neilworms

Miles and miles of bike lanes (including protected bike lanes), big projects that are embraced by the community. TOD transit centers being built all over the place. Valuing the city as a city. Transit is taken for granted and is valued as an asset. Those have been my observations. Early adoption of good ideas without petty fights and people who as a norm take pride in their city. Permitting system needs work and the city could be more democratic in nature (this is changing last mayor election gave me hope). Finances are a bloody mess I'll give it that. There is tons of stuff though that Cincinnatians can't wrap their heads around that we get - Urban groceries, having our hippest neighborhood resturants being open on Sunday for food, advertising to tourists, boasting about uniqueness of our city, comparing ourselves to other cities around the world and recognizing that a world exists outside of our outerbelt. If Cincinnatians ever do that as a whole and stop electing dipsh*ts like Cranley then I'll concede that its a better run city (and you guys are closer to that than I've ever seen). Keep in mind too that Chicago is a tale of two cities and I'm fortunate enough to live in the good one - it doesn't make it right, but that's how it is.

I was there last winter, have friends who live in North Park. Its a really great city, shockingly vibrant not as chintzy as LA, but with a similarly awesome climate. The only downside I'd say is that the architecture isn't anything special - other than the Gaslamp district and the expo park stuff (the faux spanish plazas) its a pretty plain looking city, but way more vibrant than I expected given when it grew rapidly. Lots of great neighborhoods which is also shocking for a city of mostly dingbats and bungalows plus plenty of natural beauty.

Isn't this basically how Cranley feels about most people in government? Unless you do exactly as he says, he doesn't tend to like you. Yes. He's building a political machine, and he's fooled the tea partiers into cheering it on. The awful thing about this is that its an anti-urbanist political machine. At least here in Chicago the policies are incredibly pro-urban even if the politics behind it sucks. His anti-urbanism will be his downfall, he can't 100% fake it with support of redbike or by appearing on the Urbanophile.

Even better article that doesn't even quote him http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/cincinnati-police-reform/393797/ (edit ugh they do quote him ugh) Btw most articles I've read talk to him about it he's doing good damage control considering his history here

I tend to agree with you and the pics seem to support your point. Why is it that a city like Vancouver with a third of the population seems so much "put together"? LA, with its population, wealth, diversity, youth and well established institutions (not to mention the weather) should be the best America has to offer. It is one of our "international" cities but it should be competing with London (it doesn't compare) not San Francisco (which also have a better urban fabric). I agree with jmicha here, the downtown would be a lot better if some of the giant parking lots would be pushed together, though everytime I've been to LA I've seen massive amounts of progress towards achieving this goal - entire blocks of housing are constantly being built. (I have friends in SoCal and my SW Ohio blood can't handle the winters in Chicago so I visit a lot). What's really sad about the "new downtown" was that much of it was previously a mini San Francisco neighborhood (Bunker Hill) and Angels flight was an incline to get there from the traditional downtown: http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/la-as-subject/rediscovering-the-lost-neighborhood-of-bunker-hill.htmlhttp://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/la-as-subject/rediscovering-the-lost-neighborhood-of-bunker-hill.html

The buck stops with the alderman, literally they have complete control over zoning in each ward its to the point where its easily corruptible, you help your alderman, your alderman helps you. There are neighborhood groups all over that work to make the infill better quality, but they have influence that varies dependent upon which alderman is in their district. Some Aldermen like Waguespack listen more to their constituents while others listen more to money and/or favors. One thing I've seen is that in less glamorous (more townie) neighborhoods like Jefferson Park the infill is universally lower quality (Jeff Park also has a parochialism that would make Cincinnati proud too). https://www.google.com/maps/@41.964996,-87.75086,3a,23.8y,27h,90.01t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1srpT-g0X61kvDjxUEGftgbA!2e0 Part of me also wonders if its a demand thing, the more hip neighborhoods are demanding better quality design (also helps that Chicago is a major design center so local pool of talent is much greater than it would be in smaller cities) and the more old school neighborhoods that dont' have economic problems don't demand it. What really puzzles me though is Columbus, the infill in Cbus is a lot better than Cincy as a whole... I wonder what the factor is there? It may all boil down to Cincinnati's conservatism.

Living in Chicago has totally changed my view on infill btw. The infill here is generally light years beyond what's done in Cincy (though it would be naive of me to say all of it is good) :)

Id highly recommend taking the gold line to Pasadena not only is the city really nice it's also got a gorgeous train ride to get there

One more thing I'd like to clarify, I'm not 100% opposed to modernist architecture - a finely executed modernist building is just as pleasurable as a finely executed traditional one. Fact is not every building needs to be a statement, they just need to be competently designed, save the impressive buildings for the landmark institutional structures. My bias is that modernism is more prone to failure - its more difficult to get right than traditionalist architecture - its too easy to build an ugly minimalist box. That might be my own bias but it falls in line with observations.

I used to agree with you on this but I've come to the conclusion that this is an acceptable adaptation, here's why: Sadly I think the reason for these buildings having garages is due to a lack of alleyways for them. Infill in Chicago is for the most part not allowed to have this setup (excluding a few very old parts of the city), but 90% of the city has alleyways that are easily accessible thus most infill doesn't have a setup like this. By contrast take a look at these non-infill buildings in San Francisco, note the first floor garages: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.77502,-122.442891,3a,75y,71.07h,97.85t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s6lgKXfSLQloRFwORXAOzAQ!2e0 Much of San Fran like much of Cincinnati doesn't have alleyways, but they did have one weird local architectural quirk - first floor garden areas. Almost all of these were converted into garages by the 20th century these houses were built pre-auto but adapted to meet the needs of the current era. I think building new infill using this San Fran solution in Cincinnati makes sense given similar restrictions.

So italianate works with modern methods of its era, but somehow today's modern methods don't work? I don't understand that. Particularly when jjakucyk provides some pretty good examples of modern architects using current technology to make old stuff work. My bias is that architecture is still suffering from the self-inflicted wounds it caused itself when the modern era began and are unwilling to reject some of its iron clad maxims of old=bad and decorative = sinful.

Also what I don't get is how is Italianate valid when it itself is a throwback style? I mean it recalls roman and Italian architecture from another era, why can't contemporary movements do the same?

I remember thinking as a kid how ugly Hamilton was with all those cladded buildings - little did I know what lay beneath :)

Glad to see that I can get my tech news from an apartment complex. These names are so silly. TheVerge@theULoopSquared

There are a lot of good places in Newport; they're just not at NOTL. A few of my favorites: Carabello Coffee Katharina's Cafe-Konditorei La Mexicana Newport Pizza Co The Crazy Fox Four Red Bike stations are being installed in the next few months, so check it out. Also make sure that you tool around the East Row Historic District, because there are some amazing homes there. These are the ones I like: Newport Pizza co has Cincinnati chilli topped pizza La Mexicana is the most authentic taqueria in the Cincy area (Make sure to order the Horchata on a hot day, most refreshing drink ever). Carabello Coffee has the highest quality coffee in the Cincy area that I've had. I think Monmouth is going to be a pretty awesome district once it gets 2-way'd which isn't too far off as I understand it.

Its pretty awesome to see happen. You almost don't know how well you have it these days ;)

Yeah about the only really interesting thing for me when I'm in town is the movie theater in Newport - redbike would make getting there a lot nicer. Sorry to make assumptions about you (I know you aren't a native) - I just got burned a lot by people only wanting to go to the same 2 places over and over again when there were far more cool places - there is such a weird complacency with a lot of Cincinnatians to not venture further than what they are comfortable with oftentimes IMO leading to repeated trips to the same lame places (city has changed a lot since I officially lived down there though).

Redbike will help this as well once they get some stations in NKY. Also, if your out drinking just use Lyft/Uber its really not far. I'll be honest OTR does have a lot of the coolest stuff in Cincy these days, but sticking too much to one neighborhood isn't a good way to really become famliar with the town you live in - it also reinforces a lot of very neighborhood centric vs region as a whole viewpoints.

I dug this up, these are two radical idiots who probably worshiped Buddy Grey. The thing is its quite literally two people. Frankly the behavior they show is grounds for banning them from that group, they are unwilling to have a productive conversation. These people make me sick, they want to keep holding the neighborhood and the city back in favor of some ridiciulous far fetched utopia. Far too long did people do too much to appease them, and frankly they should be swept aside your city will be better for it. Do they realize the number of transit accessible jobs that are being created due to OTR's resurgence? Do they realize the amount of money that is being brought into the regional economy vis a vis tourism that will create even more jobs? No. They see the world in a fishbowl and are an extreme reaction to Cincinnati's conservatism, so extreme that they are parochial and conservative in their own very special way. Now as to long time residents in OTR, integration should happen, I'm making a distinction between radicals who want OTR to only be a sanctuary for the poor (like the people above) and people who want a neighborhood that is a mixed income neighborhood. Its not an easy path, but hostile people like this make it even harder and Buddy Grey single handedly (with help from idiots like Tom Luken and what not who had no leadership) held Cincinnati back from its potential for decades.

Just to make sure this doesn't get lost in the conversation about under 18 clubs of yore, this is hopefully good news as long as someone has finally figured out how to do a proper urban market. I still remember Mayberry foodstuffs being hyped as being a grocery and other than having a tiny amount of produce and a few beers it was practically useless - I was worried that this would turn people off from researching how to do one right. I've linked to these before, but for those who don't remember/didn't read the board, here are a few examples of what I'm talking about from Chicago: http://www.greengrocerchicago.com/ http://gogrocerchicago.com/store-locations/ http://www.oliviasmarket.com/

That's the kind of contemporary design Cincy needs more of. I'm a touch worried that part of the problem the architects had is that they had to do a building that integrated into the rest of the banks - as a result that made the design of the hotel much lower quality.

Correct. One of my biggest complaints is the whole "no-crosswalk" on certain sides of the intersection (e.g. East side of Walnut and 2d) . God forbid that someone turning left trying to race home vis the expressway would have to be held up for a pedestrian. It's a stadia district for Chrissakes. I have no clue why this exists, and frankly its broken all the time. Shame Cincy has leadership who doesn't care at all about these issues right now.

Did I really just read this on Urban Ohio? I don't have the numbers handy, but there are tens of thousands of people who live within one mile of Fountain Square, and even more that work there. If you don't think this is a "real city" but instead is just somewhere people from Mason go to sporting events, I can only guess you haven't actually been downtown recently. Yeah the people are there, but the amenities aren't. That's part of why it doesn't quiet feel like a "real city" yet - most well developed urban places have a lot more retail and at least one urban style grocery store. Though I guess part of the problem is retail usually follows people if there aren't incentives to come down first.

Also she's from a town full of overprotective soccer mom's

In bigger cities there are plenty of places to buy video games in the city. I'm hoping that more diverse urban shopping starts appearing in more cities as more money moves back into them.