Category: Opinion

Categories
Arts & Entertainment Business News Opinion

Cincinnati misses huge marketing opportunity with Western & Southern Open

The Western & Southern Open is taking place right now, and a men’s and women’s champion will be crowned this weekend in what has become one of the world’s top ten tennis tournaments.

Once finished, the tournament will have drawn hundreds of thousands of tennis fans to Mason, but more importantly, it will have given Cincinnati exposure to millions of television viewers around the United States and the world.

The tournament is a huge regional draw, and it gives the region an annual chance to make its pitch as to why people should visit, invest, or move to the region. This year, the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau decided to build off of Lonely Planet’s choice of Cincinnati as one of its top travel destinations for 2012. Unfortunately, however, the 30-second commercial does not come close to selling the narrative written by the independent travel guide.


There was no mention or view of the Contemporary Arts Center in the recent Cincinnati USA television commercial. Photograph by Thadd Fiala.

“Seen Cincy lately? The pretty city on the Ohio River – off the main cross-country interstates – gets bypassed by many road trippers, but it’s quietly transformed itself in the last decade into a worthy weekend getaway,” Lonely Planet wrote about Cincinnati. “Life centers around the river – much which can be seen by foot: river walkways are best on the Kentucky side, reached via a couple bridges including John Roebling’s Suspension Bridge (a prequel to his famous Brooklyn Bridge). Narrow, twisting (and steep) brick roads of the Mt Adams district lead past 19th-century Victorian townhouses and the free Cincinnati Art Museum, while the once-dangerous, emerging Over-the-Rhine, just north of downtown, is home to the Findlay Market and a sprawling collection of historic Italianate architecture.”

After reading that, someone unfamiliar with Cincinnati may be intrigued to visit the city to experience its architecture, waterfront, historic neighborhoods, and judge the stated transformation first-hand. What Cincinnati USA’s television spot showcases (see below), however, is the tried and true regional selling cards to families looking for an affordable weekend getaway.

There is nothing wrong with selling a good product to a captive audience, but if Cincinnati wants to start attracting new people and new interest, it will have to do something new.

If Cincinnati USA wants to build on the Lonely Planet mention, then they should sell the region on what Lonely Planet is pitching. Show the millions of tennis fans a scene from Over-the-Rhine on a Friday evening, Fountain Square on a Saturday night, the twisting streets of Mt. Adams, the University of Cincinnati’s Main Street, people biking across the Purple People Bridge, and shoppers at Findlay Market on a Saturday morning.

Fortunately, the Cincinnati USA commercial did pay attention to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center which was prominently mentioned in the Lonely Planet write-up.

“Best, though, is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, open since 2004, on the banks of the river where many slaves escaped to freedom in the 19th century,” concluded Lonely Planet’s writers.

Cincinnati has always been an affordable place and a great place for families. This narrative has been perfected over many decades. This strong calling card should not, however, preclude the region from telling the world about a new narrative that has come to life over the past decade. It’s a story about a resurgent city focused on youthful energy, innovation, independent thought, music, and a unique urban core that is hard to match anywhere in America.

Categories
Development News Opinion Politics

What’s the full story behind Cincinnati’s 50-year population decline?

Cincinnati, like all peer cities, recorded its peak population in the 1950 and has steadily lost residents since. Specifically, Cincinnati has lost 205,000, or 43 percent of its peak population of 503,998 as recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the population of Cincinnati’s metropolitan statistical area has doubled to 2.2 million.

Contrary to the narrative perpetuated by those who practice the politics of decline, this loss of population is symptomatic not of variously corrupt or negligent city officials but is rather the outcome of social trends that have evolved well outside the purview of city government. What’s more, nationwide demographic trends and elevated living standards mean attracting 205,000 new residents would require the City of Cincinnati to transform itself physically into something entirely unlike what it is at present or was in 1950.


Cincinnati’s population has taken a recent downward trajectory, but there may be more to the story. Chart produced by UrbanCincy.

Demographic Changes since 1950
Entirely overlooked in the public discussion of city population decline is the end of the postwar “Baby Boom” which was enabled by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of oral contraceptives in 1960, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of abortion in 1973. Between 1960 and 1975, the number of annual live births in the United States fell from 4.25 million to 3.1 million.

An academic assessment of how the plummeting birthrate affected Cincinnati’s population could consume weeks of research. But the drop in family size, along with the proliferation of separations and divorces, means nearly all Cincinnati homes and apartment units that were occupied by large families in the 1950s are today occupied by fewer people.

So for Cincinnati to regain its lost 205,000 residents, the number of people residing in existing homes and apartment units must increase dramatically, and new construction must be populated at something higher than today’s prevailing density. With no reason to expect that Cincinnati’s birthrate will suddenly increase to that of impoverished countries, all population growth must come from the city’s suburbs or from outside the region. The wealthier the newcomer, the more living space they can afford. So paradoxically, the successful pursuit of top talent frustrates the task of fitting 205,000 new residents within Cincinnati’s existing city limits.

Loss of Residential Neighborhoods
Cincinnati’s municipal boundaries have not changed since it achieved its peak population in 1950, but thousands of prewar homes and apartments have since been replaced by non-residential structures. This means Cincinnati not only lost tens of thousands of residents for construction of expressways, light industry, and other purposes, but these properties are generally unavailable today for any effort to repopulate the city.

Cincinnati’s loss of residents and residential land was not limited to expressway construction and urban renewal projects. In the neighborhoods collectively known as Uptown, physical growth of universities, hospitals and other institutions has resulted in the demolition of over 1,000 homes and apartments since 1950.


The West End, shown here in 1959, was demolished shortly after from 1960 and 1963 for Interstate 75 and the Queensgate industrial park. Photograph by Dave Tunison.

The Politics of Population Decline
A variety of unscrupulous local politicians and media figures cleverly play two sides of Cincinnati’s population loss narrative. According to them, Cincinnati has lost population due to high crime, high taxes, and corrupt city governance. But should the city start attracting new residents, the perceived “bad element” will be pushed outside city limits and into the areas of those trumpeting this false narrative.

Therefore, with every avuncular call for Cincinnati to improve itself, these figures work to undermine the city’s capital improvements, and have succeeded in creating a suburban culture that looks upon the city and those who support it with deep suspicion. What’s more, those who play the politics of decline know that Cincinnati cannot physically house 205,000 more residents without construction of dozens of hi-rise apartment blocks. Such apartment clusters and the subway system necessary to move their residents throughout the city would be met with excited accusations of “communism”.

Certainly, Cincinnati would benefit from new residents, especially in its under-populated neighborhoods where many historic structures are at risk of demolition. The arrival of 205,000 residents within the city limits would resolve many of the city’s current problems but would force higher apartment rents, increase noise and traffic congestion, and would motivate the demolition of historic structures for new multistory apartments and commercial buildings.

So while virtually every old American city has lost population within its city limits since 1950, some of that loss has occurred for reasons unrelated to the commonly heard decline narrative. Family sizes are smaller, non-residential buildings have been built in some former residential areas, and new neighborhoods have formed outside city limits to house those displaced by commercial and institutional growth. Considering these realities, the City of Cincinnati will likely never again be the home of 504,000 people, and so should not measure itself against its former peak population.

 

Categories
News Opinion Politics

Steve Chabot Attempts to Overturn the Will of Cincinnati Voters

There they go again. After two failed initiatives (Issue 9 and Issue 48) to defeat fixed rail public transportation at the ballot boxes, enemies of the Cincinnati Streetcar project are once again moving to bar the city from completing what has been billed as crucial to the economic development of Over-the-Rhine and downtown. This time they found an ally at the congressional level.

Last week, Representative Steve Chabot (R), Ohio’s District One representative, and native of the west side of Cincinnati coyly inserted an amendment into the Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill that would bar the use of federal dollars in funding any project in Cincinnati that is on a “fixed guideway” system. The bill is currently in the Senate where it will be voted on and forwarded to the President for his signature should it pass.

The amendment, which reads, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to design, construct, or operate a fixed guideway project located in Cincinnati, Ohio,” is designed as an attempt to stop the Cincinnati Streetcar project. The amendment’s language mirrors that of both Issue’s 9 & 48 but has even broader and more far reaching consequences than either of the two failed ballot initiatives.

According to the Federal government, a fixed guideway is defined as:

Any transit service that uses exclusive or controlled rights-of-way or rails, entirely or in part. The term includes heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, monorail, trolleybus, aerial tramway, inclined plane, cable car, automated guideway transit, ferryboats, that portion of motor bus service operated on exclusive or controlled rights-of-way, and high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes.

This broad definition means that not only would the amendment preclude that no federal funding go towards the streetcar project but that federal funds would also be barred from being used towards any improvement of the following city projects:

  • Upgrading the city’s overcrowded freight rail system: The city has previously asked for state and federal funding to add a “fourth main” freight rail line expanding the regions freight rail capacity and reducing the impact of an existing freight rail bottleneck along the three main freight lines adjacent to the Mill Creek. The City can’t even ask for this solution if the amendment goes forward.
  • Development of the city’s Bus Rapid Transit system: SORTA and the City have been conducting studies on implementing BRT on several streets in Cincinnati including Reading Road and Montgomery Road. This amendment will make it impossible for the project to utilize much needed federal funds to buy buses and construct stops and street improvements.
  • Development of the Eastern Corridor and Wasson Line for light or commuter rail: Both of these rail lines would connect downtown to the east side of the city. Without federal funds neither project can even be studied. This includes any study on the possibility of a “Rails and trails” combined bicycle path on the Wasson Line.

This amendment is a poison pill meant to punish the progress of Cincinnati and its revitalizing urban core and overrules and ignores the will of the city electorate. It serves only the shortsighted will of vocal minority and threatens to leave our entire metropolitan region at a competitive disadvantage against other regions as we move towards a 21st century economy.

We strongly urge supporters of transportation infrastructure to write Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) to remove this overly restrictive language from the THUD bill. Additionally, we encourage supporters of transportation infrastructure in Ohio’s First Congressional District to give Representative Chabot an earful over this callous disregard towards voters in his home district.

Happy Independence Day!

Categories
News Opinion Politics

What can Ohio’s failed high-speed rail program teach us about America’s standing in the world?

When Governor John Kasich (R) gave away $400 million intended to start passenger rail service along what is known as the 3C Corridor, it spelled the end of Ohio’s high-speed rail aspirations for the foreseeable future.

While those aspirations were well intentioned, they were also quite modest. Initial service would have had trains traveling at top speeds of 79 miles-per-hour between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. In an effort to keep upfront capital costs low, simple stations were also proposed along the corridor’s length.

In a city like Cincinnati, which boasts one of the grandest passenger rail stations in the United States, the 3C Corridor proposal left Union Terminal off the map in order to avoid the costly approach into the station through the congested Queensgate rail yard.


Cincinnati’s famous Union Terminal serves light Amtrak service and museum-goers today. Photograph by Jake Mecklenborg for UrbanCincy.

America used to build big things. Ohio used to build big things. This, it appears, is no longer the case, and it makes one wonder if the United States is even capable of building inspirational and useful structures like the Miami and Erie Canal, Union Terminal, or Interstate Highway System again.

The fall from grace may not be as noticeable if it were not for the exact opposite trends playing out across Asia, where the economic scale is tipping.


Hong Kong’s $1.3 billion West Kowloon Terminus Station will serve as a dramatic entryway into the global city from mainland China. Renderings provided by Aedas.

In contrast to the modest, and failed, 3C Corridor, leaders in Hong Kong will soon realize an extension of China’s high-speed rail network into the heart of their city. A 16-mile link will be built from Hong Kong’s Kowloon district to the region’s border with Shenzhen.

Most notable is that the entire 16-mile, $8.6 billion stretch will be underground and terminate in what will become the world’s largest underground high-speed rail station. It is a critical link that will open up those on the mainland to Hong Kong via the entire 87-mile-long Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Link.

Passengers arriving in Hong Kong will not only be treated to a center city arrival at 124 miles-per-hour, but also an arrival to a truly inspirational structure meant to not only provide a critical service, but awe those exposed to it. The investments will halve the amount of time it takes to travel between Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and will be completed in 2015.

America has also been an inspirational place for people around the world, and America has always built and done things that inspire us all. It appears that current policy makers may be content with resting on those past successes instead of investing in the country’s future, and ushering the United States into another generation of global leadership.

Categories
Business Development News Opinion Transportation

Reimagined Brent Spence Bridge alignment could prove to be financial windfall for Cincinnati

On Tuesday April 24 and Wednesday April 25 residents will have a chance to voice their concerns about the preferred Brent Spence Bridge design alternative, currently known as Alternative I at Longworth Hall. The proposal would build a new bridge adjacent to the existing Brent Spence Bridge.

The process, which began in 2004, has a nebulous future ahead of it with uncertainty pertaining to future funding from a new federal transportation bill. Recently, state officials have said that parts of the overall rebuild of I-75 through Cincinnati may be delayed for up to fifteen years. The new funding paradigm has left local leaders on both sides of the river talking about public-private partnerships. Because of this uncertain future, it may be possible to reexamine one of the bridge options not pursued.


More than two dozen new city blocks would be able to generate in excess of $200 million annually in property tax revenue alone, should the new Brent Spence Bridge be shifted west. Rendering from Revive I-75 Study.

In 2010, the City of Cincinnati hired consultants to conduct several workgroups along the Interstate 75 corridor within the city limits. The study, named Revive I-75, addressed ways to mitigate the impact of the expanded highway on the surrounding urban neighborhoods. What also came out of the study was a visualization of the possible configuration of a new bridge for I-75 on the opposite side of Longworth Hall that would have allowed for the expansion of the Central Business District.

At the time there were several alignment configurations under study that would have moved the new bridge west of Longworth Hall, shrinking the amount of land the spaghetti-like on ramps use to connect I-71 to I-75 and the bridge. These alternatives were embodied in Alternatives A & B in the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor study. Yet both alternatives were removed from consideration citing environmental impacts and cost concerns. One of the arguments raised in opposition to the proposal was that that the city would lose valuable tax revenue from the affected industrial businesses in Queensgate.

However; according to urban economists such as Joe Minicozzi and Peter Katz, multi-story mixed use development actually brings in the most tax revenue for local jurisdictions when compared to single use facilities. In their study on Sarasota, Florida, it was found that a local mall generated only $22,000 in tax revenue per acre whereas a 17-story mixed use tower generated $1.01 million in tax revenue per acre. Since the 2010 study, Minicozzi has performed the same study in over fifteen different municipalities with similar results.

In a recent article written by Emily Badger, she summarizes several pertinent studies and surmises that, “We tend to think that broke cities have two options: raise taxes, or cut services. Minicozzi, though, is trying to point to the basic but long-buried math of our tax system that cities should be exploiting instead: Per-acre, our downtowns have the potential to generate so much more public wealth than low-density subdivisions or massive malls by the highway. And for all that revenue they bring in, downtowns cost considerably less to maintain in public services and infrastructure.”


Shifting the new Brent Spence Bridge to the west would allow downtown Cincinnati to be relieved from the existing and proposed entanglement of highway ramps. Rendering from Revive I-75 study.

A land use analysis performed by the UrbanCincy team found that the alternatives presented and illustrated in the Revive-75 documents would increase the amount of new land available in the Central Business District by roughly 33 percent. Approximately 25 new city blocks would be created under the proposal, freeing up land that is currently taken up by the expansive tangle of roadways that connect I-75, I-71 and the Brent Spence Bridge.

This would be accomplished by maintaining the ramps that connect I-71 to the Brent Spence Bridge and extending Fort Washington Way west, becoming the Third Street Expressway. This expressway will later align with the Sixth Street Expressway after connecting to the new bridge alignment west of Longworth Hall. The street grid would then be reestablished and developable real estate could be maximized on the newly reclaimed land. Based on the research provided from Minicozzi and Katz, UrbanCincy estimates that the taxable revenue capture could be more than $200 million from property taxes alone.

Such a move would not only allow for a sizable expansion of the Central Business District, but it would also create available land for a future expansion of the Duke Energy Convention Center. In a time when public agencies are trying to do more with less, this is a perfect opportunity to create more tax-productive property in the heart of the Cincinnati region. Moving the new bridge west is a solution that city, county and local business leaders should all support.