Cincinnati - Where Its Been & Where Its Going (Dayton: leasing, construction)
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Many interesting ideas and concepts here. There are several venues that need to be considered. What is the 'voice' or 'get-their-attention' platform that can be used to get the messages out to the folks who call themselves Cincinnatians ? Bill Cunningham, for example, has a microphone and an attentive audience, perhaps if he got involved and paid attention to what this forum is addressing, people would begin to listen and WANT to get involved. Go to Wikipedia and look at the History of Cincinnati. During the decade 1950 - 1960 the population was over 500,000. In 2010 - 2011 the population has fallen below 300,000. The community needs to stop the bleeding and in order to do that, the source of the bleed has to be identified and addressed. As much as I detest politicians of any stripe. Politicians be damned, the answers are NOT at city hall or with the city manager. I believe we need to take a look back to the 1950 - 1960 decade, research the top twenty five businesses and industries at that time, learn who was the founder and who the President and or CEO was in this decade. What made that person do what they did and what philosophy did they follow that made their company porfitable and productive ? We, as Cincinnatians, who know what we were, can (by looking at the calibre of people who made Cincinnati an outstanding city) by working hand-in-hand with The Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, rebuild on those fundamental principals...(they work !!)
and restore the City to the elegant, charming, classy mini New York, that it once was. Sure times have changed but in 2011, they should be changing for the better and when I learned today, that the 70 year old Christmas Tradition (the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Train Display on Fourth Street) has been moved by Duke Energy to the Museum at the Terminal and it costs 12 bucks or more to get in, I was startled, (who did that to the already cash strapped residents?)...people need to wake up and stop spending our traditions into oblivian for the sake of the buck ! I don't understand why Duke Energy thinks it's just fine to have people pay for something that was free for 70 years...Powell Crosley jr. would have neen outraged and appaled....but today we are like tame lemings and roll over as the city continues to bleed and lose. so sad.
Most people may not be aware, that in 1940 the City of Cincinnati drew up a 20 year plan...the result was the city we saw emerge in 1960. In 1960 another 20 year plan was drawn and what we got was Cincinnati 1980. Then the 2000 plan was drawn up in 1980 and what we have to day is the result of that disaster. Perhaps it would be a wise person, to take the time to get copies of these 20 year plans, study them inside and out, see what failed and what succeded and vow to never repeat this dumbness again...2020 is around the corner...together we can make this work but first: the past IS our future. ))) BIGG Smile (((
Neilworms2... You make several points, some of which I do not agree with. Having lived through and being employed in the machine tool industry for much of its best days through its decline I feel capable of commenting.
A portion is due to machine tool companies feeling good with themselves. During the 60s, when the biggest impact on the industry technologically was being felt - Numerically Controlled (NC) machines, most manufacturers did their best to keep up. And the initial control manufacturers were all US based - GE, Westinghouse, Bendix, Allen-Bradley. So to say they ignored innovation is simply not true. I remember going to the IMTS show in Chicago and having to litrerally stand in a ring around our booth to offset the number of Japanese who were photographing, making schetches of, and doing everything in their power to replicate our machines.
A very significant reason for the decline of the US machine tool industry in my mind was the rift between private business and government. Machine Tools were always a cyclical business, we used to joke the first to feel an economic downturn and the last to be confident in an upturn. Very hard to maintain a stable workforce under such widely swinging economic conditions. In the low sales cycles it was very difficult to meet the payroll. Other countries would assist via such things as Investment Tax Credits to help businesses purchase capital equipment during down economic cycles and smooth it out. The US was always on the bottom end of such asssists. Kind of put our businesses out there in a sink or swim situation. There has always been the argument as to the proper role of Govt. in assisting private business through economic cycles. In the US the result is very clear, the Govt. did not assist and the industry bit the dust.
In addition to the economic policies of the US Govt. were the socio/economic policies which prevented an association, even just conversation, between both Machine Tool builders and/or Universities. At any mention of a meeting between machine tool companies to discuss any aspect of mutual business problems, immediately came out the Restraint of Trade complaints. Discussions between machine tool companies and universities to help establish research projects, etc. to spread the cost of R&D - same result, immediate US Govt. intervention and shutdown. The policies of the US Govt. had a lot to do with the demise of our machine tool industry.
In Germany and Japan companies were encouraged to maintain a relationship with Universities not only for R&D projects to benefit their growth, but mutual associations with other companies in the same industry to discuss how they could be more successful, including dividing up the business segments so they did not undercut each other.
So to say the US machine tool business declined solely do to their own short-sightness I do not agree with. They may have contributed, but forces larger than them were the true cause. Foreign machine tools at first were simply less costly, secondly they were equivalent, and thirdly they were superior. About the same cycle you see paralleled in the US Automotive Industry.
I have lamented my life's industry long enough, but so far I have seen little to indicate what the next major contributor to Cincinnati's presence in the global economy will be.
"...Cincinnati could learn a thing or to from that, people here need to think bigger and take more risks, not stupidly, but to the point where there is far more return than what they do now. Cincy cannot survive as a nationally known place if this isn't here. Things like 3CDC are good ways of using Cincinnati's regional wealth to good effect, but its only a top down sort of deal, what there needs to be more of is top down creating bottom up, which actually grows wealth."
I don't disagree with anything you say (as my father worked at "The Mill" as it was called before it became Milacron,) and we can point out problem after problem again and again...BUT where is the PLAN (that actually works) for the solution to these problems ? And, yeah some plans look nice and may be well-intentioned...THEN look at the Federal, State, and local governments and tell me how many of these great "PLANS" were ever well thought out and actually worked in reality ? Very few to be honest about it and mostly because they are the dumbkopf plans, devised by politicians (who are NOT businessmen to begin with), that have either unintended consequenses or FAIL all togehter because the idiot political hacks are FAILUREs in their own right...if they weren't failures do you think that Cincinnati just kinda moseyed into this mire all on her own ??? Not hardly, she had plenty of help from bozo's and buffoons, that for whatever reason, are voted on and elected by US, the very guys who are bemoaning what has happend to our beautiful Cincinnati and are now confounded as to how to "FIX" it...sweet huh ? yeah real sweet !!!
"...Cincinnati could learn a thing or to from that, people here need to think bigger and take more risks, not stupidly, but to the point where there is far more return than what they do now. Cincy cannot survive as a nationally known place if this isn't here. Things like 3CDC are good ways of using Cincinnati's regional wealth to good effect, but its only a top down sort of deal, what there needs to be more of is top down creating bottom up, which actually grows wealth."
I don't disagree with anything you say (as my father worked at "The Mill" as it was called before it became Milacron,) and we can point out problem after problem again and again...BUT where is the PLAN (that actually works) for the solution to these problems ? And, yeah some plans look nice and may be well-intentioned...THEN look at the Federal, State, and local governments and tell me how many of these great "PLANS" were ever well thought out and actually worked in reality ? Very few to be honest about it and mostly because they are the dumbkopf plans, devised by politicians (who are NOT businessmen to begin with), that have either unintended consequenses or FAIL all togehter because the idiot political hacks are FAILUREs in their own right...if they weren't failures do you think that Cincinnati just kinda moseyed into this mire all on her own ??? Not hardly, she had plenty of help from bozo's and buffoons, that for whatever reason, are voted on and elected by US, the very guys who are bemoaning what has happend to our beautiful Cincinnati and are now confounded as to how to "FIX" it...sweet huh ? yeah real sweet !!!
As has been pointed out on this forum in the past, politicians love high-visibility, big-fix projects. By their very nature, these projects are costly in terms of tax dollars and sometimes even in accompanying private investment. And in order to sell the projects to the public, the elected officials go out and hire a consultant to write a report that PROVES beyond a shadow of a doubt that the project will not only pay for itself many times over, but will be the key to turning around a depressed or deteriorated area.
But it's been shown time and time again that these projects are risky under the best of circumstances and hardly ever work as well as small, slow, incremental changes--which usually cost only a fraction of what the big projects do. And when they're sold to the public on the basis of a consultant's report where the numbers are calculated only to get the consultant hired to produce another set of bogus numbers in a few years on something else, the projects literally do have no chance of succeeding.
The public in Cincinnati seems to have proven itself over and over to be susceptible to the promise of the quick fix. And the track record's just about as bad as you'd expect. The way to fix the problem? Insist on improvements that are more smart than costly. Take care of what you already have. I don't see much movement in this direction around here, though. Until the public gets it, the politicians definitely won't.
It is hilarious to me how completely off-base the discussions are on this site compared to UrbanOhio. The conversations here are talk radio -- all emotion and no facts. We see lots of business worship here when businessmen are the problem. Specifically, the charter reform enacted in 1925 that destroyed Boss Cox's machine by 1926 was about A BUSINESS TAKEOVER OF CITY GOVERNMENT. So everyone wishing for a more "business-like" city government, we've had one for the past 85 years!
The fact is that immediately upon taking control, the local business cabal (the Charerites were their frontmen) abandoned the subway project BECAUSE it was going to direct development toward areas THEY DIDN'T CONTROL. Specifically, the rapid transit loop was too equitable in its development of new suburbs (it was going to open up thousands of acres of suburban land all at once) AND it threatened to destroy the value of old money property right around Fountain Square BECAUSE of the Race St. station under Central Parkway, which would motivate skyscraper construction between City Hall and Music Hall.
Since WWII, that small group of players overbuilt the interstates traveling into downtown as to create walls around downtown -- that way downtown could never shift east, west, or south, and OTR was intentionally destroyed by poverty in order to keep downtown from creeping north of Central Parkway.
As for the "big fix", it is definitely improvement to public transportation, which is the area in which Cincinnati is the most deficient. I see an unbelievable number of naive attacks on the streetcar project on this board, but the fact is the abandonment of the streetcar system back in in 1951 was as much a disaster as the abandonment of the subway. What's more, the childish anti-government sentiment keeps this city and county from voting to tax itself to right this wrong.
Is New York City -- the world's most important city -- building highways or expanding existing new ones? NO -- instead is has several huge rail projects underway simultaneously. The #7 is being extended, the new Second Ave. line is under construction, and the East Side Access tunnel is being dug to Grand Central.
It is hilarious to me how completely off-base the discussions are on this site compared to UrbanOhio. The conversations here are talk radio -- all emotion and no facts. We see lots of business worship here when businessmen are the problem. Specifically, the charter reform enacted in 1925 that destroyed Boss Cox's machine by 1926 was about A BUSINESS TAKEOVER OF CITY GOVERNMENT. So everyone wishing for a more "business-like" city government, we've had one for the past 85 years!
The fact is that immediately upon taking control, the local business cabal (the Charerites were their frontmen) abandoned the subway project BECAUSE it was going to direct development toward areas THEY DIDN'T CONTROL. Specifically, the rapid transit loop was too equitable in its development of new suburbs (it was going to open up thousands of acres of suburban land all at once) AND it threatened to destroy the value of old money property right around Fountain Square BECAUSE of the Race St. station under Central Parkway, which would motivate skyscraper construction between City Hall and Music Hall.
Since WWII, that small group of players overbuilt the interstates traveling into downtown as to create walls around downtown -- that way downtown could never shift east, west, or south, and OTR was intentionally destroyed by poverty in order to keep downtown from creeping north of Central Parkway.
As for the "big fix", it is definitely improvement to public transportation, which is the area in which Cincinnati is the most deficient. I see an unbelievable number of naive attacks on the streetcar project on this board, but the fact is the abandonment of the streetcar system back in in 1951 was as much a disaster as the abandonment of the subway. What's more, the childish anti-government sentiment keeps this city and county from voting to tax itself to right this wrong.
Is New York City -- the world's most important city -- building highways or expanding existing new ones? NO -- instead is has several huge rail projects underway simultaneously. The #7 is being extended, the new Second Ave. line is under construction, and the East Side Access tunnel is being dug to Grand Central.
Ever hear of the "Big Dig" highway project in Boston?
Um, I lived in Boston when the project was underway. I walked through the tunnel with about 20,000 other people one day in 2002. What is your point?
It was only one of the most costly overrun and delayed projects in the history of the country. That is the point!
To rely on city government to bail us out is whistling in the wind. Whether it is rail projects in NYC or anywhere else in the US, it should be plain and simple be based on the willingness of private investors to invest. Sure offer them certain tax incentives, etc. to move ahead, but make it a private investment and operation. Take away the public operation subsidies. Private business will tell you real quick whether the project is viable or not, particularly if they do not see long term public subsidy. If you offer them long term public subsidy, they are not stupid and will avail themselves of anything offered.
I don't disagree with anything you say (as my father worked at "The Mill" as it was called before it became Milacron,) and we can point out problem after problem again and again...BUT where is the PLAN (that actually works) for the solution to these problems ? And, yeah some plans look nice and may be well-intentioned...THEN look at the Federal, State, and local governments and tell me how many of these great "PLANS" were ever well thought out and actually worked in reality ? Very few to be honest about it and mostly because they are the dumbkopf plans, devised by politicians (who are NOT businessmen to begin with), that have either unintended consequenses or FAIL all togehter because the idiot political hacks are FAILUREs in their own right...if they weren't failures do you think that Cincinnati just kinda moseyed into this mire all on her own ??? Not hardly, she had plenty of help from bozo's and buffoons, that for whatever reason, are voted on and elected by US, the very guys who are bemoaning what has happend to our beautiful Cincinnati and are now confounded as to how to "FIX" it...sweet huh ? yeah real sweet !!!
WTF? This has nothing to do with what I was arguing. I was suggesting a wholesale cultural shift, with everyone, not a plan per say but encouraging a different way of looking at the world :P A way of looking at things that encourages the sort of environment that will lead to innovation. This isn't just government leaders, but Business leaders who have capital to make things work without even a dime of government involvement.
The government can help out with this, but before that happens people in general, public and private sector need to change their attitude towards what this city is capable of.
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Neilworms2
