Tag: opinion

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News

The great turnaround

Unlike many Cincinnatians I grew up a Bearcat fan. I remember going to football games and what occupied most of the south endzone was impromptu games up catch by kids my age, the north endzone had some bleachers set up for opposing teams bands, but were rarely filled. A smokestack cast its shadow over those bleachers and parking lots surrounded the stadium making for plenty of tailgating opportunities for the handful of people that actually showed up – most of whom were forced into buying season tickets so that they could get basketball season tickets.

A lot has changed since then. The Bearcats are now a BCS school, the stadium has been expanded slightly and cleaned up, that north endzone is now occupied by a student section at capacity, and the south endzone has a filled fan section with a eatery and massive new scoreboard atop the large rec center.

We play teams like Oklahoma, South Florida, West Virginia, Pittsburgh and other top-notch BCS schools regularly…and we’re competitive. We also have the oldest stadiums in college football with one of the most unique settings anywhere. UC Athletic Director, Mike Thomas, aptly described Nippert Stadium as the Wrigley Field of college football, but it is also one of the smallest stadiums for a BCS school.
So with all this positive change, big time opponents, and a winning team you would expect a region of over 2 million people to be able to fill a 35,000 seat stadium for 6 home games a year. This past Saturday was Homecoming. It was a beautiful Saturday with not much else going on in the region and the announced crowd was something like 32,000 and change. It was announced, on the scoreboard, as “the sixth largest crowd in Nippert history.” Embarrassing.

It was a perfect day, Homecoming, Big East conference opener, the Buckeyes didn’t play until after the Bearcats finished, and the Bengals were scheduled for a road game on Sunday (and they suck). At the same time CBS is predicting that the Bearcats will win the Big East and head to Miami to play Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

The team is 5-1 overall and 1-0 in the conference. Let’s start supporting them before it’s too late. Cincinnati has been waiting for a winner for many years now. Well we have one, and there are good tickets still available. Single game tickets can be purchased for as little as $35, and the Bearcats will be playing host to South Florida, Pittsburgh and Syracuse to finish out their home schedule.

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News

Taking out the trash

Today I was driving north along Jefferson, around 1:40pm, when I looked to my right and saw an overflowing city trash can at the NE corner of Charlton and Jefferson (GoogleMap). There was trash flowing over the edges of the can and spilled all around the ground next to it. At that time I remembered that just a couple weeks ago I saved the phone number for reporting such cases into my cell phone.

I called the number – 513.591.6000 – and reported the situation to a very friendly person on the other end. She asked the location and said she would enter it into the system and have a crew get to it as soon as possible. I later drove back by that trash can about 4 hours later and the problem was solved.

Not only was the trash can cleaned, but so was the previously trashed ground around the can. As a result I would like to thank/commend the City for such great service. It was prompt and thorough and is a service that everyone should take advantage of. City workers only have so many eyes, so a simple phone call to tip them off goes a long way.

Something I have seen and read about before are these solar powered trash cans that automatically compact trash, hold larger amounts and automatically alert workers when cans need to emptied. The Cincinnati Park Board already uses these cans in some of the City’s parks, but it is something that should be examined for high traffic areas around the city. It’s one of those situations where the upfront costs are higher, but is well worth it in the long run. They are attractive, hold more trash, automatically compact the trash (using solar power) and alert City workers when they are approaching a full state effectively preventing any messy situations from happening in the first place.

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News

This and that

I’ve noticed a few things recently…One of the first things is that it seems every weekend, in Cincinnati, is another jam packed weekend of things to do.  This isn’t much of a surprise to me, but I guess this is shocking to some.

Second thing.  In their first game the Bengals did more than confirm my fears that they weren’t going to be any good this year and underperform for yet another year.  Obviously one game makes a football season not, but still…our offense couldn’t score and our defense let a half-rate, first-time QB beat us.  Pathetic.
The final thing is this whole presidential election thing.  What originally promised to be a different election, by both candidates, seems to be heading down the same road of worthless bickering.  One worthless attack on patriotism, one worthless rebuttal to stay afloat.  It has me scratching my head and wondering if we will ever see substantive discussions and discourse in our politics again?  No matter which party you subscribe to, or who you support, no one wins when this nonsense takes hold, no one.
Bleh.
Categories
News Politics Transportation

Young Professionals and streetcars

Well a brilliant young individual had some delightful commentary in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer editorial section, enjoy…

I am by definition a young professional, part of the creative class, and I am enrolled at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning.

As you may know, Cincinnati is not exactly a hotbed for the creative class and has struggled to retain/attract young professionals.

As a creative person, it can be difficult to make it work here over a place like Chicago, New York or Atlanta, but it seems as though people are afraid to even try at times. We need to continue to prioritize the arts and place new emphasis on things like mass transit.

This is a very important issue to many young people and in particular the creative class. If we fail at creating a city with these elements, then we will fail at attracting that ever-important young professional.

Aside from bus service, Cincinnati offers no transit options. The cities that do a great job at attracting this demographic have much more, and we are falling further behind the likes of Seattle, Portland, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago and Baltimore.

Cincinnati is now looking to build a streetcar system. This is a great first step at creating a wide-reaching transit system.

I would argue that Cincinnati has an edge over many of these other cities in terms of arts, geographic features and affordability, but we simply cannot rest on our laurels.

I know I can not speak for every young person out there, but I say this: Please make the effort to keep us around for our sake and the sake of our community.

If you are not a young professional, would you prefer your child to live in Cincinnati or Seattle?

Streetcars are not the only answer, but they are the opportunity we have the chance to capitalize on right now.

Cincinnati Enquirer, Guest Editorial 10/24/07

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News

Stop talking…start doing!

I don’t know how many times I hear from the nay-sayers who continually claim that there is nothing to do in Cincinnati…or that it is a boring place for young people. You also hear, from these same people, about how Downtown and OTR are dead and have no chance. All of these statements couldn’t be further from the truth, but they are said nonetheless.

What I realized in Atlanta was that the bars and clubs weren’t that much better than Cincinnati…but what made Atlanta better for young people was all the damn young people. They were everywhere, and they were active. I saw a lot more young entrepreneurs and movers/shakers in Atlanta as compared to Cincinnati.

My point is that if you want OTR to be cool…or you want Cincinnati to have new fun/exciting things to do. Then DO it already!!! This city has long talked about what we can do, but only in select occasions do we actually act upon those words. I say it’s about time we start putting up, or shutting up. If you say that OTR sucks and are doing nothing about it and have no connection to it…then shut it and move on. If you like to bitch about the poor leadership on city council, and live out in the ‘burbs…then shut the hell up. You can move to the city and then have a voice, until then all you are doing is taking a crap on somebody else’s lawn.

Let’s step it up Cincinnati and start being the great city we are…instead of talking about the great city we could be.