What's striking to me about the hillsides is in the old photos of them from Cincinnati's 1800s heyday they are totally devoid of trees and vegetation. That contributed to some big time erosion I'm sure.

These are some of the best shots of Cincinnati that I have seen on UO since "Cincy Images"... Absolutely beautiful!

I thought more about C-Dawgs the most "american" city out of all the cities.

 

Thinking more about the populace that we have in Cincinnati...The appalachians, African Americans, Euro decadents (primarily German), it makes you realize that cincinnati is really mixed.

 

It has a country vibe, maybe because of the close proximity to KY, but yet it still has an urban vibe due to the amount of African Americans who live in the city...and you still have all the previous german decendents who used to live downtown in the suburbs (hopefully there children end up returning back to downtown).

Mixed but not terribly diverse as it has a low population of foreign born residents - there is no where near the Asian and Hispanic populations you get in many other parts of the country with the only culturally significant group of immigrants being North Indians in the region. (Man the Indian food is good in Cincy).

^Yeah, if there is one thing I miss about living in Cleveland it is the ready access to really good foreign cuisine and culture. Cincinnati just doesn't have that, and a lot of the "German heritage" is essentially superficial at this point.

^Yeah, if there is one thing I miss about living in Cleveland it is the ready access to really good foreign cuisine and culture. Cincinnati just doesn't have that, and a lot of the "German heritage" is essentially superficial at this point.

 

Well Cincinnati does have that...but it's all located in Sharonville/West Chester.

 

There's a enclave Arabic/Indian/Asian community in Westchester, and a huge Indian Community based in Sharonville.

 

The question is, how do you hone on these immigrants, and make urban living attractive, and have these enclaves sprout up downtown.

 

Right now, whenever I ask someone why they choose not to go downtown/live downtown, it's always "Cincinnati is to Dangerous". Until that perception changes, it'll be a while before that ease of access makes it way downtown.

Even in the big cities where things are more gentrified Immigrants are more likely to go to the suburbs these days: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/10/29-immigrants-disperse-suburbs-wilson-svajlenka

 

Cincinnati I believe missed out on getting them in the urban core, other than a small Desi (Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan) community around Clifton and a few small Latino communities in Lower Price Hill and Carthage.  The region is getting more diverse, but much slower than the national average and much of that new diversity is concentrated more in the suburbs - the lack of diversity is a huge culture shock when I come back into town...

Also - Hamilton/Fairfield has a sizable Hispanic population.

 

Lots of little markets and subtleties of their culture scattered throughout eastside Hamilton especially.... check out this place:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hamilton,+OH/@39.389854,-84.5531634,3a,75y,90.67h,80t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4994nD7zApttnufE-N6aMw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D4994nD7zApttnufE-N6aMw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.955238%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x8840464e3b405489:0x215a7220815dfea5!6m1!1e1

 

Or here. The orange cart in the streetview is a taco stand, open for lunch:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3887533,-84.5590874,3a,75y,230.56h,82.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3jouazafCt2arofPk5o_fw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

 

 

Also - BigDipper90 - amazing shots! You have a great eye for photography.

^True. Hamilton's East side is probably the closest thing that the Cincinnati area has to a barrio. There's a really significant Hispanic presence all the way along Route 4 from Springdale, parts of Sharonville, and up through Fairfield to Hamilton.  Lots of markets, restaurants, bakeries, etc.

Hollister street - http://tinyurl.com/prjhwrz

(this reminds me of some of the older hillside areas of SF though there are brick buildings you wouldn't find in there on this street)

 

Tusculum Ave - http://tinyurl.com/qyuqqss

(these are more spread out but the architecture is very similar, also go up the street and look left, there is a row of houses that are very SF)

 

Actually, those give off more Oakland vibes than San Francisco vibes for me, especially when walking around. The scaling and rolling hill structure in Cincinnati is more like Oakland than San Francisco. This makes sense since Oakland is basically a more intact Ohio city transplanted to the Bay. SF is just too concrete jungle, too twee, too dense, and the hills are too dramatic (along with all the ocean views from those hills). SF is hyper dense urbanity surrounded by wide open expanses of water. It creates two conflicting emotions. Even New York City doesn't quite do this since it's built on rivers. The lack of trees gives SF a very different feel from other cities. The softer, more wooded hills of Oakland look like Cincinnati. The visual density of Oakland is also similar to Cincinnati (though Oakland has much higher population density). There are also fewer block-sized apartment buildings in Oakland, which is more similar to Cincinnati's smaller buildings (though Oakland overall has more high-rise housing). If you can't see the water, the hillsides in Oakland remind me of views in hillside Cincinnati areas due to trees and whatnot. Oakland is visually a mix of Toledo (shipping port, downtown, old industrial areas), Cincinnati (hills, nicer urban neighborhoods), and Beverly Hills (big money, lower density neighborhoods). Cincinnati is prettier than Oakland, but in terms of scaling, they're more alike. Culturally, Oakland is nothing like Cincy, but neither is SF. Architecturally, Cincy is just a lot different since there is so much brick. Brick is rare everywhere in the Bay. :| Even if a few of those Cincinnati row homes have similar profiles to outer San Francisco neighborhoods, the brick and detailing really throws it off for me. Cincinnati also lacks those long stretches of uniform high-density urbanity that San Francisco has everywhere. SF's typical streetscapes stretch for miles, while those Cincinnati examples end very quickly. It's comparing pockets to a whole pair of Levi's jeans. Walking around from those examples you posted, density dropped off quickly.

 

This first street where I used to live in SF reminds somewhat of the first street you posted, but the materials made it feel different. These are the two best examples I can find in SF of a Cincinnati parallel (I've lived in both of these neighborhoods), but in SF, density stretches for miles and almost everything is attached. Once you get walking around, you'll see the feel is different, not to mention that whole ocean thing:

 

College Terrace- https://goo.gl/maps/GUHHUgb4PsL2

 

Central Avenue- https://goo.gl/maps/ihqDDaTdvw32

 

By contrast, most of San Francisco looks like this:

 

Webster Street- https://goo.gl/maps/jPFfD32CNpL2

 

California Street- https://goo.gl/maps/KkGUV9Q8ZwQ2

 

Fillmore Street- https://goo.gl/maps/MvD5qgTM2Lk

 

Clay Street- https://goo.gl/maps/66ugAfyYKUM2

 

Sacramento Street- https://goo.gl/maps/XbJpWdCeXE22

 

This is what "low density" San Francisco looks like:

 

Beach Street- https://goo.gl/maps/qxvVeYWmJxz

 

SF is hella concrete jungle. Cincinnati is hella woodsy (like Portland). Most would say the second set of pics from SF are far more typical San Francisco streetscapes than the relatively unknown streets I posted first. That first street I posted, College Terrace, gets zero tourism traffic and is pretty far removed from the urban core being almost out to the Excelsior. It was a great area to live, but no one ever visited me out there! It was like living in Oakland in the sense that you'll visit friends at their places. The second street I posted, Central, is a sleepy, less traveled part of Haight-Ashbury. People occasionally visit Haight-Ashbury, but it's way past its prime and isn't considered cool anymore. It's a sleepy neighborhood except for a four-block tourist stretch on Haight. College Terrace would be the most similar scaling to Cincinnati, but it is decidedly Coastal California architecture. That dense section of Cincinnati's Hollister Street looks very East Coast to me. I get Baltimore vibes in Cincinnati. SF is much more "concrete jungle" and also has more big buildings in almost every single neighborhood. If anything, SF is the most anti-tree city in America! Your posts actually bring out Cincinnati-Baltimore connections for me, especially when walking around. Cincinnati really does have some East Coast industrial city influence. I mean this as a compliment too since Baltimore rocks and is one of the better-planned cities in America. San Francisco has made a lot of big mistakes in recent years and is making way more of them today. Its old stuff is top notch, but what's being built today leaves a lot to be desired. It's my favorite city in America (for really shallow reasons), but it's also the hardest place I've ever lived by a huge, huge margin. All other major cities I've worked in have been much easier places to get by, even New York City and Toronto. SF lacks quality of life partly because it's such a concrete jungle and parks/greenery are an afterthought in most neighborhoods. As I've always stated, SF is a terrible place to try to emulate. It's the most beautiful city in America, but that comes at a high quality of life cost (like living with roommates off craigslist for the rest of your life). Portland is a much better and more realistic model. What they've accomplished with streetcars is remarkable. If Cincinnati builds out a streetcar system like that, could it do the same? Look at how much infill development Portland has seen in the last decade. It ranks among the highest in the United States. I'd really be banking on the Cincinnati streetcar producing the Ohio version of the Pearl District in Over-the-Rhine. But Over-the-Rhine will be much better since it has stronger historic architecture. The Bay certainly has its strong points (and SF is one of the most fun places to live in America), but its politics are terrifying compared to nice places like Portland.

 

In terms of scaling, this looks more like Cincinnati to me, maybe some of the mixed style areas of Mt. Adams and other Cincy hillside hoods. Architecture in both SF and Oak is quite a bit different since this is California:

 

Inner East Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/Vf1fTasfpkJ2

 

Ivy Hill, East Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/xsh1Efau3dE2

 

Piedmont, Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/1DVzbYi8ahn

 

Adams Point, Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/L4YEJi9GD8F2

 

West Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/W13ZhFr5zbt

 

Oakland Hills View- https://goo.gl/maps/3jv1srduCkM2

 

Typical Oakland Hills Housing- https://goo.gl/maps/BGBBpkm2YrC2

 

Uptown Oakland- https://goo.gl/maps/Fej4j4mEZ312

 

*Bay Areans always find it odd when folks from the Midwest compare their cities to San Francisco while ignoring the actual Midwestern clone city right across the water. Oakland tried to be a Midwestern industrial city. Even today, it does try to ironically hang onto its faded industrial past as a way to be anti-San Francisco, but it's all phony at this point. :| Still, while the culture is not Midwestern, the structure of Oakland is the most Midwestern of any city west of the Mississippi! The biggest differences are the palm trees and facade materials (lots of stucco in Oakland). Oakland would actually be a good model for Ohio if it weren't so insanely expensive and tolerant of crime. Ohioans could probably stomach Oakland's density level better. SF is too dense.

^^Lack of barrio and the small Latino population isn't unique to Cincinnati. That's more of a regional thing in the Ohio River Valley. Pittsburgh's Latino population is small too, so it's probably not anything to worry about. It's more the result of general stagnation. Once Cincinnati's job market and population starts to boom, it will attract people from all over. Outside of Chicago, no Midwestern city has a large first wave barrio anymore. A lot of the ethnic communities are a generation or more old, and/or immigrated to other cities first. The Rust Belt got hit really hard in the last two recessions, so immigration dropped off. It's way behind the national average, but it's expected. Immigration almost always follows an economic boom, which Ohio hasn't had in a long time.

 

*It is weird not to regularly hear Spanish on the streets, but it's a common issue in the Midwest. Almost all of the Rust Belt cities are lacking in first wave immigration right now due to general economic stagnation. Inflation-adjusted median incomes have remained flat or declined in a lot of Midwestern cities. Cincinnati is showing signs that population loss has leveled off and it's about to have substantial growth. I think it will attract more transplants from other regions first (maybe some of its own ex-residents), but eventually word will get out it's a cheap, safe place to live. This will bring in foreign-born population. Nothing fixes the problem better than a good old-fashioned economic boom with lots of opportunities for outsiders. Word gets out fast when a city is a good place to work.

^^Lack of barrio and the small Latino population isn't unique to Cincinnati. That's more of a regional thing in the Ohio River Valley. Pittsburgh's Latino population is small too, so it's probably not anything to worry about. It's more the result of general stagnation. Once Cincinnati's job market and population starts to boom, it will attract people from all over. Outside of Chicago, no Midwestern city has a large first wave barrio anymore. A lot of the ethnic communities are a generation or more old, and/or immigrated to other cities first. The Rust Belt got hit really hard in the last two recessions, so immigration dropped off. It's way behind the national average, but it's expected. Immigration almost always follows an economic boom, which Ohio hasn't had in a long time.

 

I don't think a barrio will be what arrives as the rate of immigration of latinos is way off from its peak in the 1990s, however there is an opportunity for asian/middle eastern/african immigration going ahead.

 

In terms of scaling, this looks more like Cincinnati to me, maybe some of the mixed style areas of Mt. Adams and other Cincy hillside hoods. Architecture in both SF and Oak is quite a bit different since this is California:

 

I'm going to agree with you, there is overall a vibe that is closer to Oakland - once you get outside the main basin area, the city does feel quiet a bit like oakland though less consistently dense.  Btw, my reference point for Midwestern towns is Dayton, Ohio and Indianapolis, both of those have no where near the number of victorians that Oakland does, so that alone makes it feel a bit more like Cincinnati than a lot of the other cities.  I get way more of a Dayton or Indianapolis in rain-forest but suddenly turned cool and hip vibe out of Portland IMO than I do Cincinnati even though both have hills (Midwest city with touches of SF/Oakland around downtown and I'm talking vernacular now ).  The architecture of Oakland is a lot better than Dayton and Indianapolis and somewhat better than Columbus (though Cbus' core neighborhoods are slightly more east coast in feel) - I get the feeling that historically Oakland while industrial was still affluent and the architecture reflects that much like Cincinnati where as Portland was more of a working class town and feels a lot more like other midwest towns as stated above.

 

Cincinnati is really at this weird transition point between east coast style and midwest style, you can see a bit of a similar transition (but  further along) in areas like Noble Square in Chicago (probably the most Cincinnati-like neighborhood in Chicago - compares quiet a bit to Clifton Heights), or much of St Louis (though St. Louis's neighborhood of that era are so decimated that its hard to really see that).

 

St Louis is weird beast, I think you could draw more parallels to it and Pittsburgh than it and Cincinnati given how much more affected by the Great Lakes industrial cities it is (even the accent in St. Louis is more Chicago meets the South than other river cities) I hope to visit there soon, though I wish I had a time machine to experience it before de-industralization hallowed it out far more than Cincinnati was.  All and all the River Valley cities are all kind of uncharacteristic and all unique though I'd argue that Cincinnati really has overall the best architectural stock (though there are parts of Pitts,St Louis and Old Louisville that compare favorably).

The architecture of Oakland is a lot better than Dayton and Indianapolis and somewhat better than Columbus (though Cbus' core neighborhoods are slightly more east coast in feel)

 

...uh, no.  Oakland has wonderful Victorian architecture near downtown and Lake Merritt but it doesn't have the diversity of, say, Grafton Hill in Dayton, Old Northside in Indianapolis, or *pick any neighborhood around downtown* Columbus let alone textural differences (stone, brick, etc).  Oakland is far more monotonous than even Sacramento in architecture.

 

With that said, Oakland's food culture is fantastic.

^^Very good analysis and I agree.

 

Oakland was always wealthier than most of America, but it only recently became top 10 wealthiest in the United States. It was booming and wealthy from roughly 1890-1960 and then again from 2010-today. I do think this led to a lot of historic luxury housing. Oakland's largest historic apartment buildings are incredible- basically Pacific Heights level quality, but looking at Lake Merritt instead of looking at the Golden Gate. Still, if you're above the fourth or fifth floor, you have views of both the Oakland and San Francisco skylines. Naturally, this attracted a lot of the moneyed class. The views are ridiculously jaw-dropping from the hills and from the high-rise apartments in Oakland. Oakland used to be way behind the rest of the Bay in wealth (and was much more affordable before tech boom 2.0). Now it's insanely wealthy and ultra-expensive (Oakland recently overtook DC for rents, and will eventually overtake New York City). Three of the top 10 wealthiest cities in the nation are in the Bay- San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. In terms of median income, San Jose is highest. In terms of median net worth, San Francisco is highest. Oakland will eventually overtake San Jose in net worth due to housing values. A lot of this wealth in the Bay is now due to housing equity. :|

 

Cincinnati's architectural diversity is just insane, and I agree it's because it's such a transition zone (and that long, slow growth phase). Nowhere in San Francisco or Oakland do you find that much diversity, but Oakland does overall have more housing variety than SF. SF is much prettier, but it's also more uniform. Oakland has more variety mixed into individual neighborhoods, which reminds me of Cincinnati. You can find million dollar craftsmans, large art deco apartment buildings, detached Victorian row homes, and double-decker flats all right next to each other. It is a transitional city too. Oakland is where Coastal California transitions into the Pacific Northwest (by contrast, SF is totally its own world). That's why it feels more like Portland and Seattle than it does like San Francisco.

 

In this sense, Oakland is also a very mixed-identity city. It's trying to be a mix of SoCal/LA and the Pacific Northwest, and it doesn't have distinct culture (outside of the Temescal hipsters). Now that I think about it, there are only a handful of these "transitional" cities that cross regions and take clear influence from cities in other areas. Oakland and Cincinnati are probably the two best examples of major mixed-identity cities.

 

*But there is obvious Great Lakes influence in Oakland too. Oakland was a major city for General Motors manufacturing and there is still even an Owens-Illinois factory in Oakland! So the Detroit and Toledo influence is quite visible in the old factories. A lot of major Midwestern industrial cities had their West Coast factories and distribution centers in Oakland. This has to be part of the reason Oakland gives off such a Midwestern vibe. I wouldn't be surprised P&G had an operation in Oakland too...

 

**Also, Oakland's two of Oakland's largest suburbs, Berkeley and Alameda, are clearly Midwestern. Berkeley is totally the West Coast Ann Arbor, and Alameda is straight up Great Lakes. In fact, what surrounds Oakland is even more Midwestern than Oakland itself. There are much stronger cultural parallels in Berkeley and Alameda too. Again, none of this has anything in common with San Francisco other than money...

 

East Bay = Ohio with money. This is why I also think if Ohio started putting up hipster-targeted billboards In Downtown Oakland, you'd get transplants, many who have never been to Ohio. I occasionally meet Cincinnati transplants, but they are unaware of recent changes in Cincy (many went away for college and never came back). They seem to like Oakland a lot more than us ex-San Franciscans do (once you live in SF, you're always disappointed with other places). These Cincy kids are good ones to target for relocation. They've got tons of money too. They're all 20-something execs at tech companies, have deep trust funds, or have VC portfolios that are playing out well. Ohio should really be looking at poaching Oakland tech companies and Oakland residents...

 

I think Cincinnati could build a pipeline into Oakland and start in-sourching these hipsters! It won't take much money either, just a few ads with "Hey, have you been to Cincinnati lately?" It's an easy sale. Cincinnati is prettier than Oakland for 1/5 the cost. It's safer and cleaner too. I always recommend Cincinnati to people who are getting kicked out of Oakland.

Fantastic pictures.

 

Regarding the growth pattern of the city. Something that is interesting to me is how big the city was in the mid 19th century. There couldn't have been many cities over 100K back then...

^There weren't. I think Cincy peaked around 6th largest city in the country back then. This is why it has a lot of stuff from 1850-1870 that you don't find in many cities outside the East Coast shipping ports. In 1850, Cincinnati was larger than Brooklyn and Chicago, and ranked 6th in the nation. By 1870, Cincinnati had doubled in size to over 200,000 people, which was larger than any other city in Ohio, and third in the Midwest behind Chicago and St. Louis.

 

What's amazing is that it had smooth, steady growth for 100 years. It just kept adding roughly 50,000 people a decade until peaking in 1950 at 500,000 people, and then losing 200,000 people by 2010. Very few North American cities (if any) had a growth trajectory like Cincinnati's. There wasn't a clear generational boom phase in Cincinnati like you saw in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Pittsburgh, etc. It very much differs from other historic industrial cities in this regard. Pittsburgh for example had almost all of its growth occur from 1880-1910. A very similar thing happened in Cleveland and Toledo (just pushed out another decade). Detroit and Chicago boomed longer, but even they only really saw 50 years of sustained, predictable growth. Cincy's slow, but steady 100-year growth run is unheard of in America. Even our modern boomtowns are showing signs of peaking fast. So Cincinnati may be the most American city due to architectural variety and mixed regional identity, but its growth was anything but American. Or maybe it just captured a wider variety of economic trends? With cities like Detroit, Toledo, and Cleveland, we're talking hardcore industrial cities in the purest Rust Belt sense. Cincinnati has a lot of Rust Belt elements which led to tens of thousands of manufacturing job losses, but it was also more diversified from the start. It probably helped that it had national influence heading into the Civil War. It also was a major crossover point for northern and southern trade, and probably had relationships with southern markets.

So c-dawg can you explain what killed Cincinnati population so badly from the 50's to today? We have only 50k living in the metro today.

 

I understand the creation of the suburbs and the whole baby boomer effect after ww2 was a big role player. But so did many cities have that occur to them, but didn't see that large of a reduction in a population. I understand cities like Detroit that relied on a huge industry but Cincinnati didn't really have that occur either. People just ran in droves to the suburbs, at a huge rapid rate..

But why?

 

One of the most interesting aspects of Cincinnati is that it seamlessly mixes these elements of East Coast and Great Lakes cities. Anyone who has visited the city can see it gives off a weird mixed-identity vibe ("how the hell does a place like this exist?"). Cincinnati has an insane amount of architectural diversity, particularly when it comes to housing. You've got everything from 1850-1950 in Cincy. It's pretty unique in the United States. I'd put Cincinnati near the top of in terms of architectural diversity.

 

This is the one thing that has constantly surprised me and infuriated me as I've explored the city. The developmental patterns of city neighborhoods here are so totally bizarre and I've struggled to wrap my head around how so many contradictory styles of architecture and city planning can exist in the same city. The "detached row houses" just seem so baffling to me, especially in Corryville. They're the exact same skinny houses you see down in Pendleton or elsewhere but they have sizeable side yards and huge back yards more in line with what you'd expect to see in other Great Lakes cities, interspersed with outher housing styles. It's just so weird that the layout of some of the (relatively) flatter neighborhoods didn't continue the building pattern of what you'd see in the basin. I get that a lot of it was the wealth running out to the original suburbs, but it still seems incredibly spread out in some parts, and it never really reached the point where the old stuff got torn down and replaced with denser construction.

 

I think the west side confuses me the most. You'll notice that I don't have many photos from west of the Mill Creek, and part of that is because I just can't geographically figure out that side of town at all. To even get to places like Westwood you have to travel up an incredibly long boulevard that is essentially isolated until you get to the other side of Mt Airy Forest, and it all seems so completely detached from the density down in the basin and the Mill Creek valley. I guess I would have expected these areas to have developed closer to the edge of the hillside with higher densities, but then you get into Price Hill and it's all very spread out again before fairly quickly breaking down into cul-de-sacs. It just seems so very bizarre, like it's its own little world. That said, I'm hoping to spend some more time over that way since it really is unexplored territory for me, for the most part.

 

Every neighborhood here meets other neighborhoods in such odd ways, and I think it makes Cincinnati feel very detached and eclectic simply because each neighborhood really is its own little city that happened to grow out and bump into another city that has a completely different development pattern. There really isn't anything like it, and it's led to such an incredible diversity of architecture that you're always going to find some really weird, eclectic gem hidden in the oddest place. And that's what I love the most about living here, is just how surprising it is. You can take four different routes to the same place and you'll travel through four completely different environments. It never gets old.

 

Just wait until you stumble on the insanely rural and ramshackle streets on the western hillsides of the Mill Creek Valley.  It's amazing to think that these are actual City of Cincinnati streets with people currently living on them:

 

Knox St - http://tinyurl.com/zz2ub9d

Saffin Ave - http://tinyurl.com/hpsxgjs

Brestel Rd - http://tinyurl.com/npk6jnh

Reemelin Ave - http://tinyurl.com/jc4ox28

Judson St - http://tinyurl.com/pw5bq7r

 

 

So c-dawg can you explain what killed Cincinnati population so badly from the 50's to today? We have only 50k living in the metro today.

 

I understand the creation of the suburbs and the whole baby boomer effect after ww2 was a big role player. But so did many cities have that occur to them, but didn't see that large of a reduction in a population. I understand cities like Detroit that relied on a huge industry but Cincinnati didn't really have that occur either. People just ran in droves to the suburbs, at a huge rapid rate..

But why?

 

Because the FHA guaranteed loans to suburban developers and the white purchasers of suburban homes.  Blacks couldn't get the loans to buy the artificially cheap suburban houses.  It was started in 1937 to motivate housing construction but was kept in place in the postwar decades.  That's how all of these cities quickly went from less housing than they needed to way more housing than they needed in just 30 years. All of those homes and apartments in the cities wouldn't have been abandoned if there hadn't been tons and tons of new housing built elsewhere.  The loan structures made it cheaper to buy a new house than to rent or buy an existing one.  Also, if a white person grew up in a neighborhood that became redlined as a black neighborhood, they couldn't get an FHA loan to buy a house on the street where they grew up but they could in a brand-new all-white suburban subdivision. 

 

It seems unbelievable, especially since nobody ever talks about it, but it absolutely did happen.  The redlining didn't end until the 1960s with the Civil Rights Act.  This book was written in 1986, well before any of the new urbanism back-to-the-city stuff took off, and does a pretty thorough investigation of the era's events: http://www.amazon.com/Crabgrass-Frontier-Suburbanization-United-States-ebook/dp/B004VV9LFO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449945767&sr=8-1&keywords=crabgrass+frontiers

 

 

 

 

So c-dawg can you explain what killed Cincinnati population so badly from the 50's to today? We have only 50k living in the metro today.

 

I understand the creation of the suburbs and the whole baby boomer effect after ww2 was a big role player. But so did many cities have that occur to them, but didn't see that large of a reduction in a population. I understand cities like Detroit that relied on a huge industry but Cincinnati didn't really have that occur either. People just ran in droves to the suburbs, at a huge rapid rate..

But why?

I think your real question is why it has happened so disproportionately in cincinnati. I don't think that's true. All US cities experienced sprawl due to the availability of cheap suburban housing combined with various other factors. Cincinnati seems to have suffered greater than some other places because the city boundaries stabilized prior to suburban development. So in cincinnati more than many other places, suburbanization led to a loss of population to neighboring jurisdictions rather than a neighborhood population shift within the city limits.

Yeah, Cincinnati's decline is right about typical in the Rust Belt. Midwestern cities lost the most people, and sadly, losing 40% of the urban population is pretty much the norm in Ohio. :|

 

Cincinnati, like other Ohio cities, lost the vast majority of its high-paying manufacturing jobs. That also was a big factor in population loss. It's also a latent effect, which is why the city still isn't seeing a huge overall boom. For every young person that moves into OTR, you might have three people move away who lost their primary full-time job a decade ago. Ohio never even recovered from the 2001 recession...

 

One of the most interesting aspects of Cincinnati is that it seamlessly mixes these elements of East Coast and Great Lakes cities. Anyone who has visited the city can see it gives off a weird mixed-identity vibe ("how the hell does a place like this exist?"). Cincinnati has an insane amount of architectural diversity, particularly when it comes to housing. You've got everything from 1850-1950 in Cincy. It's pretty unique in the United States. I'd put Cincinnati near the top of in terms of architectural diversity.

 

This is the one thing that has constantly surprised me and infuriated me as I've explored the city. The developmental patterns of city neighborhoods here are so totally bizarre and I've struggled to wrap my head around how so many contradictory styles of architecture and city planning can exist in the same city. The "detached row houses" just seem so baffling to me, especially in Corryville. They're the exact same skinny houses you see down in Pendleton or elsewhere but they have sizeable side yards and huge back yards more in line with what you'd expect to see in other Great Lakes cities, interspersed with outher housing styles. It's just so weird that the layout of some of the (relatively) flatter neighborhoods didn't continue the building pattern of what you'd see in the basin. I get that a lot of it was the wealth running out to the original suburbs, but it still seems incredibly spread out in some parts, and it never really reached the point where the old stuff got torn down and replaced with denser construction.

 

I think the west side confuses me the most. You'll notice that I don't have many photos from west of the Mill Creek, and part of that is because I just can't geographically figure out that side of town at all. To even get to places like Westwood you have to travel up an incredibly long boulevard that is essentially isolated until you get to the other side of Mt Airy Forest, and it all seems so completely detached from the density down in the basin and the Mill Creek valley. I guess I would have expected these areas to have developed closer to the edge of the hillside with higher densities, but then you get into Price Hill and it's all very spread out again before fairly quickly breaking down into cul-de-sacs. It just seems so very bizarre, like it's its own little world. That said, I'm hoping to spend some more time over that way since it really is unexplored territory for me, for the most part.

 

Every neighborhood here meets other neighborhoods in such odd ways, and I think it makes Cincinnati feel very detached and eclectic simply because each neighborhood really is its own little city that happened to grow out and bump into another city that has a completely different development pattern. There really isn't anything like it, and it's led to such an incredible diversity of architecture that you're always going to find some really weird, eclectic gem hidden in the oddest place. And that's what I love the most about living here, is just how surprising it is. You can take four different routes to the same place and you'll travel through four completely different environments. It never gets old.

 

Just wait until you stumble on the insanely rural and ramshackle streets on the western hillsides of the Mill Creek Valley.  It's amazing to think that these are actual City of Cincinnati streets with people currently living on them:

 

Knox St - http://tinyurl.com/zz2ub9d

Saffin Ave - http://tinyurl.com/hpsxgjs

Brestel Rd - http://tinyurl.com/npk6jnh

Reemelin Ave - http://tinyurl.com/jc4ox28

Judson St - http://tinyurl.com/pw5bq7r

 

Those roads are beyond bizarre. Roads like that in the middle of big cities always fascinate me. It's so weird that Cincy has so many of them. The whole development of the west side is just beyond baffling to me.