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Findlay Market Fun

Cincinnati’s historic Findlay Market is expanding the number and duration of its farmers market days. In addition to the popular Saturday seasonal market (8am to 2pm), there will now be a new Tuesday Drive Time Farmers Market and an expanded Sunday Farmers Market.

The new Tuesday Drive Time Farmers Market kicked off this past Tuesday, June 16th and is open from 3pm to 6pm through October. There will be a dozen farmers that will open the market and Findlay Market’s Market Wines will offer a drive time wine tasting every Tuesday from 3pm to 6pm.

The expanded Sunday Farmers Market got started yesterday and will run from 10am to 2pm weekly. There will be a grand opening party for the new farmers market days on Tuesday, July 7th from 3pm to 6pm and will feature music, cooking demonstrations and prize drawings.

Good Energy and Holistic Health Fair
Another fun event coming up at Findlay Market will be the Good Energy Gathering and Holistic Health Fair on June 28th. The fair looks to “celebrate the many opportunities we have to conserve, recycle and reuse in our lives.”

There will be vendors and exhibits on Findlay Market’s Essen Strasse (south side of the market house). Visitors will be able to pick up information on a variety of topics and enjoy entertainment from Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre (10am to 12pm), Al Janna Dancers (12pm to 1pm) and Tai Chi Demonstrations with flute music from Sunflower (1:30pm to 3pm). Below is a listing of the three categories with the exhibitors for each.

Food and Nutrition: Marvins’ Organic Gardens, Eco Garden,Green Earth Grille, Nutrition Counseling, OSU Extension Office, Cooking Demonstrations.

Alternative Health: Full Spectrum Health Center, Cole Center for Healing, Cincinnati Area Doula Society, Abby Artmisa; Herbalist & Healing Practitioner with Goddess Garden Healing, Cincinnati School for Metaphysics.

Alternative Energy/Lifestyle: Third Sun Solar and wind Power, Green Energy Ohio, Park+Vine, Wild Design Jewelry, Infinity Magazine, Sam Dunlap; Cincinnati Permaculture and Edible Landscaping, Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village, Cincinnati State, OTR Electric Car Company.

The event is free and open to the public. On one other brief note, musicians are invited to come an perform at Findlay Market. If you’re interested in performing at Cincinnati’s historic market place and one of the region’s best gathering spots you can email playmusic@findlaymarket.org.

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MuralWorks ’09

You may have noticed some scaffolding on the south facing wall of the building that houses the popular Park+Vine store at Central Parkway and Vine Street. It has come to my attention that this scaffolding is there for the prep work that started today.

This prep work is for what will be one of ArtWorks‘ 2009 MuralWorks locations. The popular city-beautification program can be seen all throughout the city (map/images of all MuralWorks projects). This particular mural location will cover up a large blank wall along Central Parkway and become the fourth prominent mural along that stretch of road.

Owner of Park+Vine, Dan Korman, does not yet know what the design will be but he says that he has been hoping for a mural there for some time. “I hope it has bikes,” says Korman who is a prominent local bicycle advocate.

MuralWorks is a program that works with teenage and professional artists as well as community members to create murals, and has the goal of creating these murals in every Cincinnati neighborhood. In 2008, MuralWorks completed nine murals in eight different city neighborhoods.

Image taken from Google Street View

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Summer Gateway Celebration – 6/20

The OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration takes place this Saturday, June 20th from 10am to 7pm in the heart of Over-the-Rhine’s Gateway Quarter.

The inaugural celebration will build off of the popular GoOTR 5k (route map) that will kick off the festivities at 10am. This 5k raises money for the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce and started as a way to celebrate the great neighborhood assets of Over-the-Rhine and showcase the exciting changes taking place there.

Pre-registration is just $12 and will go up to $20 after noon on Friday, June 19th. All participants will receive a GoOTR 5k t-shirt and be treated to the sights and sounds of the 3.1 mile journey through historic Over-the-Rhine.

The OTR/Gateway Summer Celebration has been organized by the Gateway Merchants Group and will boast live music, a host of local arts/crafts vendors, food and beer brought to you by Christian Moerlein.

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This Week In Soapbox 6/16

This Week In Soapbox (TWIS) you can read about the team selected to make Cincinnati’s modern streetcar system happen, the transformations that have occurred along Walnut Street downtown, this weekend’s Summer Gateway Celebration, the new generation of city leaders taking a stand on an important issue, an eastern Cincinnati suburb making trails a transportation priority and the Hamilton County Climate Initiative that is encouraging Blue Ash to go green.

If you’re interested in staying in touch with some of the latest development news in Cincinnati please check out this week’s stories and sign up for the weekly E-Zine sent out by Soapbox Cincinnati.

TWIS 6/16:

  • Cincinnati takes major step towards building modern streetcar systemfull article
  • Transformation along Walnut Street downtown nearly completefull article
  • Summer Gateway Celebration takes place this weekendfull article
  • Next generation of leaders rallies at historic Verdin Bell Centerfull article
  • Anderson Township embracing trails throughout suburban communityfull article
  • Hamilton County Climate Initiative encouraging Blue Ash to go greenfull article
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Where we live and work is important

Planners, policy makers and community activists often discuss ways to make our communities more sustainable and environmentally friendly. This results in discussions about building materials, personal behaviors and organizational structure. What is also discussed at times, but not nearly enough, is the way in which we distribute our people and jobs.

It is no secret at this point that the suburban sprawl days of the United States are hurting our communities socially, economically, but also environmentally. Suburban communities require higher rates and amounts of driving, and consume far greater amounts of environmentally important land for economically low producing land uses.

Andres Duany often speaks about how he finds it silly that urban dwellers in Manhattan are doing all these extraneous things to reduce their carbon footprint. They’re collecting and reusing rainwater, they’re composting their waste, they’re recycling and so on and so forth. Duany asserts that it is the people living in suburbia that should be doing this as it is their chosen lifestyle that is having a major impact on our environment in a negative way.

People who live in dense, walkable cities drive less and require a smaller piece of land to live and conduct their day-to-day lives. This is most evident in a recent mapping project by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) which compares greenhouse gas emissions of city and suburban households.

CNT looked at emissions of carbon dioxide stemming from household vehicle travel in 55 metropolitan areas across the United States. Their research showed that the transportation-related emissions of people living in cities and compact neighborhoods can be almost 70% less than those living in suburbs and areas where amenities are more dispersed.

The maps below are for the Cincinnati-Hamilton Metropolitan area. They compare the per-acre (left) analysis of greenhouse gas emissions due to vehicle travel with a per-household (right) view. The results are evident. The areas with higher density and transportation alternatives are the most sustainable areas according to this analysis. “Cities are a central part of the climate change solution (source).”

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