OTR redesign uproots area

There has been a distinct change in the connotation of Over the Rhine in Cincinnati.  Once uttered only in a tone of voice equated with slum, danger and crime it now has an ambiguously optimistic note. Like tourists discovering the neighborhood for the first time, Cincinnatians have woken up and discovered the acres of empty buildings that form the nation’s largest historic district. 

Unfortunately, what to do with this place has been a debate for 70 years. From “slum clearance,” or demolition, just before the Great Depression to Appalachian-African American co-habitation to its current mostly vacant state, the neighborhood has been through a lot. 

There were two conflicting philosophies for development, one perserving the neighborhood  for those who have nowhere else to go and the other insisting the poor will improve only if the neighborhood does.

Recently, the neighborhood’s rapid physical deterioration (half the historic buildings have been lost since 1930) forced a resolution of differences. Absentee landlords often allow properties to decline until they must be torn down for public safety reasons. In 2006 the National Trust for Historic Preservation spotlighted Over the Rhine on their list of 11
most endangered historic places, successfully creating a sudden sense of urgency that helped unite both factions.

The buzz about Over the Rhine has many faces: new condos, paint schemes and window boxes on Vine Street, as well as a new building for the School of Creative and Performing Arts. Even the sudden push toward sustainability is incidentally favorable, supporting Findlay Market. Unfortunately, the issue is more complicated than the walk between free parking and the market house apple stall.

The redevelopment was planned by the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC). Officially, the city’s master plans for downtown seems to be a high-class recreational establishment loosely based on local legends. For example, Fountain Square once emphasized the fountain; the new plinth dwarfs the fountain in favor of the adjacent giant television. 

Over the Rhine is 3CDC’s current focus, within which they have partnerships to complete the work of developing entertainment and housing while maintaining history and diversity. This “diversity” is largely the addition of a new monoculture.

Unfortunately, the needs of the two groups are very different. New blueprints mimic suburban lifestyles with space, light and fancy finishes at the cost of extra bedrooms and durable materials. Section 8 families – whose rent is subsidized by the government to bridge the gap between their income and market value, enabling landlords to offer public housing units in a market rate building – will have to adapt to apartments designed for singles, young couples and empty nesters. 

And when these populations meet, living side by side for very different reasons, there will be conflicts. Newcomers looking for urban edginess and culture will have to respect neighbors who are there because they have no choice.

The announcement of the third and fourth phases of the Gateway Quarter plan (a redevelopment district north of Washington Park and Music Hall) seem a little risky. The area has long been torn between the grandeur of Music Hall and the reality of the homeless (and those who serve them) just outside; capping the north and south of the park with new development stresses a system at the breaking point. 

The neighborhood is ripe for gentrification, whatever the developers promise.  They have the power and properties while the current residents (to say nothing of the local homeless) have no access to these luxuries. They don’t own the buildings, and only stand to lose a greater percentage of their income to a rise in property value. 

Cincinnati residents, particularly suburbanites, are tired of the negativity surrounding Over the Rhine and will likely be eager to support development without thinking twice, particularly as it promises jobs during the recession. 

But it would be unfortunate to expend the well-documented potential of Over the Rhine as cheap a trick as hacking historic interiors into emptynester and yuppie condos.  Today, the neighborhood is culturally rich, a place where people have roots.  The new vision of the neighborhood focuses the space as an investment or convenience
for entertainment.

This conflict requires careful cooperation from both sides to keep peace and justice alive. Both sides need buy in and respect from each other.  Low-income residents ought to profit from the rising tide. The community ought to desire integration meetings and bloc parties and discussions between the newcomers and old timers. There ought to be overtures made by the city now, before opportunistic violence and crime break out, to explain the sensitive nature of the continued development to the public as a whole so that intelligent decisions are made that enhance Over the Rhine without reducing it to a cartoon.

Maria Bergh is a fourth-year architecture student.