A Family Chooses Pittsburgh

Article about a young family, that surveyed all their relocation options and ended up choosing downtown Pittsburgh because of its vibrancy & child friendliness. Some of the benefits they found are also available here. I wonder why they never considered Cincinnati? If I could hazard a guess, it would be the conservative reputation that precedes us.

...we considered all the usual progressive suspects, such as Portland, Seattle, Burlington, Austin and Asheville.... we also looked at Madison, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philly, Baltimore, and DC. Burlington and Asheville were too small. Madison was too cold. Chicago and DC were too expensive. Crime stats knocked out Philly and Baltimore. ... one city seemed just right: Pittsburgh.

If it sounds surprising to you, you’re not alone. Despite our own initial shock, it seemed to make sense on paper. Could Pittsburgh be the city we were looking for? Crime was lower than other comparable cities. The downtown neighborhood seemed compact and walkable, and there were plenty of public transportation options to keep us connected....

R Crumb's Short History of America

And Crumb asks "what next?.." Well we have had 30 years of development since this was drawn, and I think the 13th panel of the above intersection would show larger cars and maybe some vacant stores. And the shame of it is that a few miles further out of town, they may still be on panel #10 or 11, headed down the same path.

A year after publishing the above series, Crumb added the following three scenarios:

Disaster:


Futurama:

Ecotopia:

In reality, we have gotten a bit of all three of these final panels. Some cities (or parts of cities) look more like the Disaster panel, and after the disinvestment and abandonment, the final two are often tried as solutions. I would equate the Futurama panel to grand Urban Renewal plans in which everything is demolished and new modern buildings are built. The Ecotopia is closer to a Hippie version of the New Urbanist model, with all the walking and biking, though much more rural. I was thinking that someone should draw a more realistic and optimistic new panel. What would it look like?

Crumb Family Official Site Go there to buy a poster of this.

Kaid Benfield to Visit

Kaid Benfield; Director of the Smart Growth Program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, will be in Cincinnati next month. After reading some of his blog, he reminds me of Glen Brand who was the spokesperson for the Sierra Club in Cincinnati a few years ago. Glen was always talking about changing our development patterns as a way to be green. Benfield has a blog post here about OTR.

From his bio on his website:

...I believe there is a positive, solution-oriented story to tell about smart, sustainable development, and we in the environmental movement have an obligation to do better than we have in the past to articulate it and to speak up in favor of pragmatic, attractive solutions.

I am unabashedly pro-development when I recognize that it provides beneficial alternatives to sprawl or conventional, unsustainable land use....

I won't hesitate to criticize UNsustainable development, and I also won't hesitate to criticize those who cloak themselves as environmentalists for selfish, anti-environmental ends...

Bangs Closing

Bangs Mkt is closing. There has been a store at the northwest corner of Race and 14th Street for over 100 years. The current proprietors have owned the store since the 1980s. Once a true corner grocery with a wide selection and deli counter, it has evolved into a pony keg type place that just sells snacks, malt liquor and cheap wine. The building is going to be rehabbed as part of the second phase of OTRCH's City Home project. After this month, if you still need to get your fortified wine, there is a newer store of this type that opened last year at 1546 Elm, ...or there is always Kroger's.

[where: 1401 Race Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]