I grew up in Cincinnati and grew up with current staff members of both 3CDC and other active development groups in OtR. They have had good goals, overall, with active talk about in-fill development that at least gives lip service to gentrification concerns. However, they have also had decidedly non-diverse staffs, have held lots of non-public meetings even when the public was clamoring for meetings, and arguably just pushed poverty out of parts of OtR into other areas of the city.<p>Here's some articles that have a different perspective:<p><a href="http://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/citywiseblog/3cdc-in-over-the-rhine-between-two-worlds/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/citywiseblog/3cdc-in-over-...</a><p><a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/letters/2015/03/18/letter-otr-wealthy-poor-gentrification/24951835/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/letters/2015/03/18/l...</a><p><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24138-econocide-over-the-rhine" rel="nofollow">http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24138-econocide-over-the-...</a><p>The Brandery is a pretty big incubator, I bet there are some HN readers that have been through it or work there. Looking forward to hearing their perspectives. As far as the perspectives of the people that have lived in OtR through the 90s and 2000s, don't think you'll get many of them. I lived/played in OtR in 2001-2003 and grew up running around there in the 90s going to house shows, art openings (from the very first wave of incidental gentrifiers, one might say), boozey dive bars, the local goth club, etc.
<i>"In the process, it has earned the ire of longtime residents and homeless advocates, who say their desires, suggestions and dreams for the neighborhood—until recently 80 percent African-American—are seldom consulted and rarely implemented."</i><p>Yup. "Urban renewal means Negro removal", as James Baldwin once said.<p>Silicon Valley did this in Whiskey Gulch, the small piece of East Palo Alto that's west of 101. East Palo Alto was Silicon Valley's one black city. In the 1980s, Whiskey Gulch was mostly liquor stores and bars, hence the name. When I lived a few blocks away in Menlo Park, I'd hear automatic weapons fire from there most weekends. (This was the era of the MAC-11 machine pistol, "the gun that made the 80's roar".) It's the only place I've ever seen a fully armored fried chicken outlet; you got your chicken through a turntable in the armor glass.<p>That problem was solved in 1997 by leveling the entire area and building a Four Seasons hotel and an office building full of lawyers.[1] Amazon AWS recently moved in there. No more black people, and no more gunfire.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/cover/1997_Mar_5.COVER05.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/cover/1997_Mar_5...</a>
I'm from Cincinnati and have lived here my entire life.<p>Much of the area formerly referred to as OTR remains unsafe after dark. In addition to the gentrification, they've also successfully rebranded "OTR" to just be considered to be the 2 streets (Race and Vine between Central and Liberty if you're looking at a map) that are revamped.<p>The remainder of what used to be called OTR is still derelict buildings, soup kitchens, and other obvious signs of a blighted area.
I am from and live in Cincinnati. As some others have stated, this article greatly overstates the changes that's occurred in OTR. Yes, parts of Vine and Race street have been cleaned up a great deal, but go just a street over, or even a little further on said streets and you are right back in an area that is anything but the "good" part of town.<p>It's not at all uncommon to go into these areas and see sights such as drug deals and prostitution occurring right out in the open. When I worked for Kroger (which, granted, has been several years now), they used to have to keep a police presence at the Vine street store because it was so common to have problems there. Sadly, much of OTR is still what I would consider urban plight.
Grew up in the west end and went to elementary school there before the school moved to some countryside and still lived there until highschool before parents split… it was bad, but when I was younger it never seemed that bad as people make it out to be.<p>I rather gunshots, prostitution, having to stay in after hours sometimes or not being able to go home a couple of nights because some guy is barricaded in some abandon house across the street and the swat team is there than metadata drone strikes… some people don't get a choice where they live, or die… and in twenty years or so when this area becomes a slum, at least the buildings will be newer, up to code or w/e trendy bullshit people are selling these days :P
If you are in the area, there's a tour you can take that gets you into some of the unrestored buildings and the underground spaces beneath them. In particular, the breweries in the area used to lager their beer in manmade caverns that they cooled with water from the river when it was cold enough.<p>In the context of the article I make the recommendation with some reservations. You can spin it as poverty voyeurism or gentrification if that's your thing, but it also offers a glimpse into how things were when the area was a vibrant community. It also offers a peek into historical infrastructure (well, insofar as you can consider the aging and moving of beer infrastructure) when it was still more economic to chill beer with cold river water than electricity.<p>Not affiliated, but I did take the tour a couple years ago.<p><a href="http://www.americanlegacytours.com/queen-city-underground/" rel="nofollow">http://www.americanlegacytours.com/queen-city-underground/</a>
Never knew Over the Rhine used to be the nation's most dangerous neighborhood. I'm on a consulting assignment here in Cinci and I go there all the time for trendy food and bars. Yes it does have pockets where I'm a bit scared to walk at night, but not enough so that I don't.
This part confuses me:<p><i>" From 2010 to 2014 it went from about 60 percent black to two-thirds white, while the still-undeveloped section north of Liberty Street has remained over 80 percent African-American."</i><p>Is the neighborhood becoming more white because white people are moving there? Or because black people are leaving? It sounds like the population dropped dramatically with the crime.<p>If it's because there were 4000 blacks and 1000 whites and now there are 4000 blacks and 4000 whites, that doesn't sound like a problem to me.
Here's a TL;DR<p>> "the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.—better known as 3CDC—has invested or leveraged more than half a billion dollars into Over-the-Rhine, buying and rescuing 131 historic buildings and building 48 new ones, while maintaining subsidized housing, rehabilitating parks and driving out criminals with cameras, better lighting, liquor store closings and the development of vacant lots"