neilworms

I kind of agree, I found it always strange that only a few mins away from High Street by car around the university were roads without sidewalks and strip malls. Here you have this incredibly vibrant street, and in cities that usually have streets this vibrant you expect more city. Its a cool thing in a sense, but its kind of disappointing, as I'm used to Cincinnati where the real urban area is much larger even if it doesn't have a street like High Street. Chicago has both lively streets and tons of urbanity, then again its Chicago... ;)

I see all this argument about Columbus and how its not urban enough and that's why its going to continue to loose young professionals. Well, Columbus has one area that is tremendously urban - anywhere near High Street. Every time I go down to High Street I notice more and more stuff, more new buildings (of a quality one would find in Chicago even - buildings that are more substantially urban than what was there in the first place :P), more new restaurants, places that are very hip. I see way more bicyclists on high street in the spring than I do anywhere else in Ohio and there are cool diverse ethnic dining options, everything from a Somali run Hookah bar to Indian, Chinese and Japanese food. In Ohio Columbus probably has the best chances of retaining young professionals, its a shame that the rest of the city is strip malls, because high street IMO is almost as cool as a major street in Chicago, just with crappier architecture. As the area continues to develop, even the architecture and built environment IMO will get more urban. When I lived in Cincy, Columbus made me jealous, I wish Cincy was getting all this stuff and had the kind of social scene Columbus has. Seriously if the two were merged (the high-culture, history and architecture of Cincy with the youthful energy and vibrancy of the area around high street in Cbus) it would be one of the best cities in the country.

The other shakey working class neighborhoods are actually old 1950s/1960s suburbs on the southside and not in Chicago. Look up Ford City sometime to get the idea of what a true suburban slum looks like. These areas are where the people from the projects went displacing those working class/middle class people that remained in those areas which are now soft real estate markets. As for the other working class hoods (far north side, far west side), I think a lower rate of immigration as stifled those areas but its not as much of a decline, again I'd have to see a diagram that's a bit less vague to figure it out. I'm literally just working on observation from living here and what's been said in the news.

Chicago's decline I believe is mostly due to the demolition of the projects, mainly large high density high rise buildings on the south side. I think the vast majority of outmigration has to do with this and the other neighborhoods that are declining are doing so at a much slower rate. It would be nicer if there was a more detailed map to illustrate this theory.

The demos of buildings like the ones here are why I'm so pissed about what's going on in Corryville on Euclid. I also just got back from San Francisco, and parts of it reminded me of living in old pics of downtown Cincinnati from the 1940s... literally both cities share a surprising amount of architecture. The non financial district part of downtown was like a larger version of Cincy's downtown with more hills, no parking lots, streetcars and trolleybuses.

Soapbox has an article about this development, and another much more welcome development at the old Benchmark site: http://www.soapboxmedia.com/devnews/0215uptownapartments.aspx

The RestorationConsultant wrote a pretty good piece here talking about alternative means that Uptown could use to redevelop this block for student housing without destroying the old houses: http://victorianantiquitiesanddesign.blogspot.com/2011/02/uptown-properties-project-would-destroy.html It would be amazing if Cincinnati had more outside the box thinking like this :P

PM me if you live in the neighborhood and would like more information on who to contact to help get this stopped.

I am working on this. While I don't live in Corryville anymore, I know people who still do and are opposed to this. There is also a new student organization on campus who is getting the word out as well. Things are falling into place. The preservation community in Cincinnati is growing stronger and more energized everyday. Despite some of the more crazy statements some of them have made, this new blood is ultimately leading to much needed reform and activity. I hope that the end result is a Cincinnati that both the city and the country can be proud of. All it takes is a cure to chronic myopia.

Real estate investors in old areas aren't all uncaring about history. Even if profit is the motive, some of them invest in the old buildings and work on them because they like them. Making money is a nice perk to something they like doing for themselves or in a small group of people, instead of a 9-5 job. It doesn't have to be "mansion grade housing" the example I provided earlier in this thread was from a student housing area in Chicago called University Village. They found a way to have good design and be economical. I think a big part of it is using Cinder blocks with a brick facade. The Cinder blocks are cheap but give the house a far more substantial look. As they are not the facade they are hidden from view. In Chicago, I feel they have a lot of good tricks for making cheap look good - Uptown would do wonders if they would study how Chicago developers do it. Not only that but it can be a factor that chases people away. Students who are renting in old buildings because they think the old building is cool and like the neighborhood only to be demoralized when the neighborhood is slowly being demolished. (this was me in part :P ). Who's to say that responsible renters, including students and those who live in the neighborhood and care about the neighborhood can't make a difference? Yes for this is a more transient group, but I think they can help out too ;).

^ I know some people who attended a community council meeting a few years back. The head of the council at the time was a developer from Indian Hill. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but the problem is that not enough of the community is actually involved in the council and the developers are calling the shots. I used to live in a four unit apartment building and watched developers suck out a ton of character in that neighborhood while I was there :( I can remember very clearly waking up every morning to house after house being torn down. The high pitched noise that demo equipment makes when going through many layers of bricks is quite distinct and quite memorable.

Uptown Properties is going to demolish yet another entire block of perfectly good Victorian houses in Coryville: http://www.building-cincinnati.com/2011/02/uptown-rental-properties-plans-72-more.html#more Here is the block affected: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.132454,-84.50758&spn=0,0.004823&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=39.132454,-84.50758&panoid=WWJhErZY2CQuPHV8O3U4ig&cbp=12,230.87,,0,2 This is the quality of infill that Uptown typically builds: This is what uptown could achieve if they cared about Cincy's built enviornment: This was taken from University Village, which was an urban renewal style project that destroyed the little bit that was left of "Jewtown" in Chicago for student housing for UIC students (where the famous Maxwell street market used to be). While the events surrounding the neighborhood's destruction were a bit suspect, the student apartment infill is of a quality that Cincinnati could only dream of these days. Granted its not as good as the original, but at the very least there is some effort to be urban here. Here is a map link to the part of town this was taken in: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=university+village+chicago+il&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.505328,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=University+Village,+Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&ll=41.864815,-87.646823&spn=0.006088,0.009645&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.864706,-87.646812&panoid=GNtLBtMUGGZehcPFDDZjZQ&cbp=12,1.27,,0,7.2 As you'll notice there are even (GASP!) a few older buildings incorporated into the project. Anyways, back to the subject at hand. Their is a chance to stop this for those who are interested, but it would require getting the council to not approve the zoning changes required for this project. I'm not sure when the meeting is, if anyone knows it would be greatly appreciated. Either this gets stopped or at the very least Uptown should start researching higher quality urban design that can be done economically ala Chicago.

I've been wanting to do a similar post to this blog entry for UO for a long time. Chicago really has got it nailed in terms of designing infill that's simultaneously new and full of character. One can only hope that developers (like the casino and uptown properties) are reading this (except for the whole thing about lowering population densities of OTR)

In Chicago it varies block to block. You can circulate a petition and send off to your alderman (city official for your ward) if you want parking permits for your block, and if a certain amount of people approve they'll give you permit parking. Generally meters are on the main drags, but unlike Cincinnati which developed pre-streetcar, most retail in Chicago is on the main drags where the streetcars used to run, the only exception being the inner intact neighborhoods like Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, Pilsen etc - these hoods are pretty much arranged just like Northside, mostly main drag retail along old streetcar lines, with the occasional neighborhood bar/grocery on the lesser streets. Would a system like this work for Cincy's more urban neighborhoods? It seems that Cincy is so anti urban that they'd prefer just tearing stuff down to create parking :P. (which IMO is an awful paradox given the building stock in Cincy).

^-yeah totally doesn't. It probably was a holdover from when the neighborhood was densly populated. It seems that Cincinnati has a hard time getting how to make a perfect urban environment work. :P

I heard from not the most reliable sources that the purple paint was from a botched attempt to turn it into a nightclub. Yeah its not the most significant building, but I'm tried of seeing old stuff in Cincy get demolished, maybe saving a less significant building will send a signal that preservationists are serious about preserving the more significant stuff.

^though it was part of a ruse and/or compromise to cover over the demolition of 142 E McMicken, probably the largest most elaborate building that was there... Vibrations from the construction vehicles that may cause it to collapse... really stretching it there CPS :P

Are they tearing it down now, or is it to be torn down?

^-I think RestorationConsultant is right when he says that the traditional Cincy preservationist group is timid and unwilling to really be loud when they need to be. Look no further than the travesty that is Coryville... :P As unhinged and crazy as some of the new preservationists coalescing on Facebook are, they are a welcome breath of fresh air in a city that doesn't give two shits about its best asset.

^There should be laws against this crap!

A quick and simple response to this is visit Chicago, Boston or New York, all with vibrant downtowns all with good transit. I wonder if people in the Cincinnati area actually travel anywhere beyond West Chester sometimes.

More of the usual bad news... http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2011/01/20/city-west-residents-resist-removal-of.html I think its really sad that such a well designed project that has at least made the west end look a bit more like it used to has failed so much to attract market rate renters/buyers.

I'd highly recommend getting a carry out from Piece. The place is way too crowded to eat in usually but their pizza which is New Haven Style is very good. The problem is they don't deliver, but its literally half a block from the Blue Line in Wicker Park, two stops down - its well worth it but a bit pricey. Their beer is good too, comes in a glower that you can get refilled for a few bucks less than ordering it. For a chain pizza place, I really like Sarpinos. The weird thing about Chicago is it seems that Chicagoans don't seem to eat Chicago Style pizza as much as outsiders think they do. (Its way more a hot dog/italian beef/polish sausage town).

^ Don't know if its just me, but now that a fair amount of the buildings are finished from the outside I think its looking better than how the renderings depicted it.

I'm normally all for preservation, but this is silly. The streetcar's aren't even historic to begin with, why pressure them to put in historic canopies. Also, there is way too much environmental reviews required for transportation projects, the whole thing should be streamlined. Yes there was a lot of bad garbage in the 1960s, but I think times have changed and the process is too slow.