Eigth and State

"....it's time to try something new." Maybe you mean try something different, as good urban design is not a new concept. But you didn't answer the question of where the new residents are going to come from. "Most will be conceived on the streetcar." Well I may not agree with you, but at least it's an honest answer to the question! :fight:

The key word in "new residents" is "new." Change in population = births - deaths + immigrants - emigrants. In Ohio, births per year are decreasing, deaths are increasing, and numbers of immigrants and emigrants are about equal. Ohio population is nearly stagnant. The streetcar is not going to produce new people. It has to attract them. That means that they have to move from somewhere else. If the streetcar manages to attract young families, then all the better because young families produce more people. So, where are these people going to come from? Here are some possibilities. 1. Foreign Immigration. Quite frankly, this is where Portland has us beat. In the 1840's, Cincinnati attracted a lot of foreign immigrants. Today, most foreigners settle in New York, Miami, Chicago, LA., etc. Ohio is not known as a big immigration state. I can't imagine the streetcar attracting foreigners. Maybe an agressive advertising campaign in foreign countries might... 2. Domestic Immigration. The national trend is to move south and west. Cincinnati gets about an equal number of immigrants from Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and New York as Cincinnati loses to Atlanta, Phoenix, LA, etc. So, it's not a net gain. It's not just weather, either. A lot of jobs have also moved south and west. How can we get our Domestic Immigration up? Advertising, maybe. 3. Suburban transplants. Shifting 200,000 people from the Cincinnati metro suburbs to Over-the-Rhine and surrounding neighborhoods would certainly bring life back to the streets. Unfortunately, it will shift the blight to other parts of the metro area. It won't really save us anything in terms of infrastructure unless we actually dismantle the suburban infrastructure. I don't expect that to happen. 4. Natural increase. Well, take a look at Mt. Adams, which is perhaps the most successful neighborhood in Cincinnati. There are hardly any kids. Mt. Adams has to import people to maintain it's population. Ok, so maybe the streetcar will be so visible, and so "cool," that people will want to live here. In that way, the streetcar functions as advertising. Well, that's the same propaganda that the stadiums, the freedom center, the aronoff center, and other things were based on. Again, downtown and Over-the-Rhine are looking up, but it didn't help Cincinnati overall. So, Civvik, where do you think the new residents will come from? Your choices are foreign immigration, domestic immigration, suburban transplants, and natural increase.

In the old days, presidential election results were displayed in red and blue on a map of the United States. Nebraska is a red state, and Massachusetts is a blue state. By the time of the 1992 election, GIS and digital technology had advanced to the point where the election results could be displayed by COUNTY. For the first time ever, nearly the entire country was red, and the democrates won the election! The reason of course was that the populated counties weighted the same as rural counties. By 2000, the counties were shown in shades between red and blue, and the number of votes in each county was shown in the third dimension, height. Thus, most of the country was low-rise red, leaning purple toward cities, and the urban counties were blue skyscrapers. Thus, the popular vote could be visualized by volume: the democratic vote concentrated in cities, and the republican vote spread rather thin over a much wider area. Clearly, urban voters trend democratic, and rural voters trend republican. The conclusion is that rural (and suburban) republicans own land, they drive automobiles, they own firearms and have room to use them, and they are more independent. Urban democrats are more likely to live in multi-family buildings, ride transit, do not own firearms and don't have a need for them, and are more social. All of these conclusions are based on simple density.

Naw, if I was as optimistic as the rest, we wouldn't have anything to discuss. Although the pace of expansion is slowing, the Cincinnati metro is still expanding outward. Back in the 1840's, the Cincinnati metro was expanding, but since we had very strong foreign immigration, the density in the center didn't decline. In fact, it increased. Today, not only is the metro expanding, but we also have a barely growing, almost stagnant population. If current trends continue, in a few years we will have a declining population. Will Cincinnati, as a metro, began dismantling the infrastructure on the outer periphery, encouraging more concentration of population in the core? Probably not. In fact, I expect them to continue expanding. This is not a good trend for the streetcar. In my humble opinion, the streetcar will bring a higher rate of return in Portland, or Austin, or Shenzhen, China than it will in Cincinnati. However, that's not the question. The question is whether or not the streetcar will be good for Cincinnati. I do, in fact, think it will be good, but only moderately so. I think it would do better if the Cincinnati metro stopped expanding infrastructure to the outer periphery. Even better, if the Cincinnati metro could solve so many other problems such as poorly performing schools, crime, high taxes, and so on, then the streetcar would have a better chance of success. It will also have a better chance of success if it is FAST, and does not zig-zag all over the place. Cities are enormously complicated. If cities could be represented by a mathematical equation, then we could model the streetcar and see what happens before we actually build it. Of course, we cannot. Yet, everyone seems to have a model in his head, and some models are calibrated different than others. Do I think that the streetcar is going to induce all the young people of the world to move to Over-the-Rhine? No. I think that some folks on this board are just overly optimistic. But that's okay, because it gives us something to talk about. Cheers. :-)

"If a resident moves from Westwood to Over-the-Rhine, the net population gain is zero." I agree with you that a resident that moves from Westwood to Over-the-Rhine will also move his shopping destinations from Westwood to Over-the-Rhine. However, this is bad for Westwood. The population trends are not in favor of Cincinnati right now. Sure, Over-the-Rhine and downtown are looking up, but the inner-ring suburbs are hurting. As of right now, Ohio has very little net immigration, either foreign or domestic. Portland has a lot of development around the streetcar line, but they also have high foreign immigration. This, I think, it what makes the difference between the proposed Cincinnati streetcar and the Portland streetcar. I know that a lot of folks on this board think that the streetcar will attract new residents. I think that the streetcar AND JOBS will attract new residents. As of right now, the job situation is moving in the wrong direction.

"Growing the tax base instead of just dividing up the pie further..." Hamilton County is losing population. Ohio as a whole is projected to peak in population in 2018. Growing the tax base does of the city as a whole does not look promising. If a resident moves from Westwood to Over-the-Rhine, the net gain is zero. I am not comfortable with this approach. Now IF the city built the streetcar AND abandoned some suburban street somewhere else along with all of the associated maintenance costs, then it might pay off, but I don't expect the city to consolidate by abandoning infrastructure in other places.

^----"plans call for the statue to be made of limestone..." Well, they do call it Solid Rock Church. :-D

^---- Argosy ran a free bus service to pick you up nearly anywhere. (Do they still do that?)

"I'm primarily concerned with the streetcar as a political decision..." I'm concerned about it, too. Democracy is a terrible way to run a railroad. "Railroads are not built for the benefit of the public but for investors to turn a profit on their money." - Cornelious Vanderbilt If we think of the city as the investor, then the city should turn a profit on it's money by effectively serving the customers. If we think of the city as a democracy, well, then you get Queen City Metro with long routes into the suburbs that attract few riders, historic routes that refuse to die that attract few riders, and circuitous routes to every corner of the city that attract few riders.

What's important is to minimize conflict points. Plot the locations of accidents from police reports from any city and you will find that there are invariably more accidents at intersections. Turns are vulnerable to accidents. A few weeks after the Hueston light rail line opened, it was critisized for too many accidents, and the most common accident was from vehicles turning right across the rails and getting hit by a LRT vehicle from behind. Again, my favorite route is the Walnut and Main couplet all the way to McMicken, without all that unnecessary zig zagging. While there isn't much than can be done downtown, all of the traffic control on the Over-the-Rhine portion could be reconfigured to favor the north-south traffic, discourage cross traffic, and minimize conflicts.

I worry that the casino will bring more cars and turn the Broadway Commons area into a suburban mall with gambling. I agree with Jjakucyk that the streetcar should be as fast as possible, within reason. The zig-zag route bothers me. "You gotta keep in mind that this thing runs in mixed traffic." It shouldn't. Short of a subway or elevated line, the route should be chosen to minimize traffic conflicts. Fortunately, Walnut and Main downtown carry less traffic than other downtown streets and there is not much than can be done, but the zig-zag Over-the-Rhine section leaves a lot of room for improvement.

"...and the price tag is somewhere around $2 billion." It's more than double that. The sewer district has committed about $2 billion toward improvements, but that will not be enough to solve all the problems. The Ohio EPA has a policy that basicly says there will be no new development served by combined sewers. Thus, it is easier for a developer to build in a post-1960 suburb than in a core city with combined sewers. This is a very big deal.

Carew Tower has windows that give it scale. Carew Tower is next to the Central Trust tower, which also has windows. QCS isn't really close to anything. Besides adding a little height, even though the convention is to disregard the flagpole, the flag on Carew gives it scale. QCS just doesn't have much to give it scale. If you had never seen either building, I could give you a photo of Carew and you could count the windows and figure 10 feet per floor or whatever and get an idea how tall it is. If I gave you a photo of QCS, you have very little to go by. QCS is a nice building and yes, it is actually taller than Carew but it just doesn't look taller for a lot of reasons.

Automobiles and highways get most of the attention in this debate, but again I will bring up sewer and water utilities as a very strong factor in metro area development. Basicly, for even suburban-level density, a developer needs sewer and water. Beyond the range of sewer and water are hobby farms, 5-acre residential lots, and then the real remaining agricultural property. Thus, the limit of sprawl I think is sewer and water. Of all of the utiliites - electric, cable tv, sewer, water, natural gas - the most expensive are sewer and water. Here's the part where the city/ suburb conflict comes into play. Most sewer and water districts charge by the volume of water used, in cubic feet. This isn't necessarily proportional to the cost of service. It costs more to deliver a cubic foot of water 25 miles than it does to deliver it 2 miles. Furthermore, it costs more to serve a 100 foot wide lot than it does to serve a 25 foot wide lot. Some sewer and water districts charge the suburbs a little higher rate, but it's still not high enough to pay for service. The city really is subsidizing the suburbs in the case of sewer and water, in most districts.

"It just seems long." On the contrary, two years is aggressive for such a project. It will probably take at least a year just for design.

"After a smooth climb uphill to Clifton..." Another misuse of the "Clifton" place name. :-(

In Hamilton County, the City of Cincinnati has about 300,000 while the remainder of Hamilton County has 700,000. (Round numbers.) Cincinnati is the minority. Cincinnati no longer has the political power relative to the rest of the county that it once had.

"I strongly urge you to consider making peace with the existence of highways, commuters, and suburbs..." Here in Cincinnati there is a plan to enlarge an interchange that will demolish a functioning, urban neighborhood. How do you make peace with that?

"I would like to see more of the logic behind the reasoning for replacement." It is load-rated. Heavy trucks are prohibited. Plus, the steel truss design is falling out of favor.

"It's just an ugly old truss." I'm offended. Plus, it isn't that old.

"Let's get rid of traffic jams! VOTE FOR - City-wide Expressways, Street Improvements, Modern Traffic Lights,.... ...And what a bargain! These are but 3 of the 12 important bond issues to be voted. All 12 cost us only $44 million, but we will get $134 million worth of improvements. Why? Because the Federal and State governments will spend an ADDITIONAL $90 MILLION OR MORE on these projects...our money that would otherwise have been spent in other cities...." -Cincinnati Enquirer, 10-17-1950

"Doing a quick review of the year 1960, I discovered that it was 50 years ago." Most utility infrastructure was in place before 1960 and is still in service. Besides the physical plant, most of the non-physical infrastructure that is still in effect such as zoning ordinaces, utility policy, subdivision regulations, etc. also dates to this era or earlier. The present suburbs, including new development, is very much a product of the 1960's or earlier.

Since railroads pay property taxes on their infrastructure, they have an added incentive to minimize their infrastructure. It's not fair that highways don't pay property taxes, blah blah blah, but could you imagine how things might have turned out if the State of Ohio had to pay property taxes to the local government for highways?

"food for thought." he he he :-D