As a San Franciscan I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I mention that I recently bought property in Cincinnati. “Huh?” Then I walk them through it. Here’s the mom and pop business district along Hamilton Avenue in the Northside neighborhood during a recent Summer Streets event. This is a classic 1890’s Norman Rockwell … Continue reading Low Hanging Fruit
There’s currently a lot of talk about why so many towns, counties, and states are going broke. “Teachers are getting paid way too much.” “Cops and fire fighters have extravagant pensions.” “It’s waste, fraud, and abuse.” “It’s welfare queens.” “It’s immigrants.” “It’s the Democrats.” “It’s the Republicans.” But here’s the truth. Even if you fired … Continue reading Municipal Solvency: How to Not Go Broke
I’m a huge fan of the city of Cincinnati. I love the magnificent architecture, the cool people, and the gorgeous natural beauty that surrounds the city. And I’m incredibly excited that many of the best historic neighborhoods are beginning to come back to life after a fifty year slumber brought on by middle class exodus … Continue reading Revitilization in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati
Check out these photos and try to guess where they were taken. If you thought Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Buffalo, Cincinnati, or a dozen other Rustbelt towns you’d be mistaken, although your confusion is completely understandable. It’s actually Portland, Oregon – that bastion of liberal, crunchy, hippie, yuppie, hipster, eco-friendliness. Go figure. I’m not putting … Continue reading The “Inner Cleveland” of Trendy Cities
Here’s what a tradition street grid looks like from Google Earth. This is how most towns in America were organized until about 1945. Kids walked to school. Families walked to church on Sunday. People could easily get to work and access the local bakery, hardware store, library, etc. without a car. This was Norman Rockwell’s … Continue reading Paved to Death
Over the last fifty or sixty years most towns have been dedicated to accommodated cars in order to cultivate business and permit people to live better more convenient lives. For new developments out in a former corn field this was effortless since everything was custom built with the automobile in mind. But older towns that had … Continue reading Towns With a Past, Towns With a Future
North America is populated with endless examples of previously great neighborhoods that have fallen on hard times. How do we reactivate these places on a super tight budget without resorting to the usual Silver Bullet build-it-and-they-will-come model of the heavily subsidized casino, stadium, outlet mall, aquarium, or convention center which are all proving increasingly ineffective … Continue reading Shoestring Pre-vitalization: Walnut Hills
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Chapman University professor and urban geographer Joel Kotkin here. But I tend to engage in a little philosophical tug of war with him over a few of his finer points. For example, Mr. Kotkin is entirely correct when he says that the vast majority of people in … Continue reading Compromised
I recently encountered an article on Apartment Therapy entitled, “What Are You Willing to Compromise for Location?” Here The article went on to list the many common indignities people endure in order to live in a fabulous city: multiple room mates, crazy high rents, satanic landlords, cramped windowless apartments and so on. The photo depicted my neighborhood … Continue reading What Are You Willing to Compromise for Location?
I’m a big fan of the concept of Economic Gardening which is the exact opposite of Economic Big Game Hunting. I’m also a big fan of Cincinnati. So I thought I’d use Cincy to demonstrate examples of various strategies for economic development. I should start by defining the terms here. Economic Gardening is the process of … Continue reading Economic Hunting and Gardening in Cincinnati
Granola Shotgun 