Cincinnati vs. St. Louis (job, development, living, best)
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most of missouri is vastly different from the st. louis area. st. louis and neighboring st. louis county voted for obama by much higher margins than cincinnati. trust me, st. louis is a much more liberal city than cincinnati. just take my word for it. outstate politics in most states is an entirely different story.
This coming from what's probably the most anti-Cincinnati poster on city-data.
Take anything he/she says with a Titanic-sized grain of salt.
I've spent quite a bit of time in both cities (fiance graduated from SLU and lived in the area after school) and Cincinnati has much more of a larger East Coast flavor to it than St. Louis, in both proximity and feel. And in the neighborhoods department, it's a slam dunk win for Cincinnati. Downtown Cincinnati also bests downtown St. Louis, which gets a ton of mileage from the Arch (which is attractive) but other than that it's largely a generic farmland hub. Cincy wins hands down.
See, I have always felt the same way, Cincy feels more east coast. I mean granted, the neighborhoods remind me just like Pittsburgh's, they are split up from the topography, but that adds to the character. And just because the terrain is there, doesn't mean the neighborhoods aren't dense and have a lot going on. Plus, I was recently reading that St. Louis is trying to, or at least were, modeling their new park after ours which is under construction at the current moment.
most of this is false. st. louis has a larger downtown than cincinnati. st. louis has a larger city and metro population than cincinnati (cincinnati has fallen below 300,000). st. louis is more densely populated than cincinnati. not sure what you consider a "large-scale" neighborhood, but one would surmise that st. louis bests cincinnati in that department as well. cincinnati does not have any rail transit (yes, i know about the 2-mile streetcar that might happen); st. louis has a relatively extensive and very well used rail system. that's because st. louis is larger. cincinnati has two major league sports teams; st. louis has three. cincinnati feels quieter than st. louis. yes, cincinnati's airport is busier now. when twa was based in st. louis there was no comparison, stl was a much busier airport.
what you said there makes absolutely no sense at all. the east coast cities are much closer together than ohio's cities, yet they retain varying populations of their own despite proximity. i think you are perhaps a little resentful that st. louis is, has been and will likely always be, a larger city than cincinnati.
Let me list the falsehoods here....
1. Downtown Cincinnati is a smaller geographic area, but far more dense and has a larger office market. The riverfront is decades ahead of St. Louis.
2. Instead of "surmising", you could google Over-the-Rhine and check out some images. There is nowhere in St. Louis, or anywhere else in the Midwest for that matter, like Cincinnati's central neighborhoods. St. Louis at its core has an abundance of single-family rows. Cincinnati at its core has an abundance of three and four-story tenements and walkups that feel very Eastern. Philadelphia and Boston come to mind in many of the city's core areas.
3. The Metrolink is not very extensive. In fact, it might be counterproductive as a regional economic stimulator, seeing how the line neglects to serve much of the city's most blighted area that is also home to some of the most precious urban architecture found anywhere in the country, the Northside.
4. Cincinnati feels much, much busier than St. Louis. Last time I was there, I stayed at a downtown hotel. Upon reaching downtown after the sluggish ride on the Metrolink from the airport, me and my colleagues stepped outside and could have heard a pin drop all the way across the river in East St. Louis. The nightlife was entertaining with good food to accompany it. Still, there is generally a lack of foot traffic in the core of St. Louis. Very few cars, no real traffic even during sporting events, and an eerie quiet that I have rarely experienced in the core of a major city. Cincinnati feels far more vibrant on many levels.
5. The major East Coast cities are not closer than Ohio's major cities.
Boston is almost 4 hours from New York City.
New York is an hour and a half from Philadelphia.
Philadelphia is almost two hours from Baltimore.
Cleveland is 4 hours from Cincinnati.
Columbus is 2 hours from Cleveland.
Cincinnati is an hour and a half from Columbus.
The entire Northeast Corridor has benefited enormously from coastal immigration trends and its proximity to New York City. Cincinnati was larger than Washington for quite a long time.
See, I have always felt the same way, Cincy feels more east coast. I mean granted, the neighborhoods remind me just like Pittsburgh's, they are split up from the topography, but that adds to the character. And just because the terrain is there, doesn't mean the neighborhoods aren't dense and have a lot going on. Plus, I was recently reading that St. Louis is trying to, or at least were, modeling their new park after ours which is under construction at the current moment.
Not that Cincinnati and Pittsburgh don't compare, but I always felt that St. Louis was a flat, tweaked version of Pittsburgh in its core areas. Granted, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh both have quirky layouts due to the topography, but the French-inspired rows of Pittsburgh and St. Louis have always seemed similar to me in a way. And the fact that neither city ever had a vertical neighborhood like Over-the-Rhine.
well, blowingdown, you have made the mistake of assuming that your perception is fact, whcih it is not. i feel that st. louis is a busier, more happening city than cincinnati and my opinion is no more or less valid than yours. one thing that is not disputable is the fact that st. louis's central neighborhoods, contrary to your post, are not comprised of "single family" rows, but rather, 2 to 4-family flats predominate throughout the city. st. louis also has a significantly higher population density than cincinnati, so please give your "cincinnati is so much more dense" theory a rest. that is absolutely not true. you almost sound as if you haven't ever visited st. louis. yes, over-the-rhine is very structurally dense and aesthetically impressive, but you forget that st. louis surpassed cincinnati in population and importance by 1870 and never looked back, so please don't make it sound like st. louis is some suburban sunbelt city. it has a very "eastern style" urban core as well (so does cincinnati). you are entitled to your opinion, but you can't change facts.
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3. The Metrolink is not very extensive. In fact, it might be counterproductive as a regional economic stimulator, seeing how the line neglects to serve much of the city's most blighted area that is also home to some of the most precious urban architecture found anywhere in the country, the Northside.
1) it actually is relatively extensive as far as light rail systems go ~ 2 lines, 46 miles of track, 37 stations and among the highest ridership of light rail systems in the usa (much higher than cleveland's rail system). it uses old subway tunnels and dedicated rights of way, making it more like a heavy rail system.
2) expansion plans do provide for a north side-south side extension, but even without it, it is much more extensive than cincinnati's (nonexistent) light rail system.
well, blowingdown, you have made the mistake of assuming that your perception is fact, whcih it is not. i feel that st. louis is a busier, more happening city than cincinnati and my opinion is no more or less valid than yours. one thing that is not disputable is the fact that st. louis's central neighborhoods, contrary to your post, are not comprised of "single family" rows, but rather, 2 to 4-family flats predominate throughout the city. st. louis also has a significantly higher population density than cincinnati, so please give your "cincinnati is so much more dense" theory a rest. that is absolutely not true. you almost sound as if you haven't ever visited st. louis. yes, over-the-rhine is very structurally dense and aesthetically impressive, but you forget that st. louis surpassed cincinnati in population and importance by 1870 and never looked back, so please don't make it sound like st. louis is some suburban sunbelt city. it has a very "eastern style" urban core as well (so does cincinnati). you are entitled to your opinion, but you can't change facts.
1) it actually is relatively extensive as far as light rail systems go ~ 2 lines, 46 miles of track, 37 stations and among the highest ridership of light rail systems in the usa (much higher than cleveland's rail system). it uses old subway tunnels and dedicated rights of way, making it more like a heavy rail system.
2) expansion plans do provide for a north side-south side extension, but even without it, it is much more extensive than cincinnati's (nonexistent) light rail system.
You are overtly defensive. Maybe it's necessary with some other posters, but not me. It weakens your argument.
Did you even read either of my posts above? Two things I took care to mention that you completely ignored:
1. My most recent trip to St. Louis
2. I am in no way bashing St. Louis
Something else I mentioned in the second post:
1. St. Louis compares to Pittsburgh in eastern, French-inspired rows
Even after this, I'm accused of bashing St. Louis, labeling it as suburban and you question whether or not I've actually been to the city. Argument is diluting rapidly....
If anyone is bashing, it's you. Let's quote you a bit:
"...not sure what you consider a "large-scale" neighborhood, but one would surmise that st. louis bests cincinnati in that department as well..."
You just admitted that OTR is more vertical than any city neighborhood in St. Louis by diverting the conversation to:
"...but you forget that st. louis surpassed cincinnati in population and importance by 1870 and never looked back..."
I never forgot. In fact, I'm the one who brought up the 19th century, remember? I'll quote myself:
"Maybe you should do some reading and find out that 19th Century Cincinnati was larger and more influential than St. Louis, hence the high density industrial core neighborhoods that St. Louis never had...."
Much of OTR was built between 1820-1860, before St. Louis had its first major boom.
Now let's get back to you.
"...i think you are perhaps a little resentful that st. louis is, has been and will likely always be, a larger city than cincinnati."
This has already been addressed as false.
"...expansion plans do provide for a north side-south side extension, but even without it, it is much more extensive than cincinnati's (nonexistent) light rail system."
I personally don't feel that the Metrolink makes St. Louis superior to Cincinnati, though in certain cities a presence of LRT is a distinguishing factor. Because of the lack of vibrancy downtown/immediate core areas, the Metrolink downgrades itself to a resource, not a signature.
I believe you have effectively established that Cincinnati currently has no LRT. What Cincinnati will accomplish as a result of the streetcar system the city is implementing is even more separation between the vibrancy of its core and the vibrancy of St. Louis'. St. Louis, like Cincinnati, is bleeding city residents. One city is making a concerted effort to bring people back downtown and one isn't. Cincinnati's metro will be larger in 2013, and by 2015, the city population might be as well.
I believe you have effectively established that Cincinnati currently has no LRT. What Cincinnati will accomplish as a result of the streetcar system the city is implementing is even more separation between the vibrancy of its core and the vibrancy of St. Louis'. St. Louis, like Cincinnati, is bleeding city residents. One city is making a concerted effort to bring people back downtown and one isn't. Cincinnati's metro will be larger in 2013, and by 2015, the city population might be as well.
St. Louis has already successfully brought many people into downtown. Check out Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census - NYTimes.com. Between 2000 & 2010, Downtown St. Louis has grown significantly more than Downtown Cincinnati. In fact, one of the DT St. Louis census tracts grew by 226%. The highest growth rate for a census tract in DT Cincinnati was 33%.
"Maybe you should do some reading and find out that 19th Century Cincinnati was larger and more influential than St. Louis, hence the high density industrial core neighborhoods that St. Louis never had...."
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.
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I personally don't feel that the Metrolink makes St. Louis superior to Cincinnati, though in certain cities a presence of LRT is a distinguishing factor. Because of the lack of vibrancy downtown/immediate core areas, the Metrolink downgrades itself to a resource, not a signature.
thank you, professor. this really doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but if it makes you feel better, then fine. the fact remains that cincinnati trails with respect to transit by virtue of being one of only a handful of major cities in the country with no rail whatsoever. any urban enthusiast would agree. i am glad that it appears to finally be getting at least a streetcar.
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believe you have effectively established that Cincinnati currently has no LRT. What Cincinnati will accomplish as a result of the streetcar system the city is implementing is even more separation between the vibrancy of its core and the vibrancy of St. Louis'. St. Louis, like Cincinnati, is bleeding city residents. One city is making a concerted effort to bring people back downtown and one isn't. Cincinnati's metro will be larger in 2013, and by 2015, the city population might be as well.
not sure where you draw your predictions, but if the past 10 years are any indicator, you are wrong. cincinnati lost 10.4% of its population over the past decade; st. louis lost 8%. so even if cincinnati is "doing a much better job of trying to draw people back to the core" than st. louis, it's not working. trying and succeeding are two different things. meanwhile, st. louis experienced the highest increase in the united states in the number of educated young people living within 3 miles of downtown over the same period, so dismissing st. louis's efforts as worthless or ineffective again ignores facts. by outward appearances, it seems as though cincinnati could take some hints from st. louis.
call me defensive if you want to, but i'm not really responding any differently than you are. this is a city vs. city thread and you have taken one side while i have taken the other. nothing wrong with a disagreement.
The hilly topography is one of the few things that Cincy wins over St. Louis IMO. St. Louis (the city by itself) is relatively flat, but that actually works out to its benefit because it makes the city's neighborhoods more dense & connected to one another. I'm not sure if it's the case in Cincy because it's been so long since I've been there, but in many hilly cities, the neighborhoods feel disconnected from one another because of the topography. There are little pockets of high density, but they're not connected. I would think that the topography has some effect on the density of Cincinnati because it's less dense than St. Louis by nearly 1,000 ppsm.
St. Louis isn't completely flat though, not at all. The Ozarks start in St. Louis County and you can see very hilly & rugged topography right outside the city limits. It makes the outer-ring suburbs actually look appealing. They would otherwise be typical boring suburbs if it weren't for the nice topography. So you get the best of both worlds: a nice dense city & inner-ring suburbs, with outer-ring suburbs that are scenic and have a nice natural setting.
But really, Cincinnati & St. Louis remind me a lot of each other. Before I had visited St. Louis, I had already been to Cincinnati several times. The first time I visited St. Louis, it instantly reminded me of Cincinnati.
You may be right regarding cities with hilly topography, however, I think Cincy (and Pittsburgh for that matter, although I personally am not that familiar with Pittsburgh) really have the best of both worlds. They have compact, walkable dense urban neighborhoods, yet you still have access to greenery through bluffs and ravines.
The best quality of life, is urban with nature close at hand.
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