Ground Zero in Urban Decline

Cincinnati isn't just a town down on its luck. It's the future of the American city.

Sam Staley from the November 2001 issue

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Housing activists have also effectively created a moratorium on new construction in Over-the-Rhine. How? By passing ordinances that require developers to pony up the equivalent of $4 per square foot for low-income housing if they want to tear down an existing house. The unintended consequence is "demolition by neglect" -- property owners let their properties deteriorate to the point where inspectors have to condemn the building, allowing them to circumvent the ordinance, tear down the building, and develop the property.

No Magic Bullets

Still, some key players are trying to improve the overall business climate and move away from the big-spending, big- ticket items that have historically plagued Cincinnati's development strategy. City Council member Pat DeWine pushed through legislation that eliminated entire classes of permits for minor repairs and renovations to homes. A bigger change, however, may come when the city reforms its 38-year-old zoning code. The city did little to overhaul the code before a comprehensive review process began in 2000. The goal, says Steven Kurtz, a planner in the city's land-use management division since 1991, is to create more certainty in the process by simplifying zoning and development review. Kurtz notes that the revised code should reduce the number of zoning districts, streamline the public hearing process, and allow more varied and mixed uses. Planners hope to send a draft ordinance to the planning commission by the end of the year. These are small steps, to be sure, but important ones.

The larger lesson for Cincinnati and other cities is to look beyond a single magic bullet -- the one major project or set of projects that true believers think will pull a city into great times. "I tell folks in Cincinnati the same thing I tell them in other medium-sized cities," says convention center expert Sanders. "You are pursuing a strategy that is essentially imitative; at the same time you're discussing expanding your convention center, so are all other cities."

David Swindell, the Clemson political scientist, reinforces the point. "Many politicians know full well that there are no magic bullets, but getting a new neighborhood grocery store is not front page news, and it takes a lot of work to create a climate so that one will locate in a given area." In the meantime, warns Swindell, politicians chase white elephants in their downtowns. The result is that a "lot of needs go unmet -- streets are slow to be paved. More attention needs to be paid to the neighborhoods because they are important to providing a quality of life that can attract people to the inner city."

The best advice for urban renewal might come from the people actually investing in the Digital Rhine. "Do an exceptional job when it comes to the basic issues that cities are responsible for, such as infrastructure," says Molinsky. "Tax incentives are nice," he continues, but entrepreneurially minded people really want to live and work in neighborhoods that are "clean, safe, affordable, interesting, and eclectic, with valuable amenities."

Whether Cincinnati and other cities can learn this lesson is not clear. But their futures are riding on it.