Fishwarp is developing a series on how welcoming the city is to outsiders.

Inbred smugness permeates city

I can kinda agree with this guy but never had it as bad as he has and I will acknowledge that I have my own issues. I think it might have to do with your socio-economic status, too (moreso than east/west stuff).

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130912/EDIT02/309120040?fb_comment_id=fbc_192532437586306_440648_192622217577328

^  Who knows--maybe the dude really just needs to take a bath or use mouthwash...

No better or worse than anywhere else. The complaints about the church and neighbors not introducing themselves seems frivolous.

Did he introduce himself to others? He has been here 4 decades so how can he compare Cincy to anywhere else, parallel universe somewhere?

 

My problem with this article (and the others published lately) is that it makes it out to be some kind of unique experience in Cincinnati. I bet if you posted the same exact article but changed the location to another smaller city (Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, etc) you would get very similar results in the comments of people claiming the city is uninviting or that it is a very inclusive city and they felt welcomed immediately.

 

There are probably certain areas that are less inviting. There are probably certain people that aren't as sociable. I know that when I lived in DC for a little while, people weren't just jumping out to introduce themselves to me. I had to instigate conversations. Generally, if you are open to meeting new people and you put an effort into it, you can feel like any place is welcoming. Of course some people will fall through the cracks and never feel like a part of the community, though.

 

The article quoted the guy as saying that if someone didn't say hi back to him on the street that he was obviously a "native". I feel like he had a negative attitude about they city from the beginning.

 

I also wouldn't say Cincinnati is "smug". Most people are genuinely shocked when someone says that they moved here from New York, DC, LA, SF, Chicago, etc. The first question they always ask is "Why would you move to Cincinnati". If anything Cincinnati has a defeatist attitude.

That guy went to OSU, this explains all we need to know, LOL.

Counterpoint,

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130912/EDIT02/309120041/My-view-Grateful-for-those-who-reached-out?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

counter counterpoint

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130906/COL01/309060085/KRISTA-Welcome-Cincinnati-Who-you-again-

counter counterpoint

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130906/COL01/309060085/KRISTA-Welcome-Cincinnati-Who-you-again-

 

I think one was the original article that prompted point counter point, LOL

Jane you ignorant, fill in the blank.

I'd have to say from visiting quite a few times for business and pleasure, it's really not.  A Beautiful and great city, but people are generally not outgoing or friendly...including hotel staff, waitstaff and bartenders.  It just seems conservative all around...socially, politically, and fashion-wise.  That is the experience I have had and I am pretty outgoing, and I love Cincy!  Kind of reminds me of Londoners...polite and courteous (never rude or mean), but don't want to be bothered. 

I already had lots of friends in Cincinnati when I moved there, but I did have trouble finding white collar work despite being well-educated and having a degree from UC. Previously when I moved back to Columbus from WV I found a white collar job within two weeks. It seemed like most of the white collar jobs in Cincy went to locals' high school friends. But of course I found no shortage of blue collar work for myself there. I think the other problem was that my program didn't offer a co-op which is how a lot of young graduates in Cincinnati find permanent employment.

 

But friendship-wise, I even hear people in Columbus complain about aloofness despite our reputation as an open city. It seems that people come to Columbus, pal up at OSU and then are "full of friends" after graduation. This is in contrast to Cincinnati where that's more likely to happen with high school friends. And the high school thing can be true of people who are actually from Columbus, but we know our role as the minority and are more likely to reach out to non-natives out of necessity.

I was raised in Cincinnati and I've lived in or visited a lot of places since then. Reading this series of op-eds made me think about this topic, because honestly I hadn't given it much thought before.

 

-I was recently in the UK where I ended up in fascinating conversation with strangers just about every night we were in a pub for more than an hour. In my 33 years I can't say I've ever struck up a friendly conversation in a bar or club in Cincinnati. Strange, now that I think about it!

 

-I did my undergrad at UC, where I did have 3 or 4 friends that I still keep in touch with on Facebook. I'm now in grad school in Columbus at OSU, where I have so many friends and acquaintances I literally don't have time in the week to keep up with them all.

 

-I lived in an apartment going to UC and said hi to the guy below me a couple times in 2 years. At my apartment here in Columbus, I've met the neighbors on all sides of me many times.

 

-Living in Chicago, a city that I honestly think is not overly friendly, two of the neighbors in my apartment building invited me to housewarming parties, even though I didn't know them at all. They were just being neighborly.

 

I guess maybe I have to agree with these people, then, now that I look back on it. It's hard though, because growing up in Cincinnati and having my family there, I never had any other perspective.

I've lived in like 7 different cities.  The south is the worst, since they do this whole thing where they act like they're laughing with you but they're laughing at you.  Over and over again you have to bow down and acknowledge that the south is the greatest 800x800 mile area on the planet.  The food, the weather, the "history", the landscape, blah blah blah.  It's the best in *THE ENTIRE WORLD*. 

I've lived in 6 different cities in 3 different countries. I can definitely understand the "inbred smugness" described in the article. Though it is a very harsh term... I am not from here and a lot of my friends are from somewhere else. But whenever I introduce myself as being from Cleveland I get rolled eyes which I understand to some extent, but my roommate from Boston also gets a smug reaction. Like the locals think we are here to take what is theirs or something. I can't really see people in Cleveland giving a person from Cincinnati a hard time, can anyone relate? When I bring my girlfriend, from Cinci, up to ctown people say "oh cool! Are you having a nice trip?" Or something like that.

 

Also, in my experience, people in Cincinnati go out to bars with a group of friends (often high school friends) and they only talk to each other all night. This is definitely a Cincinnati thing. Even when I go out in Cleveland my group will get mixed up in conversations all throughout the bar! Hmm. Weird.

I'd have to say from visiting quite a few times for business and pleasure, it's really not.  A Beautiful and great city, but people are generally not outgoing or friendly...including hotel staff, waitstaff and bartenders.  It just seems conservative all around...socially, politically, and fashion-wise.  That is the experience I have had and I am pretty outgoing, and I love Cincy!  Kind of reminds me of Londoners...polite and courteous (never rude or mean), but don't want to be bothered. 

 

This is where I'm at.  I see the way people act in Cincinnati as no different than in most European cities.  Does that make Europe a terrible place?  No...  You wouldn't move to Germany and say to the locals, "Why do you all drink beer?  You should drink wine because the rest of the civilized world does."  So why would you come to Cincinnati and expect it to be just like everywhere else in the US?  We're proud of our city and don't want others coming in and messing with our traditions.

 

As some of you may know, I'm saying this as a outsider.  I first visited from Wisconsin 7 years ago.  I feel more than welcomed by this city, but I think it's because I've embraced the culture here.  I love chili and goetta.  I know the history of the stadiums and Buddy Grey.  I love the Reds and hate Mike Brown.  I love the hotly contested political battles.  It's all VERY different than other American cities, and that's why I'm here.  That said, I haven't given up on my heritage.  I'm a cheesehead at the core.  I say "Oh geez" in a long nasal tone often, and I'll occasionally still ask people where a Tyme Machine or Bubbler are. 

 

If you're not willing to accept Cincinnati for the great city that it is, why on Earth would you expect the people of Cincinnati to accept you?

I can't really see people in Cleveland giving a person from Cincinnati a hard time, can anyone relate? When I bring my girlfriend, from Cinci, up to ctown people say "oh cool! Are you having a nice trip?" Or something like that.

 

 

I can't speak for Cleveland, but I was in Columbus a few weeks back and decided to try a burger at Thurman's.  They were showing both the Reds and Indians games.  I asked a girl at the bar which team people in Columbus generally support.  She said, "Neither.  They're both dirty towns."  I said, "Oh, I'm from Cincinnati and I think it's actually pretty nice."  She responded with, "I don't know how you people live down there."  That was the end of that conversation.

I'm not from Cincy but have been here since coming for college.  I'd say my friends are about a 50-50 mix of locals and out-of-towners.  I've never felt "unwelcome," and I honestly think that the whole "Cincinnati is insular and it is all about where you went to high school" is overblown.  My experience is limited to living in the central and east sides of town, so it may be different on the west side. 

 

Just as a general matter, I hate stories like this because so much depends on the person that they talk to.  If there's a real introvert who's expecting some kind of party to show them that they are welcome but doesn't want to do anything to get involved, I don't care what city you are talking about, you won't feel "welcome." 

^-In more open cities though introverts don't really have to try, there is a scene and they pretty much get swept into the scene as opposed to trying to knock loudly with difficulty to get into a clique.  I'll agree that a lot depends on personal experience though, maybe a model that's similar to nurture-vs-nature in psychology would work here - Inclusiveness vs Outgoingness perhaps?

 

I wish there was more intermingling, high schools are not important in the real world.  Even Chicago suffers from that problem to a degree (though just like Columbus there are so many transplants that its kind of overridden unless you live in one of the pseudo suburban cop/firefighter/metra conductor neighborhoods) but no where near as bad as it was in Cincy.

^-In more open cities though introverts don't really have to try, there is a scene and they pretty much get swept into the scene as opposed to trying to knock loudly with difficulty to get into a clique.  I'll agree that a lot depends on personal experience though, maybe a model that's similar to nurture-vs-nature in psychology would work here - Inclusiveness vs Outgoingness perhaps?

 

 

 

I just don't get this.  Unless the person actually does some interaction, how can they be expected to get "swept up" in a scene?  If you are sitting at home, yep, you're not going to be included.  This board is a good example.  I have met multiple people from this board offline.  If someone is not going to, say, go to the Urban Cincy meet-ups at the Lager House, or even post here, how is that the city not being "inclusive" that prevents them from getting involved in the "urbanite" scene as it exists in Cincy?  I guess what I'm saying is that a person can't get "swept up" without making some modicum of effort on their part to get into the scene they want to be swept up in, and I don't know of anyone (in-town or out-of-towner) that's been denied some sort of "access" when they make that effort. 

The other issue of course is painting a broad brush on a region with 2.2 million people.  To read some articles and anecdotes, you'd think nobody in Cincinnati ever does anything for people new to the area.  This is just not true.  When I moved to Pleasant Ridge, I was immediately greeted by neighbors, invited to neighborhood parties, put on mailing lists, etc.  I know for a fact that in Wyoming they have an entire club or something that tracks when anyone moves in, takes cookies to them, and puts them on the mailing and contact lists for events, etc. 

^I really like Pleasant Ridge. One of my favorite neighborhoods. Maybe my favorite outside of the urban core.

 

I grew up in Mason and almost everyone there was a transplant to the region or their kid. To paint the whole metro with a broad brush is a terrible generalization. Almost no one was a lifelong "Cincinnatian" that I met.

I think it's ridiculous to say that it's a Cincinnati thing that people hang out with high school friends.  I lived away for 5 years before moving back to Cincinnati, and my social group includes high school friends and newcomers.  I have no college friends in Cincinnati (or really the whole midwest), so my 2-3 high school friends that I stayed close to were my network.  When I lived in LA, I mostly hung out with friends from USC...how is that different? I met a large group of people in LA that all went to the University of Wisconsin.  They traveled in a group of almost entirely UW people, and eventually inter mixed with my friends until we were all friends. This seems like a pretty natural way to make friends...

 

As far as rudeness is concerned, I couldn't really care less if people think I'm rude for not saying hi to strangers on the sidewalk. Go to either coast and see how many people say hi on the sidewalks.  I don't think it's a 'rude' thing, it's just a 'mind your own business' thing. I find it annoying that people here almost expect some sort of acknowledgment when you walk by.

 

I definitely think Cincinnati could work on being inclusive and less judgmental. While someone in LA might not say hi to a stranger walking by on the sidewalk, they also probably won't shoot you a weird look for wearing something they think is weird,  talking in a way they wouldn't, etc. I wish we would develop more of a live and let live attitude here.

Now also keep in mind that outgoing-ness is often a sign of someone who needs something. People who move to say, Columbus, a lot of them are from towns or regions with few jobs. It's a survival instinct to buddy up with the other non-natives in order to make sure they are going to be able to find work. Contrast that with white-collar Cincinnati where people often don't need to do that because their personal network already has it covered. Plus there's Uncle Proctor.

 

On some days though, the outgoing nature of people here in Seabus can become exhausting because it seems every single person you see (except hot girls) wants to talk.

I grew up in Mason and almost everyone there was a transplant to the region or their kid. To paint the whole metro with a broad brush is a terrible generalization. Almost no one was a lifelong "Cincinnatian" that I met.

 

Not in Mason, no. Mason's one of those standard "transplant dumping grounds" that the real estate people steer clients toward if they say they want a suburban location. Up here the equivalent is a part of southern Delaware county that barely existed before 2000 called Lewis Center.

I grew up in West Chester and went to Miami U. for college, but when I moved back to Cincy I only had three childhood friends still in the area.  While I'm still really close with one of them and see the other two once in a blue moon, the friendship network I built up really had more to do with my hobbies and interests. My general experience is that it's pretty easy to meet new people in Cincinnati if you have passions you're interested in pursuing, such as food, design, activism, cycling, art, et cetera.

 

Maybe things are different in other parts of Cincinnati but we've found Northside in particular to be really friendly, belying the stereotype of the snobby hipster.

 

 

I met a lot of people through music.

^I would've guessed it would be through your love of Decepticons, GCrites80s. 

Yes, yes I did make friends with Cincinnatians in college by talking about Transformers (this was way before the new movies came out). But the way to get a Cincinnatian really worked up is to talk about original Kenner Star Wars toys.

I'm a fan of the Kenner Super Powers toys myself...

HR guy at Kenner laughed at me when I told him I was from Springfield.

Cincinnati Enquirer described Springfield as a town that had only recently discovered the electric light bulb.

I felt VERY welcomed when I first moved to Cincinnati.

FWIW, the head of the pattern making shop at Kenner looked at my job experience & portfolio & had me as a finalist for the job of apprentice pattern maker. They hired a guy with real pattern making experience, tho.