a wave of brake lights moving north as traffic backed up.

It seems that many ads on TV from an automobile manufacturer mentions gas mileage, even for luxery cars. Also, the emphasis on power seems to be dropping.