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The Cincinnati metro area has never been more populated than it is right now. That is something that metro detroit, cleveland, and pittsburgh cannot say. Municipal Chicago LOST 200,000 people in the last decade and its metro gained a smaller percentage in population than Cincinnati's. If Cleveland had had the same demographics as cincinnati in the last decade it would have 275,000 more people than it has today. Cincinnati is doing alright.
Why would I pay for roads in Mason that I've never seen, much less use? Yet I do through my income taxes that are transferred into the federal highway fund. This makes up a third of federal highway spending today. That is not only unfair, its unsustainable. If mason wants bigger roads, let them pay.
Matthew... You speak out of both sides of your mouth. For one, you praise the fact the Cincy Metro has been on the increase compared to some others and state Cincy is OK. This is in spite of the fact the City has lost population, but the overall Metro has gained. Then you come right back and complain about having to pay for roads in Mason which you don't use. That is about as much of a two-faced position as I can anticipate. Please decide where you stand. If you want to lambast the suburbs then do it consistently, don't take credit for what they have provided to the Metro when it suits you.
Its more complex than that. Cincinnati in terms of old neighborhood architecture, hands down beats Chicago. There is no neighborhood left in Chicago that is as charming and intimate as a restored OTR could be. On the flip side Chicago does monumental buildings much better, the entirety of the Loop Cincy could never in a million years compare, with buildings like the CBOT Building, the Hancock Tower, the Sears Tower etc.
Another area that Chicago does better in (though not all the time there are tons of horrible cinderblock boxes too) is infill, there is a lot of high quality urban infill, while not all of it is perfect, much of it fools people who don't have an eye for such things into thinking its old. They've really mastered balancing economy and elegant faux historic design. The post-modern/ultra mod stuff is very nice too on a pretty consistent basis.
So in short Cincinnati's historic neighborhood architecture is what really kills Chicago, its part of why we should work hard to preserve it. The Streetcar is a way to allow the kinds of investment to flow to these neighborhoods. Seriously guys there are only 3 other US cities I've been to that compare to Cincy on this metric, San Francisco (a different way though), Boston, and NYC/Northern New Jersey (particularly Hoboken or Brooklyn).
Yes, but I always look to the fact that Chicago is much, much larger (hence the buildings it does have), and has been gentrifying a lot longer as well. Give it time, better gentrification will come along.
Another positive is Cincy is not flat. There's nothing quite like being in Mount Adams looking down on the city.
I stand for people paying their own way. Cincinnati does, many suburban areas don't. The suburbs don't "provide" anything to Cincinnati, they take from Cincinnati without paying the full cost of what they receive. It's a great deal for the suburbs I admit, but it is unsustainable if the suburbs can't figure out how to pay their own way. If those subsidies dry up, the suburbs will dry up. Look at Detroit to see how that works. Despite this exploitation of what economists call "externalities", the Cincinnati metro continues to function because cincinnati still functions. If Cincinnati disappeared tommorrow, Mason would disappear the next day. If Mason disappeared tommorrow, the only reason Cincinnati would even notice would be due to the need to find places for the businesses and people who want to stay in the region instead of leaving entirely.
Cincinnati isn't mason's enemy, its mason's sugar daddy. But daddy is struggling to pay for those diamond rings and champagne dinners. If mason doesn't figure out how to pay some of these bills itself, the good times will end and cincinnati will be stuck figuring out how to pay for the bills it incured showing mason a good time and mason will run off to find another sugar daddy to keep it "in the style to which it has become accustomed." THAT IS WHERE I STAND!!!!
I stand for people paying their own way. Cincinnati does, many suburban areas don't. The suburbs don't "provide" anything to Cincinnati, they take from Cincinnati without paying the full cost of what they receive. It's a great deal for the suburbs I admit, but it is unsustainable if the suburbs can't figure out how to pay their own way. If those subsidies dry up, the suburbs will dry up. Look at Detroit to see how that works. Despite this exploitation of what economists call "externalities", the Cincinnati metro continues to function because cincinnati still functions. If Cincinnati disappeared tommorrow, Mason would disappear the next day. If Mason disappeared tommorrow, the only reason Cincinnati would even notice would be due to the need to find places for the businesses and people who want to stay in the region instead of leaving entirely.
Cincinnati isn't mason's enemy, its mason's sugar daddy. But daddy is struggling to pay for those diamond rings and champagne dinners. If mason doesn't figure out how to pay some of these bills itself, the good times will end and cincinnati will be stuck figuring out how to pay for the bills it incured showing mason a good time and mason will run off to find another sugar daddy to keep it "in the style to which it has become accustomed." THAT IS WHERE I STAND!!!!
The problem with metro Detroit is that suburbanites there take pride in how long they have not stepped foot in the city. I have never once seen an area talk down on its central city as bad as people in Detroit do (yes, even worse than Cincinnati which is hard to believe). Although, I think metro Detroit is really starting to suffer even in the "nicer" suburbs. Areas that were once considered nice a few years ago are really starting to show a lack of care that it once was shown. The economy is really affecting all sorts of life up there.
For the entire region to be healthy, the city and suburbs HAVE to work together whether anyone here wants to admit to it or not. Detroit is a perfect example of a dysfunctional metro area.
When we speak of Cincinnati functioning and how well, I believe we are talking about two different subjects.
Topic #1 is the business survival in Cincinnati, specifically the CBD. I believe this is very well and alive. Businesses are attracted to Cincinnati because of what their employees can enjoy here as a lifestyle. An Indian Hill Estate is a Hell of a lot more attractive than a Manhatten apartment for a family. Out in my neigborhood is Heritage Club, which I can frankly state most of those owners are not employed in Mason.
Topic #2 is the residential component of Cincinnati. This is what I see as being in big trouble. Recent downtown residential developments are commendable, but not significant. I saw recently an article raving about a new 100 condo development downtown. In a City which not too long ago had 500,000 population but has recently fell below 300,000, what does a 100 condo development mean? The proverbial spit in the ocean. So in the near term the OTR and others increase the downtown population from about 12,000 to even let's inflate it to 35,000. In the meantime, the population of Cincinnati overall decreases 10% or another 30,000. You are losing ground.
Some may be looking forward to converting downtown living to the elitists, with $500,000 or more luxury condos. And you may be sucessful to a degree. But then the Bohemians who feel they had rediscovered the urban living will rebel against you.
If P&G left Cincinnati it wouldn't be for mason, it would be for houston, atlanta, philly or some larger metro area. If P&G left cincinnati, tens of thousands of highly paid professionals would leave Mason in a new york minute for whereever P&G moved to. Many other smaller companies would follow P&G. They wouldn't move to mason either. Mason isn't an alternative, it is a dependency. This isn't about where people live, it is about where their valuable economic activities do and can occur. One professional class person is worth five or six middle class people today in taxing potential and purchasing power. Even if someone never lives, works or even enters cincinnati, their presence in the cincinnati area is entirely dependent on the overall economic scale of the metro area which is in turn entirely dependent on the ability of economic players to access the assets of the entire metro area. Without a center that can bring together all the metro's size, the businesses that they depend on will not survive or stay and they won't either. Its a whole ecosystem. Cities rot from the center the the edges, but they stand or fall together. P&G's market value is about $170 billion. If it leaves, the Cincinnati metro loses all that economic power, not just the percentage that technically occured within cincinnati. Same with other large local employers. Cincinnati and mason are not independent, equal competitors. They have a symbiotic relationship. If mason had to undertake the costs of things that other parts of the metro provides, they would be crushed by the costs. At least they could start to pay their own way. That means paying for all their roads, sewers with their own local taxes. That is how cincinnati was built before the state and federal govn't was involved in transportation.
Last edited by Matthew Hall; 01-05-2012 at 09:56 AM..
If P&G left Cincinnati it wouldn't be for mason, it would be for houston, atlanta, philly or some larger metro area. If P&G left cincinnati, tens of thousands of highly paid professionals would leave Mason in a new york minute for whereever P&G moved to. Many other smaller companies would follow P&G. They wouldn't move to mason either. Mason isn't an alternative, it is a dependency. This isn't about where people live, it is about where their valuable economic activities do and can occur.
You are still missing the point. I am not saying the business segment of Cincinnati is in trouble. I am saying the residential. If the residential keeps deteriorating, the inner suburbs will not rejuvenate to the degree being predicted. It is fast becoming a situation of the haves versus the havenots. And only so many of the haves are going to prefer the City versus the suburbs. Just look at the ratio now. What exactly do you think is going to change that?
If P&G left Cincinnati it wouldn't be for mason, it would be for houston, atlanta, philly or some larger metro area. If P&G left cincinnati, tens of thousands of highly paid professionals would leave Mason in a new york minute for whereever P&G moved to. Many other smaller companies would follow P&G. They wouldn't move to mason either. Mason isn't an alternative, it is a dependency. This isn't about where people live, it is about where their valuable economic activities do and can occur. One professional class person is worth five or six middle class people today in taxing potential and purchasing power. Even if someone never lives, works or even enters cincinnati, their presence in the cincinnati area is entirely dependent on the overall economic scale of the metro area which is in turn entirely dependent on the ability of economic players to access the assets of the entire metro area. Without a center that can bring together all the metro's size, the businesses that they depend on will not survive or stay and they won't either. Its a whole ecosystem. Cities rot from the center the the edges, but they stand or fall together. P&G's market value is about $170 billion. If it leaves, the Cincinnati metro loses all that economic power, not just the percentage that technically occured within cincinnati. Same with other large local employers. Cincinnati and mason are not independent, equal competitors. They have a symbiotic relationship. If mason had to undertake the costs of things that other parts of the metro provides, they would be crushed by the costs. At least they could start to pay their own way. That means paying for all their roads, sewers with their own local taxes. That is how cincinnati was built before the state and federal govn't was involved in transportation.
Before you dig yourself any deeper into that hole you have begun with your posts about the dependency the suburbs have on the City, you might want to look at the map showing the P&G locations in the Cincinnati area. Granted, I haven't taken the time to check total number of employees in each location, but I believe there are more locations out in the Metro area (including suburbs) than in Cincinnati itself. And according to their website, "The MBC (Mason Business Center in the City of Mason) currently houses approximately 2,400 employees"
Last edited by rrtechno; 01-05-2012 at 10:39 AM..
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