Why is Cincinnati so poor?

[Sarah Perry]

Originally Posted by Chemistry_Guy

I like the form of government associated with small municipalities because it removes layers of bureaucracy between me and the top of the food chain. On my parents' street in Cincinnati, a house on the corner had a big tree that blocked a stop sign and created a dangerous situation. My parents and their neighbors spent more than a decade trying to get the city or the homeowner to correct the problem to no avail, and it was only fixed when someone new bought the property and recognized the safety hazard immediately and fixed it on their own.

The difference in municipal accessibility is as different as night and day in Amberley. I can talk to the village council, the police chief, or even the mayor very easily if I have a problem. When my neighbor's kids left my gate open and my dog got out of my yard without my knowledge, an Amberley police officer who lives down the street from me called me on my cell phone to let me know that another officer had spotted a dog that matched my dog's description near a certain intersection, and I found her in minutes. My taxes are just about the same as Cincinnati, and the services are a whole lot better. I really doubt that the county would devote many police resources to Amberley, and I am even more sure that my taxes would not go down in proportion to the quality of services.

Furthermore, I would never want Cincinnati politicians deciding zoning and property use restrictions in Amberley. I am sure the city would love to develop many of the green spaces owned by the village. I really like the fact that traffic volume is low and there are miles of hiking trails within a mile of my house, even though it is not the most economically productive use of the land. Other residents understand this as well, and that is why there are very few commercial or industrial properties in the village. If we were to be annexed, the city would see dollar signs and the old country club land would be split up into high density housing and strip malls within months.

I am not as sure about the west side of town, but I can't think of a single municipality on the East side that would be interested in merging with Cincinnati. If consolidation was inevitable, I think a limited merger of services between small municipalities is much more likely, like having a (Indian Hill-Madeira-Mariemont-Terrace Park) or (Montgomery-Blue Ash-Amberley) police or fire merger.

You bring up an excellent point that I think is responsible for the success of the merged Fayette Urban County Government--the level of quality of the entities which merged was essentially similar, although the city was probably slightly more professionally run than the county had been. 15 years ago when we bought our house, I would NEVER have moved into the City of Cincinnati had I been aware of the extent of its governmental problems in comparison to places like Amberly, where government is not only more accessible and accountable but also simply higher quality. So yeah, in addition to this change never coming to this area because of the many players which would be involved, there's also that big range of quality issue.

[WILWRadio]

Perhaps the surrounding suburbs which seem to be better managed should consider absorbing Cincinnati? That would seem to be the best option and would diminish the potential for more government mismanagement at the local level but on a larger scale. It makes no sense to put more power into the hands of those that are mismanaging a smaller entity thinking they can become more efficient with a much larger entity.

[SWOH]

^Whether it has been successful I am unsure, but the city of Dayton recently implemented a "neighborhood school" type system within its public schools.

So K-8 all goes to the same school, and the sizes of each neighborhood school are purposefully kept small. Cool concept, and the state had the money to give them to build all new schools to make this happen, but I still don't know how it is working out in real life.

Personally I went to a small HS and found it was very efficient. Then moved on to a larger university and found it was less efficient. I have also worked for a couple small business, my university in various capacities, and a Fortune 100 company, and found no correlation in my roles between org size and efficiency. Experienced both highly efficient and highly inefficient situation in both types of environments.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by OHKID

^Whether it has been successful I am unsure, but the city of Dayton recently implemented a "neighborhood school" type system within its public schools.

So K-8 all goes to the same school, and the sizes of each neighborhood school are purposefully kept small. Cool concept, and the state had the money to give them to build all new schools to make this happen, but I still don't know how it is working out in real life.

Personally I went to a small HS and found it was very efficient. Then moved on to a larger university and found it was less efficient. I have also worked for a couple small business, my university in various capacities, and a Fortune 100 company, and found no correlation in my roles between org size and efficiency. Experienced both highly efficient and highly inefficient situation in both types of environments.

Yes, pretty much true when it comes to business. I too have been in well run big companies as well as bad and the same goes for small businesses.

But my point is simple. Cincy has serious budget problems and I don't believe they will be solved by absorbing some reasonably well managed suburbs into a single city while being run by the same people that can't manage the city of Cincy.