Tag: young professionals

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Streetcar Forum June 10th at UC

Are you in search for more information about streetcars and more specifics about the Cincinnati streetcar proposal? If so then this June 10th is for you.

The City of Cincinnati will be hosting a Streetcar Forum at the University of Cincinnati from 8am – 1:30pm. There is a $35 registration fee for the event (includes continental breakfast, box lunch, parking, and forum materials).

The forum will be taking place on UC’s Main Campus at the Tangeman University Center (TUC-Great Hall – GoogleMap), 4th floor.

REGISTER ONLINE HERE

Cincinnati Streetcar Forum: Promoting Growth & Mobility – Itinerary

8:00 – 8:30 Registration/Continental Breakfast
8:30 – 8:35 Welcome and Introductions by Moderator
8:35 – 9:00 Introduction of Cities
9:00 – 10:00 Session One: Streetcars 101
  • What is a Streetcar System?
  • Why have they been successful?
  • What was the community reaction?

10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15 – 11:15 Session Two: Impact of Streetcars on Economic Development

  • How has the Streetcar System stimulated growth and mobility?

11:15 – 12:00 Lunch: The Cincinnati Proposal
12:00 – 1:00 Session Three: Implementing a Streetcar System

  • What funding sources are available?
  • How much does it cost to maintain a Streetcar System?
  • What are the lessons learned implementing a streetcar system?

1:00 – 1:30 Final Comments: Questions & Answers

Categories
Arts & Entertainment Business News

Cincy Fringe Festival

The 2008 Cincinnati Fringe Festival marks the 5th year of its existence. The festival started tonight at the Art Academy in Over-the-Rhine. Over the next 12 days, Downtown and Over-the-Rhine will support 20 different venues which will play host to a variety of art including visual, performance, and film. There will also be an ongoing mural installation on the south side of the Know Theatre over the 12 day festival.

The Cincy Fringe Festival is one of 20 active Fringe festivals in North America including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Minneapolis…with the original stemming from Edinburgh, Scotland which began 51 years ago.

Organizers are still looking for volunteers to assist in various ways throughout the festival. You can get involved by signing up online (it’s very easy). Volunteers get a Fringe Festival t-shirt for signing up for one shift and get two free tickets (to any Fringe show) for every shift you sign up for after that.

There is a lot more I could ramble on about, but you can get most of the information from the website. You can order tickets, get reviews, preview shows, and much more.

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News

Ohio Transportation Survey

If you are as passionate about transportation options as I am, and want your voice to be heard, go check out this survey being conducted by Ohio’s 21st Century Transportation Priorities Task Force.

I was first tipped off, to the survey, by an informative post over at Building-Cincinnati.

Categories
News Politics Transportation

Let’s talk tax structure and streetcars

There is no doubt that residents and businesses, in Downtown/OTR/Uptown, see the value in the proposed streetcar system. It is also quite understandable that community leaders in neighborhoods like Westwood, Price Hill, and Mt. Washington may not exactly see the benefits to their respective communities.

Every community would like to have more amenities and improved services. These are the things that help make neighborhoods successful and great places to live. At the same time they understandably don’t want to see their taxes rise. So lets break down the tax structure and how the streetcar will play into this whole situation…

Residential properties are accepted losers when it comes to taxes. They simply demand far more services than they pay for in taxes. Those services (i.e. trash, police, fire, schools, etc) are made possible by those that pay exceedingly more than they demand (i.e. office, industrial).

Therefore the commercial and industrial bases are the most important tax bases to preserve and grow in order to maintain service levels for your residential base. Of the Top Ten taxpayers, in 2006, 9 were based out of Downtown* (for what I could find).

With that said, residential properties can get close to offsetting their service demands. The best opportunity for this to occur is in the most densely populated (or built) areas where economies of scale factor in big time. In Cincinnati’s case there is no other residential neighborhood that has a potentially better return on taxes than Over-the-Rhine.

Chart illustrating the functionality of Economies of Scale

These most densely built areas need to be focused on first and foremost, and need to be populated with as many people as possible. This allows you to grow your residential base without significantly growing the demand for services (in OTR’s case you may actually decrease demand for services like police and fire by repopulating the neighborhood).

So while a streetcar line only serving Downtown, OTR, and Uptown seems to only benefit those 3 neighborhoods…it is really affecting the financial stability of the entire city, and allows for a growth in tax base without a significantly higher demand for services. This means extra tax revenues can then be used for increased services and funding for the other 49 great Cincinnati neighborhoods.

*Tax data from City of Cincinnati’s 2006 Annual Financial Report (pdf 5mb)

Related reading on UrbanCincy:
Keep the heart strong

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News

GOOD FOOD – GOOD BEER – GOOD TIMES

Taste of Cincinnati USA is held every Memorial Day weekend in Downtown Cincinnati by the Downtown Council and the Greater Cincinnati Restaurant Association. Started in 1979, it is now the nation’s longest running culinary arts festival.

Taste of Cincinnati USA started as a one-day fest in Piatt Park, then known as Garfield Park, with approximately 5,000 attending the first event. The event expanded to two days in 1981, and in 1988 expanded to three days and moved to Central Parkway.

In 2007, th event was moved to Fifth Street to spotlight the $42-million renovation of Fountain Square and its underground parking garage, and to bring the event closer to Downtown’s cluster of hotels, such as The Cincinnatian, Garfield Suites, Hilton Netherland Cincinnati, Hyatt Regency, Millenium Hotel, Terrace Hotel, and the Westin.

Approximately 500,000 now attend the annual food extravaganza, making Taste one of the nation’s largest street festivals. Taste of Cincinnati was named Food Event of the Year for 1997 by Events Business News, the recognized authority of the special events business in the United States, selecting it out of 40,000 special events across the nation.

Taste of Cincinnati USA features more than 40 fine restaurants serving up delicious and delectable menu items. In the weeks leading up to Taste each year, menu items are previewed and judged for the prestigious Best of Taste Awards.

The Taste is also a music festival, with continuous live entertainment featuring local and national recording stars performing on multiple stages throughout the event.

WHEN:
Saturday: Noon-11:00pm
Sunday: Noon-11:00pm
Monday: Noon-9:00pm

WHERE:
On six blocks of Fifth Street, from Race Street to Broadway in Downtown Cincinnati.