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What do you think about this Grand City Experiment? Does the Cincy area need to be more welcoming? Or are rumors of Cincinnati being standoffish largely unfounded?
Whatever your thoughts, I find it interesting this topic keeps coming up here, in the Enquirer, and elsewhere.
I've been fairly happy with the experiences I've had in Covington and also the surrounding towns since I bought my house. Overall the place has been OK. People are not overtly friendly but they have not been hostile which is a nice change from some of the experiences I've had in other regions in years past.
Ironically I may have to sell the house and look for another one either in NKY or another region. Nothing to do with the people but the issues that have developed with trying to start up my proprietorship which is a flea powered radio station. But that is not a reflection upon the people at all. I have one more idea that can salvage the project and if I get a favorable response from City Hall I may be able to make it work. To date my experiences with City Hall have been all right and I hope that will be the trend for the future.
The subjective feelings that people have about whether they are welcomed or not, are truly pointless.
All of the friendliest cities are in the south or the southwest. Duh! Who would have ever guessed that. Southern folks pride themselves on their friendly demeanor. "No one a stranger." But, I guaranty you that a gay Jewish doctor from Boston is not joining many golf clubs in Savannah.
Cincinnati is what I call a democratic society, or better yet, egalitarian. It may help you to have gone to the right high school for whatever group you are trying to become bonded to, but other than that, there are very few demographic cliques.
Cincinnati is rife with "demographic cliques," but then again so is every place. You can detect the "feelers" that go out during your very first conversation with someone. At least - more often than not - you're not immediately asked your family name or what church you attend, the way it happens down South. But it's easy to picture the mental checklist of the other person.
Being a WASP P & G brat from Wyoming, now with nephews in another "good" suburb who are students and alumni of St X, automatically opens many social doors for me. OTOH others are shut out of reverse snobbery. Not that I really care since I haven't lived in the Cincinnati area for a long long time.
What's different between Cincy and my adopted city is, transplants have a huge impact on urban life in Boston. Young adults land here by the tens of thousands annually. Whether it's to start or continue a college career, or begin a new job, or test out the city's "Mecca for youth" reputation, the numbers are such that historically it was easy to get to know folks and find your niche. Even today with smartphone gazing and "virtual communities" it would be much more straightforward to forge human and professional connections than is the case in the Queen City. The core communities draw so many new faces every year that the natives' as well as newcomers' assumptions are cast aside. But in Cincinnati even the sections which should be genuinely welcoming aren't - even for the young and attractive - until that mental checklist is gone over. ("Where did you go to school?" "I graduated from UC" "No, I mean high school" "I went to Shokwahomie Township Regional High School in suburban Philly " "Oh. So you're not from here .")
The "experiments" such as the one described are frivolous and transparent. At the individual level, anybody with an ounce of initiative will soon find like-minded persons. If you're a walking fresco of tattoos in a pair of non-prescription nerdy glasses you'll land in Northside soon enough. The suburbs and certain east-side city neighborhoods will smile on someone in preppy gear and toting golf clubs or a tennis racquet once you clear that mental checklist. Said checklist having been cleared, you'll also fit right in on the west side after you know what parish you're in and declare your allegiance to the NFL Sunday game card. But it takes some doing to settle comfortably if you're a square peg. This holds true anywhere outside the major cities of the US. On the business side of things, P & G and the resurgent GE continue to be the principal employers by a long shot with Kroger gaining national influence. Beyond that there's...health care (like the arts, excellent disproportionate to the size of the city but far from unique)...Dunnhumby, whatever the F that is, some insurance, and, let's see, some new and reviving breweries. Silicon Valley has nothing to fear from the Ohio Valley. So these "grand initiatives" give the opposite impression of what's intended, trying too hard to compensate for notorious limitations.
The subjective feelings that people have about whether they are welcomed or not, are truly pointless.
All of the friendliest cities are in the south or the southwest. Duh! Who would have ever guessed that. Southern folks pride themselves on their friendly demeanor. "No one a stranger." But, I guaranty you that a gay Jewish doctor from Boston is not joining many golf clubs in Savannah.
Cincinnati is what I call a democratic society, or better yet, egalitarian. It may help you to have gone to the right high school for whatever group you are trying to become bonded to, but other than that, there are very few demographic cliques.
This is VERY true. When I lived in Chicago I was labeled "gay" instantly and was pretty much quarantined to the gay ghetto of Lakeview. Milwaukee I was one of those dirty, rotten bicyclists who belonged in Riverwest. Here, I'm just me and I'm free to do whatever the heck I want.
When I moved to Cincinnati, the thing I noticed right away was how much more real everyone is here. No one will come up to you and say, "Hello stranger. Let's share life stories and become best friends!" (Something which actually happened regularly to me in Chicago...) Instead people just kind of leave you be until there's a real reason to communicate. They find out about you through your various channels. This sort of spirit is not a great climate if you're insecure. If you don't know yourself, you should probably move to Portland or Minneapolis or Denver to find yourself. Otherwise, get ready to be eaten alive in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati is a place built specifically to bring different, strong personalities together to fight about ideology in order to distill a consensus. That's WHY we're home to the world's largest consumer marketing companies. It's a place where great ideas go to die, and flawless ideas go on to become international products.
There's definitely beauty to be found in random acts of kindness, but there's also beauty to be found in personal integrity. Cincinnati is a beautiful city in its own way.
And, that superficial "southern hospitality" or West Coast aloof attitude is not real welcoming. People here will look at who you really are. If that is a good person, they let you know it. A very fair minded place, IMO.
ProkNo5. I've had similar experiences in other cities like KC and Indy. Rumor mongers make baseless accusations about my character without a shred of proof because they are delusional, paranoid and weak minded. I rarely had to deal with that in New England and to a limited degree in Minnesota. I think your assessment of the Cincy area is pretty accurate and this may be why I am not having that many issues at all with the people there. I hope that trend continues and that I can get my project to fly there.
Any place where people stay out of my business is going to suit me fine. In places like KC and especially Indy where people go out of their way to get into your personal space I do not like at all.
I've been in Cincy for about 2 decades, and my experiences here have varied over time.
I was single for the first 7-8 years. In those days, I could up and go to the other side of town whenever I felt like it and I found it relatively easy to get to know people. That pretty much held true for a time after I got married and had kids.
We lived on the NW side of town for the first part of married life and kids. It was okay overall. No one invited us over for dinner or anything like that, but we had good neighbors who helped us out and a lot of the people tended to be down to earth.
Moved to the NE side of town once the oldest was close to school age. Will have to put the rest of this as tactfully as I can.
There are individual exceptions to what I'm about to say. But generally speaking, I've found the people on the NE side of town to be pretty much full of themselves. If you don't fit a certain mold out here, you're SOL. People around here are largely law abiding citizens who can hold a job, pay their taxes, keep a halfway decent looking yard and all that good stuff. But too many of them just aren't very nice people when you get down to brass tacks.
I get no satisfaction out of saying that. We've paid a lot of loot to live where we do and, until my youngest graduates from HS, I have to care about what school district I live in.
In partial fairness, we moved out here around the time everyone started to have a texting device of some sort, which has now morphed into idiot phones and all that happy trash. So, I don't know how much of it is this side of town, and how much of it is people just having a handy excuse to be rude because of technology, social media, etc. I'm guessing it's a combo of both.
Regardless, I don't this this "Grand Experiment" will amount to a hill of beans. The people with any inclination to truly participate are probably friendlier sorts anyway.
I grew up on the ES of town in Madeira, from 5 yrs to in my thirties. Several of my schoolmates still live there, those who have kept out of a nursing home. I remember Madeira being the city of the Cape Cods. All of my friends lived in Cape Cods. Usually 6 rooms, 4 rooms down and 2 up. If you only needed 2 bedrooms, you could turn a 1st floor bedroom into a TV room. That's what we called them before you had to have a family room. Another 1st floor bedroom could be the dining room. So that Cape Cod could service a small family quite nicely. If families grew things had to give. One of the first was usually the dining room if the kitchen had sufficient eatin space.
There was absolutely nothing prestigious about Madeira and no space for anyone to be full of it.
When I moved from Madeira to Mason (38 years ago), I moved into the first expansion phase. Yes, the houses were larger, mostly 2-stories and 3 to 4 bedrooms. But I did not see a big difference in the people. Again, I did not perceive people full of it. I have several neighbors who have been here the entire 38 years.
I think one of the biggest determinants of whether a City is viewed as "friendly" or "welcoming" is the percentage of non-native born residents. Cities like Nashville or Columbus are often described as welcoming. A contributor to this is hardly anyone that resides in these cities is actually from there. Instead they are transplants. Fellow transplants tend to be more empathetic to the newest crop of new-comers. A good portion of Cincinnatians never leave or if they do leave they soon return. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It speaks to the attachment to the City. However, the result is if you grew up in Cincinnati you likely have family around and an existing circle of friends. You are much less likely to seek out new members to your clique vis-a-vis a place like Nashville where hardly anyone there is from there and it is necessary to go out and seek new friends, etc.
The University of Cincinnati is booming and the urban core of Cincinnati is experiencing a renaissance. This is likely to result in attracting and more importantly retaining more non-native Cincinnatians. Over time it is safe to say Cincinnati will experience some of the de facto 'welcoming' that other cities have experienced that contain a large non-native population.
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" "Oh. So you're not from here 
.") 
