Cincinnati vs. St. Louis (rates, versus, better, compared)
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please do not make false assertions that cincinnati somehow enjoyed higher densities than st. louis. in 1950, both cities peaked in population; st. louis with 857,000, cincinnati with 504,000. at the same time, st. louis had over 14,000 people per square mile, while cincinnati had 6,340 people per square mile. i think you meant to say that st. louis reached a density that cincinnati never did, not the other way around.
Cincinnati has a weird history in regards to density that lead to it having a weird layout in 1950. The core city neighborhoods were developed pre streetcar and were hemmed in by the hills which in those days were a MAJOR obsticle to redevelopment. As a result the core neighborhoods (which were about 3x the size they are today) were some of the most densely populated in the country. There is a reason why OTR looks like Hoboken NJ (which is currently one of the most densely populated municipalities in the whole country) it literally held the same population density as that city - about 50,000 people per mi sq. See pics like this to show you just how increadibly dense Cincy's core was pre midcentury urban renewal (which was btw one of the largest urban renewal programs in the country!) - http://cincinnativiews.net/images-4/1920's%20Aerial.jpg this basin represented the 5/6th largest city in the country circa 1860.
The issue is that Cincinnati started moving up the hills with the invention of Inclines in the 1870s and unlike a lot of other cities that had similar development patterns (like say San Francisco) its growth slowed in the late 1800s (it didn't decline in earnest until around the 1960s) as a result the city had an extremely dense core (though slowly growing less dense) surrounded by far less dense hilltop neighborhoods. Other than a few close in neighborhoods like Clifton Heights, the big city neighborhood feel kind of fades out when you get to the tops of the hills. By 1900 Cincy was the 10th largest city (about the same size as San Francisco at the time), by 1950 it had significantly dropped in rank. In most cities that were developed similarly you will find older mansions on the hill tops or outer areas surrounded by tons of infill built from about 1890-1960, this isn't the case quite as much in Cincinnati - there are a number of brick boxes built from 1930-1960 but not at the level that infill occurred in other cities, giving a lot of the older mansion districts a very intact feeling with large yards around mansions and not much infill between them (for the most part).
Starting in the 1960s that awesome photograph you saw above had about 2/3rds of all houses eliminated, only OTR, Pendleton and the West End's Brighton district survive. These neighborhoods are built at a density that can support up to 50K / mi sq, but due to massive racial issues, the loss of the West End etc, they are largely abandoned giving Cincy a really hollowed out feel and a lower population density. This confuses people, a lot of whom don't have a good grasp of Cincinnati's history and don't understand that Cincy crica 1860 was 2nd to Manhattan in density but as it annexed large swaths of land and added things like giant parks (Mt Auburn which is one of the largest urban parks in the country) and more sparsely developed hilltop neighborhoods, its density went WAYYY down. Misguided Urban rewnewal helped to accelerate this decline significantly.
St. Louis was also really dense and lost a lot, but from what I understand its development pattern was more like the 19th century neighborhoods of Chicago - coming close but not quite reaching the dense levels of OTR which really only has equivalents on the East Coast - there was a lot more room to spread out and St. Louis' first major growth spurt coincided with the development of streetcars/cable cars.
Last edited by neilworms2; 09-16-2013 at 12:45 PM..
I've seen that photograph before too, its very sad when you see the after photo
Do you know what the peak densities were in St. Louis? They do look really high, I'm not sure if it was OTR or lower downtown (the old "Bottoms neighborhood") levels (though the rest of the basin was probably pretty comparable).
I've seen that photograph before too, its very sad when you see the after photo
Do you know what the peak densities were in St. Louis? They do look really high, I'm not sure if it was OTR or lower downtown (the old "Bottoms neighborhood") levels (though the rest of the basin was probably pretty comparable).
1950 St. Louis peak population: ~857,000 in 61 sq. miles. Just over `14,000 ppsm citywide. Easily among the most densely populated American cities at that time.
I finally got a chance to travel to St. Louis and kind of got an idea of how the city feels.
Its a cousin of Cincinnati, a neighborhood like Lafeyette Square would totally fit in on the first ring hilltop neighborhoods, however a lot of the outer hoods
St Louis is a lot better at leveraging its historic assets and is way more welcoming and tourist friendly (the tourism bearu website is fantastic, its history museum does a way better job of explaining why STL was culturally relevant to the development of the US etc), Cincinnati has a much stronger urban core these days - OTR/Pendleton/Downtown/Mt Adams are much more cohesive than what surrounds DTSTL, which is a wasteland on all sides to varying degrees - its amazing how there are areas that have clusters of skyscrapers but like everything else around it is urban renewal crud, or parking lots. Soulard and Layfette Square should be way better connected to downtown than they are - I'm hoping that if STL gets another transit line it serves these really awesome neighborhoods. On the flip side STL has way stronger urban suburbs, University City, Clayton and Maplewood felt more hyper dense urban and at least somewhat transit friendly (though not so much with Maplewood) than Wyoming or Mariemont.
Cincy's urban core is generally more cohesive, it didn't fall nearly as hard as STL did, but STL's remaining fragments are a lot more vibrant than Cincy's. If Cincy can get the hillside between OTR and the Uptown neighborhoods revitalized without killing its unique character, it would kill STL - because STL's core is pretty much JUST Washington ave and Cincy could have this 2 mi area of dense development you could walk through before things start to taper off and get a bit more suburban. Don't get me wrong Washington Ave is awesome, but hallow. Its like plopping a street of early Chicago skyscrapers in the middle of a desolate wasteland - the street itself is great but it feels like a movie set because on either side a block away there are abandoned buildings and giant parking lots. Tons of infill is needed to make it more vibrant.
STL generally feels like a cooler more with it city at lest based off of the retail I saw in the trendy neighborhoods (besides OTR). STL felt more liberal and more diverse, the east asian population seemed larger, though I didn't really see many Latinos...
Both have similar beer scenes - with German style beers being common and a lot of beer gardens. Urban Chestnut is the 2nd best brewery I've been to for German style beers (its lager is to die for) after , though the other breweries weren't nearly as strong, I'd say overall Cincy is better but Urban Chestnut wins overall if I had to compare the two city's craft beer cultures. (and for larger beer production Sam Adams wins over Budweiser, though I really wish the Sam Adams guy would at least give that facility a tap room to help draw tourists to the brewery district in upper OTR).
I wish Cincy had STL's transit system, which while not perfect is way better, I was able to do most of my trip without a car (a few Uber rides were needed to get to Soulard and Lafayette Square), though it prevented me from checking out some Southside neighborhoods... I found that the train system tended to put me about a 10 min walk from anywhere I needed to be, which while not perfect its acceptable and the buses were useful though sometimes didn't run as frequent as I would have liked. Sadly Cincy right now is only a handful of useful bus routes that run at good frequencies and one very small streetcar (which will be great) that's opening in a little more than a year.
In conclusion the cities are like cousins, both are similar but very different with pluses and minuses for each. I'd edge Cincy due to its cohesiveness and its ability to preserve far more of its era victorian neighborhoods.
I'm personally not a huge fan of Cincy, but when it comes to architecture and natural environment, I feel it rises above what I have seen in St. Louis.
St. Louis is a nice city with beautiful architecture, but it has nothing remotely close to what is found in the center city of Cincinnati, or in their rather unique neighborhoods that includes Over The Rhine, and Mt. Adams.
Cincy definitely has some incredible architecture!
Sorry, but if you're going to go through life always thinking that St. Louis is going to find favor with EVERYONE, you're sadly mistaken. There was no exaggeration in my previous post, nor in this one.
I prefer the architecture, setting and topography in Cincy ... Deal with it!
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