Categories
News

Our Poor American Suburbs

The other day I was reading metropolitan policy briefings on the Brookings Institution site (It’s OK, you can say it: “Wow, David. You are a huge nerd.”) when I stumbled on this dinner party fun fact: more Americans who live below the poverty line live in suburbs than in cities.

Fascinating, right? Here’s the troubling part. The article goes on to say:

“America can’t ensure its leading place in the global economy unless we grapple with the problems and opportunities of our suburbs. Nonprofits, long focused on inner cities, need to reach out to poor families and immigrants in the suburbs. The federal government should support the production and preservation of affordable housing there.” (my emphasis added)

I respect the research the Brookings Institution conducts more than almost any other source out there, but they are dead wrong on this one.

Our public policy from approximately the end of WWII through now-ish encouraged suburban development. To say that it was the will of the people that drove suburbanization is to ignore how large of a role our public policies played in encouraging that notion.

Federally subsidized home loans allowed young families to live the “American Dream” (whatever that means…look for a post on that very topic sometime down the road). We the taxpayers funded the infrastructure that made living in the suburbs possible – the roads and highways, schools and sewers, water lines, power lines, garbage collection, police and fire protection, new parks, city halls, local government employees…all these things cost money.

‘Suburbia’ by David Shankbone

When people spread out over a large area, the cost to implement and sustain all new versions of these tax-backed services skyrockets. Furthermore, in many cases they become redundant. As has been said somewhere else, it costs the same to plow a street whether 10 people live on it or 100 people do. The only difference is the number of people paying into the system that pays for the maintenance of that road – the more people paying in, the less expensive per tax-payer. Multiply that same scenario out for everything else our taxes pay for, and well, you can see how expensive sprawl can be.

Nevertheless, for the past 60 years or so, our public policy has made it easy to move out of the scary, dangerous city into the prosperous, safe, “good life” in the suburbs because we the taxpayer have funded the infrastructure necessary to do so.

I agree with the Brookings writers’ assertion that the social services to support those who have fallen on desperate times ought to be available in the suburbs, but it’s a mentality that’s like treating a gunshot wound with a Hello Kitty Band-Aid – it might make you feel better momentarily, but you’re probably still gonna die.

Brookings’ solution to six decades of bad public policy that incentivizes living in an inefficient and unsustainable way is to … um … bolster the public policy that incentivizes living in an inefficient and unsustainable way. Throwing money and social services at this problem will help those who need it temporarily, but, we need to look at how our policies encourage and discourage where people live.

Instead of incentivizing sprawl, our local, state, and federal governments need to incentivize filling in the existing beautiful housing stock we have here already. We need to find ways to incentivize healthy density and strong neighborhoods with a local focus. When we do, the development that occurs as a result will grow the tax base. The new-found efficiencies will allow us to provide the same or better services, but with less money. Doing more with less – that’s what will reverse our economic downturn.

So how do we do incentivize density? Tax incentives to those who revamp existing housing within a particular radius of downtown, maybe? A reexamination of our existing federal subsidies for first-time home buyers? Build the Cincinnati Streetcar? Reexamining zoning laws to allow or encourage higher density mixed-use buildings in areas? I’m all ears.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment Development News

Cincinnati’s Riverfront Park System

As a native of Chicago, when I first moved to Cincinnati I was surprised by the lack of residential development along the river. Now that I have lived here for nearly 8 years, the perspective I’ve gained on our riverfront system has changed. This is particularly true as plans move forward for the riverfront parks system extension that The Banks will bring.

This past weekend, I was in Chicago, and was struck by how fortunate the city was to have a wide open expanse of parks and walkways to separate the lake from the high rises. The history behind this parks system begun 170 years ago, when settlers were establishing Chicago as a Midwestern trading post.

“When the former Fort Dearborn became part of the town site in 1839, the plat of the area east of Michigan Avenue south of Randolph was marked ‘Public ground forever to remain vacant of buildings’” (source).

As a result of this green space being established, it has acted as a gathering place for people of various backgrounds and economic levels to gather and listen to music protest or celebrate. Within the lakefront park system, Millennium Park offers water fountains you can walk and play in (a nice departure from beautiful but not hands-on Buckingham Fountain), a band shell that there is regular programming in, and the multi-sensory Bean to look at and touch.

With The Banks continuing at its steady pace, there are already people gearing up to have funding in place to start programming for families at the new riverfront park system that will be built in stages over the next three years. In the Cincinnati Parks e-newsletter, a thank you was put out for a fundraiser that occurred recently which raised over $100,000 for family programing at the Cincinnati Riverfront Park.

All of the other riverfront parks we have in place are excellent places to walk through or go to a weekend festival, but I don’t often hear about family programming that goes on in those parks unless it’s associated with the festival. Hopefully as time goes on, we can start seeing well-advertised day camps or even day workshops for families to attend at no or reduced cost. A park has to offer more than just a place to stop and enjoy the scenery – it needs to be a place that is interactive and appeals to a wide demographic.

Following this rubric, the planners hit the target with programming on Fountain Square every week that offers not only a different genre of music nightly, it also offers special programming during the day to get downtown workers involved in games, farmers markets and live cooking shows. Additionally, the architects of the square itself did an excellent job planning interactive fountains for children to play in while parents watch Reds games and enjoy food from the local eateries. Let’s hope the planners of the layout of the new riverfront parks and those who put together programming think in the same vein.

-Kate Dignan

Categories
News Politics Transportation

Is new funding structure needed as Metro braces for cutbacks?

The Cincinnati region’s primary transit operator, Metro, is citing that due to the ongoing recession and a drop in city tax revenue that less service is in the cards. Metro says that they are “bracing for extremely difficult decisions in the coming months,” and that they are working with several different entities analyzing options to remedy the situation.

This funding problem is one not unique to Cincinnati’s Metro as many major transit agencies across the nation are currently considering service reductions, fare increases or both to help address their budget deficits.


View United States of Transit Cutbacks in a larger map

Loss of funding:
Nearly half of Metro’s $94.6 million operating budget comes from the allocated 3/10 of 1 percent of the city of Cincinnati’s earnings tax. This earnings tax is projected to be some $2 million to $3 million less than originally anticipated. “The exact decrease is not yet known, but Metro is working with the City on alternatives,” says Metro who anticipates a $2 million to $3 million funding reduction by 2010.

Another problem is that fare revenues are projected to be some $3 million to $5 million less than anticipated. These losses are attributed to the nearly 10 percent unemployment rate (fewer workers = fewer commutes) and recent actions by Cincinnati City Council that limited revenue growth by $600,000.

On top of all this, Metro has been notified that it will see a $137,000 funding reduction from the State of Ohio for elderly and disabled fare subsidies, and a $233,000 funding reduction from Hamilton County that would help provide service for people with disabilities.

What to do:
So far Metro has already done a number of things to help reduce costs including the restriction of non-essential travel; shortened call center hours; reduced printing transfers, system maps, bus schedules, brochures and newsletters; increased fares and pass prices; and even reduced service 3 percent in March and May.

But what else can be done that would preserve the service of essentially the sole transit system in a metropolitan region of 2 million plus people?

One of Metro’s diesel-electric hybrid buses – image from Metro

It is already being seen that the vast majority of stimulus money going towards transportation projects is going towards roadway projects and not transit. It has also been seen that many view mass transit as a luxury item rather than a necessary component of a metropolitan area’s transportation network.

Metro is additionally challenged as the vast majority of its funding comes from one entity even though they serve a much larger area. A new regional transit authority was pitched by former councilman John Cranley as he was leaving office, and approved last October, but not much has happened since.

A regional funding structure would not only diversify Metro’s funding sources, but it would also create a shared funding responsibility amongst the communities served by Metro. At the same time a regional transit board should be created that would operate one single transit authority (including Nky). This would reduce overhead costs and make for a more streamlined authority that could experience economies of scale within the workplace. This structure would also result in a comprehensive system that could be managed at a regional level instead of pieced together at a more micro level.

Categories
News

Summer Streets are back in NYC

The Summer Streets program in NYC temporarily closes down streets to automobiles. The program will be expanded this year to 14 locations across all five boroughs and will look to expand upon the estimated 50,000 people that enjoyed the program last year.

Check out this great video from Streetfilms.

Categories
News

This Week In Soapbox 6/30

This Week In Soapbox (TWIS) you can read about the future of the Kahn’s facility in Camp Washington, Nordstrom’s first Cincinnati location, the ripple effects surrounding the transition at Stratford Heights, a facelife for the 175 year-old Mercantile Library and Agenda 360’s rallying cry.

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 6/30:

  • The future of the Kahn’s facility in Camp Washingtonfull article
  • Nordstrom to open 138,000 square foot store in Kenwood this summerfull article
  • The ripple effects of Stratford Heights transitionfull article
  • 175 year-old Mercantile Library to receive major faceliftfull article
  • The Agenda 360 rallying cryfull article