Tag: public policy

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Women And The City

I am a strong, independent woman. I love Cincinnati, and there is nothing that will keep me from experiencing the urban core. However, as a female, there are certain stressors in place that keep me vigilant and watchful… just in case. When I walk alone at night, I take extra precautions to ensure I will be safe and not bothered. I separate my valuables and put them in my pockets instead of my purse. I walk briskly with intention, and am aware of what is going on around me. I slap a serious expression on my face that says “don’t mess with me, man.” And if it’s too far, I drive and park closer, or enlist a male friend to escort me to my destination. For the most part, it seems to work. Am I being too careful? Why do I even bother? Cincinnati is amazing, but it is still not always hospitable for women.

The city as we know it today was not designed for females. Our country was founded by men, and our cities were designed according to their desires and needs. Victorian philosophy dictated that a woman’s place was in the home, not out in the wild world, where bad things can and do occasionally happen. Thus, public spaces were designed with men in mind; men who could deal with the combativeness and friction of the public realm. If a woman were to wander out in public alone, she was harassed – “what’s a nice girl like you doing out here?”

Unfortunately, this still carries through today as I regularly endure catcalls and jeers in public from men of every size and color. Even now, I am one of the only female bloggers writing about urban issues in this region (and on this site – love ya, guys!) It certainly seems to be a man’s world out there. Why is this still acceptable in modern culture? What about the urban setting can be so inhospitable toward women… and what can be done to reverse it?

In Dolores Hayden’s work, Domesticating Urban Space, she examines the separation between public life and private life. In order for a city to be inclusive towards women and families, she explains, the two spheres need to intermingle. When the public life – experiencing the city- feels more like an extension of one’s private living space (safe, hospitable, welcoming, fun), then those who are more vulnerable will be apt to inhabit it.

Local activist and entrepreneur Candace Klein extrapolated along these same lines in her recent editorial which ran in the Enquirer earlier this year. She described her experience of living in Over-the-Rhine for three days without a car, and how it opened her eyes to the community all around her. She is one example of a fearless, independent woman who has figured out how to make the city work to fit her needs. But… does she walk home alone at night?

There are both basic and complicated changes that can be implemented in communities to make experiencing them safer and more enjoyable for women and families. One basic necessity is adequate lighting in neighborhoods. Another is simply for there to be enough activity during the evening hours to increase the amount of eyes out on the street. Both of these details were lacking when I was mugged last November. Hayden describes having a system of safe houses or businesses (much like the Safe Place signs back in the 90’s) where anyone could go to if they did feel threatened at all. As neighborhoods become denser and we get to know each other, the cold and faceless city suddenly is colored with life, friends, and a strengthened sense of community.

Hayden writes, “As long as the domestic world remains a romantic haven “outside” of public life and the political economy, politically active women can always be sent back to it, and men can justify the exclusion of women and children from their public debates and analyses… yet… if they (women) can transcend the female world of a segregated place, new kinds of homes and neighborhoods might become the most powerful place in America for progressive political coalitions on urban issues.”

I believe that policy and design has moved forward somewhat since Hayden’s work was written in 1984. Now women make a whole .75 cents on the dollar instead of .50 cents, and gradually more attention is being paid and gender stereotypes are slowing down. They are not gone completely, but things are improving.

One of the greatest indicators of a truly great city is how safe and comfortable the most vulnerable feel interacting in the city. In the case of Copenhagen, Denmark, babies are left in prams outside of shops to get much needed sunlight, and I had no fears traveling on my own from place to place while living there in 2008. I don’t know when that day will come for Cincinnati, but I am looking forward, and doing my part by refusing to give in to fear or intimidation.

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Neighborhood Summit Recap

Over 600 concerned local citizens turned up at last weekend’s Neighborhood Summit, Step Two in involving the public in Plan Cincinnati, a new comprehensive plan being drafted by the City. While the meat and potatoes of the event were the small-group sessions focused on seven “Project Elements” (Housing and Neighborhood Development; Economic Development and Business Retention; Transportation and Transit; Health, Environment and Open Space; Historic Preservation; Urban Design; and, Arts and Culture) the highlights of the day were the two featured speakers: Scott Bernstein of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Anthony Williams JD, former Mayor of Washington D.C.

Williams’ talk was a straight-forward explanation of the Washington D.C. Comprehensive Plan that he oversaw in office, and while his delivery utilized dry wit and the invocation of insights from our Founding Fathers, it was Bernstein’s presentation that fascinated outright, striking at some of the key issues Cincinnati must address with its Comprehensive Plan.

Bernstein spoke predominantly on the drawbacks of an automobile-centric transportation network and two points especially stood out. First, he shared a graph charting the rise and fall of gas prices, followed by a graph almost perfectly shadowing the first line, but on a lag of about six months time: the rate of foreclosures. Our level of fuel dependency is dependent on our living locations, to the point where many people are just plain stuck when gas rises to excruciating price-points.

Expanding on that idea, Bernstein then demonstrated how chasing lower housing costs out away from a city’s center could actually wind up crippling a household’s financial flexibility. Since transportation costs are largely a function of the distance one lives from work, social and educational opportunities, the two expenses ought to be looked at together, and Bernstein showed that in a “Drive Til You Qualify” market — areas that are chiefly auto-dependent — a commitment to suburban and exurban life is also a commitment to increased transportation expenses.

Bernstein demonstrated that, on average, a household saving $6k in monthly housing costs ends up sinking up 77% of their income into housing and transport, combined. Spend that extra $6,000 to live closer to where you learn, work and play, and the average household could end up with over 50% of their income still in their pockets — money which can then spur growth in a diverse local economy. Preemptively addressing the mass-transit critic, who might scoff at New Urbanist cities such as Portland, Bernstein quipped, “People who maybe don’t travel a lot think, Oh, Portland, they’re a ‘fuzzy’ kind of people. Well, yeah: they’re fuzzy all the way to the bank.”

After Bernstein spoke, citizens weighed in on the Project Elements in their respective small groups, offering opinions on how initiatives should be prioritized, and brainstorming ways to achieve goals such as being “a city with inviting and engaging public spaces” and having “economically diverse, mixed-income neighborhoods.”

Even after three such hour-long sessions, the real work is ahead; over the next six months working groups will meet to turn the initial feedback from the Neighborhood Summit into strategies aimed to realize each element. The working groups are open to all. Visit PlanCincinnati.org for more information.

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Cincinnati’s air quality improves, named ‘Climate Showcase Community’

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is “proposing to approve” a request from the states of Ohio and Indiana to redesignate parts of the Cincinnati metropolitan area in attainment of the national health-based eight-hour outdoor standard for ozone. The two-state request includes Dearborn County in Indiana, and Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, and Warren Counties in Ohio.

In a press release, officials from the EPA state that after three years of “complete, quality-assured, outdoor air monitoring data for 2007, 2008 and 2009 show that the area now meets the air quality standard.” The EPA is also proposing to approve Ohio and Indiana’s plans to continue to meet the air quality standard through 2020, and to approve motor vehicle emission budgets for the included areas.

Just days after the EPA’s air-quality announcement, Cincinnati was awarded a $500,000 federal grant that will help promote the city’s Green Cincinnati Plan as part of 20 Climate Showcase Communities nationwide. The grant money will specifically go towards funding advertisements, promotions and the development of a climate protection toolkit for use in local schools.

“The Green Cincinnati Plan is an innovative strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and cut energy bills for families and businesses,” said Cheryl Newton, EPA Region 5 air division director. “Taking action on climate change is one of EPA’s top priorities, and the EPA is pleased to support the city’s efforts to fight climate change.”

As part of the $500,000 federal grant, Cincinnati will contribute $250,000 in matching funds and has committed to acting as a regional leader by sharing lessons learned with neighboring communities. The Cincinnati Energy Alliance (CEA) will be tapped to provide energy audits for 20 nonprofit organizations and create a loan program to finance energy efficiency improvements.

Over the three-year course of this project officials expect to see Cincinnati’s greenhouse gas emissions reduce by 2 percent annually. CEA’s energy audits are expected to spur close to $500,000 in energy efficiency measures while saving 1 million kilowatts of electricity and 25,000 therms of gas.

“This is a tremendous achievement for our city,” said Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. “Our Green Cincinnati Action Plan is a collaboration among dedicated citizens, community organizations and businesses in our region. Our partners all realize that making Cincinnati a ‘Green City’ is essential to making Cincinnati a successful city in the future.”

Do Your Share For Cleaner Air photograph by JasonTT.

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Census meeting today on hard to count populations

U.S. Representative Steve Driehaus (D-OH) will be in Cincinnati today for a field hearing on hard to count populations on the University of Cincinnati’s Main Campus at 2pm. The hearing will take place at UC’s Main Street Cinema in the lower level of the Tangeman University Center (map).

Representative Driehaus will be joined by a host of local officials including Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, Thomas L. Mesenbourg who is the Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Representative Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Dave Scharfenberger who is the Director of Training for Working in Neighborhoods, Jason Riviero with the Leauge of Latin American Citizens of Ohio, Suzanne Hopkins with the Center for Independent Living Options, Josh Spring with the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, and Todd Duncan with UC’s Department of Housing & Food Services.

The hearing will include testimony from the Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The intent is to better understand how to count historically under-counted populations in the U.S. Census. Recently a Census District including part of Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine and West End neighborhoods was identified as the 6th most difficult to count Census District in the nation.

In Cincinnati, Mayor Mallory has championed efforts over the last several years to ensure that Cincinnati is fully counted and represented in the U.S. Census with the Cincinnati Counts campaign. The U.S. Census helps determine how to distribute $300 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year, and during the last full count in 2000, the U.S. Census Monitoring Board estimated that the United States’ population was under-counted by over 3 million people who are often either minorities, children, the poor, and people in large urban areas like Cincinnati.

Officials now estimate that Cincinnati’s population is currently uncounted by approximately 45,000 people which results in the loss of $2,263 per year, per person in federal funding for schools, public safety and more. Over a ten year period, Cincinnati officials estimated that this cost Cincinnati about $104 million in terms of lost funds.

Tangeman University Center photograph by fusion-of-horizons.

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How Cincinnati could benefit from greater use of new media

A recent article written by Christian Madera in Next American City discussed what role new media plays in local government, and more particularly, in small local governments. Madera’s article examined what a couple of small local governments are doing around the nation to better engage their citizens while doing it on a tight budget.

While Cincinnati does not fit the bill of a “small local government,” the city does have the opportunity to enhance residents’ experience with local government with little to no extra costs. Over this past winter, the City of Cincinnati started operating a Twitter account (@CincinnatiSnow) where anyone interested could follow along and stay informed on the latest snow emergency levels, procedures, status of snow clearing efforts and more. This joins a small group of other City departments/agencies that have joined the Twitter fold to further share their information with the public at-large, but what else could be done?

The City currently has a phone number that people can call to report overflowing City trash cans among other things. This system could be enhanced to allow people to tweet, text or email these reports to the City which would then be handled by an analyst – presumably the same person now answering the phone and handling the calls – so that the City could dispatch crews accordingly. If Cincinnati can not afford the upfront capital expenditure associated with solar-powered trash cans that automatically notify crews when they approach a certain fill level, then this could be the next best option.

Public meetings are currently broadcast on CitiCable, Cincinnati’s local access television station, but why not turn the audio recordings already done into podcasts or broadcast them on UStream? Those interested in Planning Commission or City Council meetings, for example, could subscribe to those podcasts and listen to the meetings at their convenience. Broadcasting the meetings on UStream would create another means in which the public could stay connected with City Hall while adding no additional costs to the City’s budget.

The City already has the ability to record the audio and video for all of its public meetings, so all it would take is the initial effort and maintenance of operating the new media outlets. Young talent already possesses the ability to do this and could be managed on a department by department basis where existing staff takes on the minor work increase, or a singular employee could manage the entire system from the dissemination of information to its collection from those engaged in the process.

The beauty of new media is that it allows for instant exchange of information and ideas. Effectively taking advantage of this at the local government level could improve services, make public information more available, and allow for an interaction between citizen and government that is not currently seen.

Cincinnati City Hall photograph by Thadd Fiala.