Author: Randy A. Simes

Randy is an award-winning urban planner who founded UrbanCincy in May 2007. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side in Covedale, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning in June 2009. In addition to maintaining ownership and serving as the managing editor for UrbanCincy, Randy has worked professionally as a planning consultant throughout the United States, Korea and the Middle East. After brief stints in Atlanta and Chicago, he currently lives in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam district.

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Arts & Entertainment News

VIDEO: Experience What’s Driving Hamilton’s Ongoing Turnaround

A few months ago we decided to add Hamilton as one of our focus areas. The city is an historic urban center in the overall Cincinnati region, and has its own identity and news. Like many old cities around the United States, Hamilton has experienced some tough times, but is experiencing its own unique turnaround story.

In Hamilton, that turnaround has been focused along the Great Miami River. With the city’s central business district on one side, and charming historic districts surrounding it on both sides of the river, it makes complete sense that attention is focused there.

The positive momentum in Hamilton has been years in the making. The city posted a 2.6% population gain between 2000 and 2010, and never quite experienced the massive population loss many other old industrial cities did.

In addition to establishing one of the best urban school districts in Ohio, the city has long focused on establishing itself as a center for independent artists, and has looked at the Great Miami River as an exceptional opportunity to breathe new recreational opportunities into the city center. Quite simply, the progress is exciting.

A recent video put together by the City of Hamilton, Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, Community First Solutions and Foster & Flux illustrates exactly what is trying to be accomplished in the City of Sculpture.

The video is a refreshing change to the many promotional city videos that pop up nowadays. There is an honesty in this one that embraces Hamilton’s industrial past along with its people. The nearly three minute video, entitled We Are Hamilton, also includes a script that was produced by a local writer and carefully narrated in coordination with the imagery.

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Up To Speed

Can the Internet of Things improve the way we run our cities?

Can the Internet of Things improve the way we run our cities?.

The ‘Internet of Things’ is basically a new wave of technology that is enhancing the capabilities and performance of everyday devices through the incorporation of Internet technology. So far the Internet of Things has primarily focused on household products like thermostats, but what might this wave of technology be able to do for our urban environments? More from Clean Technica:

An “internet of things” approach streamlines a service that, traditionally, almost required waste of energy and time: service routes can be created on the fly to maximize efficient use of these resources. If  you think that sounds like a brilliant way to manage public trash and recycling collection much better, you’re not alone: the company won the People’s Choice Award for top Smart City Application at the 2014/15 Internet of Things (#IoT) Awards. And the units are doing much more than managing trash:

Think of each waste and recycling unit as a self-contained power plant to which applications and appliances that measure foot traffic, air quality, radiation levels and more are easily attached. Its connectivity can be expanded to offer free Wi-Fi to residents. Think urban development, public safety, and broad communication for the public. Some of these ‘ideas’ are already in the works with pilot programs underway.

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Business News

Feds Provide $15.4M to Combat Homelessness in Hamilton County

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded $15.4 million to Strategies to End Homelessness. The money was part of a larger $1.8 billion nationwide distribution to support services for the homeless, and providing housing and emergency shelters to those that have been living on the streets.

The funds for Cincinnati will go to support 16 local agencies, establish a new rapid rehousing for families program, and two new permanent supportive housing projects for the chronically homeless.

Strategies to End Homelessness was established in 2007 by the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County to lead a comprehensive system of care amongst 30 non-profit organizations working. The organization says that their goal is to work with these organizations to reduce homelessness 50% in the city and county by 2017.

Pointing to accomplishments like a centralized emergency shelter hotline, homelessness prevention, street outreach, and establishing emergency shelter and housing solutions; leadership says that the community has been able to increase the number of people served in supportive housing programs by 100% since the organization was formed nearly eight years ago.

Kevin Finn, President and CEO of Strategies to End Homelessness, explained to UrbanCincy that the HUD funds they just received are extremely limited relative to the need, and are awarded on a competitive basis. In fact, he says that there was no guarantee that the community would get any assistance at all.

Due to the nature of the program, Finn says that the majority of the funds will work as renewal funding for existing programs at existing agency partners.

“This funding is competitively awarded by HUD and was earned by organizations in our community that have successfully helped many people out of homelessness and back to self-sufficiency,” Finn wrote in a prepared statement. “If we are going to reduce homelessness, we must offer successful housing solutions; HUD funded these programs based on their proven results.”

The new rapid rehousing program will work through a partnership with the Family Housing Partnership that includes Interfaith Hospitality Network, Bethany House Services, Salvation Army, and YWCA to build new rehousing capacity that is specifically made available to families. Nationally, HUD has found that 37% of all homeless people belonged to a family, and that 1.6 million children experience homelessness each year.

Finn says that the permanent supportive housing program will work similarly, but instead coordinate with the Talbert House, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Center for Independent Living Options, Freestore Foodbank, Excel Development and Caracole to determine where new capacity is most needed.

Strategies to End Homelessness will work with these organizations, for both new programs, to sort out exactly how much funding to distribute to each participating organization over the next six to eight months, with the funding from HUD being delivered approximately a year from now.

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Up To Speed

New Yorkers skeptical of proposed ferry network, but could it work here?

New Yorkers skeptical of proposed ferry network, but could it work here?.

Almost exactly six years ago, UrbanCincy proposed a comprehensive water taxi network for Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Right now, New York City is looking at expanding and developing a comprehensive, city-wide ferry network. The idea has been proposed there before, but it is being met with skepticism due to a perceived inability to provide the much greater amounts of capacity that are needed there. More from Second Avenue Sagas:

Let’s stop to acknowledge that ferry service can be useful. It’s a complementary element of a robust transit network that can bridge awkward gaps…That said, no matter how many times politicians leap to embrace ferries, the same problems remain. It is, flat out, not a substitute for subway service and, because of the scale of ridership figures and planned routing, won’t help alleviate subway congestion. If it takes a few cars off the road, so much the better, but the mayor should be looking at high capacity solutions to the city’s mobility problems.

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News Transportation

VIDEO: Cincinnati Installs First Overhead Streetcar Wires In More Than 50 Years

Construction crews recently began installing the first overhead wires for the Cincinnati Streetcar. The initial installations took place just over a week ago in Over-the-Rhine. It marks the first time in more than 50 years that overhead streetcar wires have been in place over Cincinnati streets.

During the early discussions about this starter line for the modern streetcar system, skeptics had charged that the overhead wires would serve as an eyesore and a target for vandals. While it is too early to tell if vandals will have any interest in tampering with the overhead wires, it is now evident just non-intrusive overhead wires are for modern transit systems.

Unlike the systems from over a half-century ago, sleek poles support a single neatly strung wire over the street. Also unlike overhead wires of past, this wire will be strung approximately 19 feet above the ground in order to make it more resistant to tampering, and to keep the live current safely away from pedestrians and cyclists below.

Accordingly, the construction of the starter streetcar line is also bringing all new traffic signals and utility poles to the streets along the route.

Following the same pattern as track installation, the first overhead wires were installed along Elm Street near Washington Park. The overhead wire system will carry a 750-volt direct current that will provide the power to run the streetcar vehicles, and project officials say that it will be installed in a slight zig-zag pattern above the streetcar track in order to make sure the pantograph on the streetcar vehicles wears evenly over time.

The above video was put together by CitiCable in its ongoing documentation of streetcar construction work.