Tag: opinion

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Arts & Entertainment News Opinion

Airport officials should pay local artists to fill CVG with music

Violinist at Findlay Market

As many of you may know by now, Cincinnati will be hosting the 2012 World Choir Games. It is a marque event for the region, and will mark the first time the international event has been held in North America. Tens of thousands of people from around the world will converge on Cincinnati, and regional leaders are looking to impress.

The ideas have ranged from installing multilingual signs throughout the center city to branding a new city slogan all around town in time for the visitors. What is important is that city leaders do not view this event as a singular excuse to debate these types of improvements, but rather as an event that allows Cincinnati to looks at itself from the outside in and implement new ideas that will leave a lasting impact long after the final choir leaves town.

Cincinnati does in fact have a long history with music and the arts in general. It is one of the major reasons why the World Choir Games selected Cincinnati as its 2012 host, and this fact should be celebrated. Cincinnati leaders should look at ways to engraining more of the arts, and music in particular, into our everyday lives.

ArtsWave does a great job at this, and does so at a regional level. But after a flurry of recent travels I had an idea for Cincinnati that should be put in place in time for the World Choir Games, and stay in effect permanently.

The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport should pay local muscians to play within its facilities. Inside the concourse tunnel, inside Concourse B, and near baggage claim.

Traveling can often be a stressful experience, especially international travel. On a recent trip to Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by violin and guitar musicians after an otherwise unpleasant flight and arrival experience. The moment, while simple, was profound. I felt relaxed and welcomed to Chicago – something all travelers hope to encounter upon their arrival.

To avoid the ‘bum on the street’ perception, airport officials should ask that musicians not leave open their instrument cases for tips, and simply pay the musicians an hourly rate. In my opinion, this would go much farther towards welcoming visitors to the Cincinnati region than any inanimate piece of art could ever do. At the same time, it would provide a reliable opportunity for local musicians to perform and get paid doing it.

Cincinnati should take advantage of the World Choir Games far beyond the immediate $73.5 million economic impact that it is estimated to generate. Most importantly, leaders should not get too caught up in those short-term impacts that they miss out on creating long-term benefits for the region.

DISCLOSURE: Jenny Kessler is a regular contributor to UrbanCincy and serves as the website’s operations manager. Kessler also works professionally for ArtsWave, but had no input or association with this article. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Randy A. Simes, and do not necessarily represent those of ArtsWave.

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News Opinion

The Triumph of Downtown Cincinnati

The following editorial was published in the Cincinnati Business Courier on January 6, 2011. UrbanCincy shared this story with its followers, and received a slew of requests to share the story in its entirety.

Typically, premium content in the Cincinnati Business Courier is only available to paid subscribers, but thanks to our exclusive partnership with the weekly publication, UrbanCincy readers can read the story in its entirety below. Readers who would like to view all premium content from the Business Courier are encouraged to take advantage of a new subscription discount being offered to UrbanCincy readers.

Who would have figured, 10 or 20 years ago, that downtown Cincinnati would ever be described as “interesting” or “appealing”? A more oft-repeated characterization was that “they roll up the sidewalks at 6,” once the workday crowd headed off.

But local hotel and tourism officials are much more cheerful these days, according to our Insight focus on travel and hospitality this week. Senior Reporter Dan Monk writes that hotel occupancy in the central business district has jumped more than 20 percent since its low point in 2001, and convention business is booming.

And that’s because downtown Cincinnati isn’t what it used to be, in a good sort of way.

“There’s just more going on here,” says Wayne Bodington, general manager of the Westin Hotel, in Monk’s column.


Thousands crowd onto Fountain Square on December 31, 2011. Photograph by Thadd Fiala for UrbanCincy.

But while tourists seem to think that downtown Cincinnati is pretty lively, quite a few residents of Greater Cincinnati still cling to the notion that downtown is a dark and forbidding place, with empty streets, boarded-up buildings and flying bullets.

While the “empty streets” part once was true, at least in the evenings, downtown never was the desolate place some suburbanites envision; the number of Fortune 500 headquarters has always kept things humming, at least during the day.

And the business about high crime is illusionary – downtown has had exactly zero homicides in the past year, according to Cincinnati Police statistics. More likely people confuse downtown with the more crime-ridden neighborhoods of Over-the-Rhine and the West End, but even there, crime is decreasing.

In fact, according to the police department’s District One statistics, which include all three neighborhoods, violent crime is down 15 percent over the past two years, and property crimes have fallen 9 percent.

Cincinnati’s government is an ongoing magnet for insults, but the city deserves credit for what it’s done for downtown in the past 20 years. It kicked off the downtown living trend in the early 1990s, when it subsidized Towne Properties’ apartment projects on Garfield Place. And the formation of the public/private Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) speeded up the downtown living process, turned Fountain Square into an entertainment and restaurant venue, and began gentrifying large chunks of Over-the-Rhine.

Now, in the evenings, you can see people walking their dogs, crowding into bars and dancing to music on Fountain Square. That is, if you dare to come downtown.

It is the fate of Greater Cincinnati, and every sprawling American urban area, that some people live so far out in the suburbs that the city is nothing more to them than a mailing address.

And grumbling is part of Cincinnati’s culture, but why trash the city you call home, especially if you haven’t seen the center of it since the fountain was in the middle of Fifth Street and your mother took you Christmas shopping at Mabley & Carew and Pogue’s department stores?

Cincinnati will be hosting the World Choir Games this summer, bringing thousands of people into downtown and its environs. That would be a perfect time for entrenched suburbanites to make the day trip and see what Mr. Bodington is talking about, as well as participating in the festivities.

Or come down now, while you can ice skate on Fountain Square, and see what a difference a couple of decades can make.

The Business Courier offers a weekly print publication to its premium subscribers, and UrbanCincy readers have been offered an exclusive subscription discount. Those who do not wish to receive the weekly print edition can elect to become a premium digital member for just $49 through this exclusive offer being extended to UrbanCincy readers.

Categories
Development News Opinion Politics Transportation

Cincinnati wants cyclists to grade city on its bicycle infrastructure and policies

The City of Cincinnati is looking for bicyclists to share their thoughts about how the city is progressing with its bicycling infrastructure and policies. From now until December 31 bicyclists can give their feedback to the Department of Transportation & Engineering (DOTE) about what would make them feel safer and use their bicycle more often.

In 2010 bicyclists gave the city an overall grade of “C” for its progress, just as they did in 2009, and city officials are hoping the feedback can help guide policy decisions to improve the atmosphere for bicycling in Cincinnati.


An on-street bicycle corral was installed on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine earlier this year.

“We’re working to create a bicycle friendly city, so that Cincinnatians of all ages and abilities can use bicycles for everyday trips,” stated DOTE director Michael Moore. “The report card survey is a great tool for publicly measuring our progress.”

This is the third year in which the city has solicited such feedback to help guide its bicycle program. Over that time the city has also worked to implement new bicycle parking and lane infrastructure, along with new policies intended to improve bicycling culture in Cincinnati.

Over the course of the past year, city officials tout the creation of a pocket-sized guide to Cincinnati’s bike laws, new sharrows on Madison Road, bike lanes on Martin Luther King Drive and Beechmont Avenue, the installation of an on-street bicycle corral on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine, and the completion of a segment of the Mill Creek Trail.

The 2011 Report Card on Bicycling survey asks respondents to grade the city on its overall facilities and policies, while also asking what directions the city should take to improve its grade. Those interested can take the survey online now. It takes approximately five minutes to complete.

Categories
Business Development News Opinion Transportation

Lagging air service at CVG may mean more trouble than just Chiquita’s departure

In 1987, the same year that Chiquita announced its move to Cincinnati from New York City, Delta Airlines began its first non-stop flights to Europe from what was then called the Greater Cincinnati Airport. 18 years later, the airport’s “Hub Era”, as the period is described on the airport’s own website, drew to a close just as a third north-south runway was completed. Since that $250 million runway opened in 2005, total annual passengers at CVG have fallen from 22.8 million to 7.9 million.

In 1998, at the height of the Delta hub’s growth, the Cincinnati Metropolitan Growth Alliance hired Michael Gallis, a Charlotte-based planning consultant, to deliver a report on the state of Cincinnati [Download the Gallis Report] and how it must position itself for the 21st century. Given this week’s news regarding Chiquita, this passage from the report is especially prophetic:

“The Airport cannot be taken for granted. There is strong competition for airline activity and hub status among metro regions. Therefore, it is essential to continue involvement with the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to assure its continuing status as a major global hub.”

Unlike in Europe, where government-owned airlines don’t shift their hub operations, American cities are at the mercy of the finances of those airlines that serve them. Chiquita is moving to Charlotte primarily because of the relative health of US Airways versus Delta — the City of Cincinnati has no say in the affairs of Delta Airlines or even the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport.


Charlotte will add Chiquita to its corporate roster in late 2012.

So is Cincinnati finished as a viable location for international business because of Delta’s 2006 bankruptcy? Since second-tier cities like Cincinnati and Charlotte are at the mercy of their airport’s hub operator, won’t Chiquita find itself in a similar situation when US Airways inevitably suffers similar financial problems?

The great frustration is that all of this could have been avoided if at the cusp of the jet age a major airport had been built in Butler County so as to draw from the combined 3-plus million population of Cincinnati and Dayton. Such an airport could have attracted all of the development that now occupies Boone County, Kentucky, and the larger combined population would have ensured multiple major carriers.

Is a continued reliance on CVG a strategy that dooms Cincinnati’s potential? There is a temptation, given the billions invested in that facility over the past 60 years, to dismiss any notion of constructing a new airport in Ohio. But with no futuristic transportation mode on the horizon, it appears that jet travel will continue in a form similar to what exists now for decades to come.

A new airport in Butler County, served by I-75 and a new rail transit line linking downtown Cincinnati and downtown Dayton, is the sort of investment that area business leaders and the State of Ohio should be pushing to ensure southwest Ohio’s competitiveness.

Categories
Business Development News Opinion Politics Transportation

Vote in support of Cincinnati’s urban core today

Today Cincinnati voters will approve or defeat the most far-reaching public transportation ballot issue to confront any American city in recent times. The passage of Issue 48 would not just kill Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project, which has been in planning since 2007 and fully funded by 2010, but will ban all planning and construction of rail transit and passenger rail projects within the City of Cincinnati’s municipal boundaries until 2020.

Issue 48’s author, Anderson Township resident Chris Finney, has been abusing Cincinnati’s charter amendment process since the early 1990’s. He is the man who concocted 1993’s Article XII, the anti-LGBT charter amendment that attracted waves of bad publicity and cost Cincinnati an estimated $25 million in convention business until it was overturned in 2004.

In 2009 Finney’s political action committee, Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), partnered with the Cincinnati branch of the NAACP, then headed by ex-city councilman Chris Smitherman, to place an anti-transit charter amendment on the ballot. The broad language of Issue 9, as it became known, would have mandated a public vote on Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project as well as any other passenger rail investment, such as Ohio’s 3C Corridor proposal, within the City of Cincinnati.

Issue 9 was soundly defeated, all necessary capital funds were identified for the Cincinnati Streetcar in 2010, and groundbreaking was expected in 2011. Bolstered by the election of John Kasich (R) as Ohio’s governor in November 2010, and his controversial reallocation of $50 million in state funds this past spring, COAST regrouped with the NAACP to place another anti-transit issue on the November 2011 ballot.

The implications of Issue 48 are even more far-reaching, as the charter amendment will undo all of the planning work that has been completed for the Cincinnati Streetcar, force the city to forfeit the $25 million Urban Circulator Grant it was awarded in 2010, and cripple the city’s ability to improve its public transportation for the rest of the decade.

UrbanCincy would like to encourage you to go out and vote today. Issue 48 is one of many significant issues on this year’s ballot. You will not see our endorsements for any other issue other than public transportation this year, so please be sure to go out and vote your values. And please be sure to vote no on Issue 48.

Also, when you visit your polling place today, remember that these city council candidates support the Cincinnati’s modern streetcar project: Wendell Young (D), Kevin Flynn (C), Chris Seelbach (D), Yvette Simpson (D), Chris Bortz (R), Laure Quinlivan (D), Cecil Thomas (D), Roxanne Qualls (C), Nicholas Hollan (D), Jason Riveiro (D), Kathy Atkinson (I). A full list of individuals and organizations who oppose Issue 48 has been provided by Cincinnatians For Progress.