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Recently I visited Cincinnati to visit some friends and I found the city to be quite interesting, especially the architecture and unique houses.
Currently I live in Indianapolis but am considering a move there. And need some advice on neighborhoods.
A bit about myself. I am married and 33 years old. Schools are not a issue as a I have no kids.
Minor crime areas aren't a issue either. I am basically looking for a neighborhood that went to crap but might come back in the next few years. Probably looking to buy a REO and remodel it in my spare time. Been doing that in Indy for a few years now.
My only concerns would be a place in the general urban area, no burbs. And a area that isn't predominantly black. And by this I mean I don't want to move into a 90% black hood. I prefer a nice mix of all cultures. If that makes sense. I work from home and my work wouldn't change with the move.
I saw a few homes I liked near Mt echo park...but from my understanding the west side of Cincinnati is considered hood.
I don't care about increase in property value or any of that. Just area's that aren't going further down hill. I really like the style of houses there and any opinions or info that could help me would be great.
Search the threads on Walnut Hills. The demographics in Walnut Hills have been shifting to a much more balanced mix. Forty years ago, Walnut Hills was in a hopeless downward spiral. In the last 15 years there's been a slow, but noticeable change there, and I would put money on that neighborhood as the next one to be "discovered". There is some great 19th century architecture, the main business district is getting a major facelift, you're close to downtown, parks, and more. It's proximity to east side neighborhoods like Hyde Park and Oakley also give it advantages that anything on the west lacks.
Mt. Auburn and Prospect Hill may also offer some opportunities.
Although a move back to Cincinnati isn't what I'd prefer it may be in the cards. Regular online visits to real estate listings are at least encouraging in that I can realize a major upgrade in housing with the capital gain I'll have when I unload my overpriced domicile here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A neighborhood high on my list should I relocate is Roselawn, though it isn't #1 for reasons soon delved into. I always do at least a casual "windshield inspection" of the area when on my regular pilgrimage to a favorite restaurant there. Last October I did a much more in-depth one, which covered about a dozen streets. My target sections proved on firsthand inspection to indeed be almost excruciatingly well kept - nary a blade of grass out of place in the yards, no peeling paint or sagging gutters to be seen on the houses. Properties as a rule turn over very quickly, part of my soon-delved-into reasons for hesitating before making a potential buy. The sectors I exclusively focus on are separated by Reading Rd, with the one to the east known as the Gaslight District (a term attached more often to a large chunk of Clifton) and the one to the west being the Garden District. Not surprisingly given its appellation, the Garden District has always been by far the most upscale portion of the community. Its streets are flanked by a large quantity of Tudor-style dwellings with some Colonials and Cape Cods tossed into the mix, along with some structures that defy ready labeling. Saplings planted when the subdivision was first developed in the 1920's have of course matured into givers of welcoming summertime shade. On Scottwood Ave it can feel like evening in mid-afternoon, so effective is the tree cover. Meanwhile, in the Gaslight District it's far less sylvan but the street lamps which gave it its name lend a cheery and calming effect with their soft glow. The houses as a rule have that "starter home" look - doubtlessly there was a time when many a young professional just establishing a family started out there and then advanced in his (nearly always "his") career and relocated across Reading Rd. Though there are some more substantial Colonials along the streets - all with "Place" in their names if they run west-to-east - by and large what you'll see is either Capes or "mock Capes" (ranch homes with peaked roofs to give a Cape effect.) But even these modest residences often have whimsical exterior touches built in, such as one house at the cul-de-sac of Blackstone Place which sports a gigantic picture window with row upon row of knickknack shelves.
Enough of a realtor's sales pitch already! Here's some background to illustrate why I wouldn't pounce wide-eyed onto any of the Roselawn domiciles which so frequently send me into house lust when they land on the realty sites. Because of legally binding "covenants" that are largely forgotten today, and usually remembered as strictly race-biased when recalled, until the mid-20th century many communities were off-limits to Jewish people. Such was not the case in the Cincinnati neighborhoods strung along Reading Rd. Although the mansions of Avondale were second to none (some still are) and there are some decidedly upscale streets in Bond Hill, Roselawn was the logical destination for many a lawyer or doctor or CPA. You had your "brick box" or duplex apartments for before the kids were born and after they set out on their own, then in between a Gaslight District abode and - following professional advancement - a "better" Garden District address. A subdivision carved out of farmland north of the Jewish Community Center on Summit Rd during the 1950's and '60s offered a more "modern" alternative with ranch houses, later-edition Colonials, and split-level "contemporaries." Reading Rd was a beehive of commercial activity, anchored by Greater Cincinnati's first mall (Swifton) at the neighborhood's southern boundary and bolstered by the Valley Shopping Center near the heart of Roselawn. Supermarkets? Check. Movie theaters? Check. A full-service deli complete with a Judaica department? Check. Furrier? Check. A variety of restaurants and night spots? Check. Shoe stores, dry cleaners, repair shops, clothing boutiques, etc? Check, check, check, check, etc. goyguy's pediatrician practiced out of a second-floor office in the Roselawn Center Building (Brookcrest Drive side) for many years and then moved only a short distance away when a brand-new "professional building" opened at 8040 Reading Rd. The Carrousel Inn across the street was "Ohio's only 5-star motel" and was the lodging place for many a visiting celebrity as well as business traveler. The nearby Drake and other hostelries stood ready with their outdoor pools and "parking at your door" for budget-conscious vacationers - and, one may safely assume, the occasional high school and college students looking to cut loose.
Then along came the '60s - more to the point, 1967 and '68. The inner-city chaos that visited Newark and Detroit was echoed in Cincinnati. Fear swept over the Reading Rd neighborhoods as Avondale businesses were trashed, looted, and set afire. National Guard tanks rolled through to maintain "a semblance of order." Realtors' phones rang off the hook. With "covenants" a thing of the past, developers scrambled to level fields and woodlands in "desirable" suburbs to prepare for the influx they knew would take place. In my childhood 'burb Wyoming the once-negligible Jewish population mushroomed. ("They're good, educated people who value quality schools for their children" was the refrain of the WASP natives struggling to adapt.) Impacted first and worst was Avondale, naturally, though with considerable trust and effort its northernmost enclave maintained socioeconomic stability which holds to this day. Adjacent Bond Hill didn't fare nearly as well, with "redlining" and heavy street violence devastating property values and fueling radical demographic turnover (essentially 100% White in 1964 to less than 20% and falling by 1979.) Just up the way in Roselawn, the denizens who weren't as deeply rooted or racially open-minded took notes and started to leave. But the changeover went far more slowly and without bloodshed, and lighter-hued humans did continue to move in albeit not at the same rate departures were occurring. Largely unknown to outsiders was the fact that Catholic and Lutheran churches also had congregations in the community, and the buildings stayed put as did some parishioners. (However, the Catholic church called it quits in 2009 and the Lutherans' ranks have tumbled from "over 500" to "approximately 50.")
Which brings us (at long last?) to the present. As fond and house-lusting as I am of Roselawn, I've dubbed it "Woes Lawn" for the issues which have brought it to where it is and persist. Reading Rd is largely a commercial ghost town with few pedestrians. Other than two restaurants with cult followings - Amma's Kitchen (Indian AND vegetarian) and Song Long for devotees of Vietnamese dishes - the choices for a meal away from home are limited to fast-food chains, and BBQ joints of questionable quality. Oh, and then there's the Gospel Coffee Shop on Section Rd. Night spots are of the variety that turn up from time to time on police incident reports. If you're short on cash there are plenty of payday lenders and "tax services" eager to help. One thing not absent is barber shops and hair/nail salons, but that's about the only thing not absent. Groceries may be obtained at a "ghetto grocer" that replaced Kroger's on Seymour Ave, with sketchy convenience stores best avoided after nightfall sprinkled around.
Although a childless household such as yours, OP, and mine (it's only me and felines) theoretically wouldn't have to worry about school quality, the fact of the matter is that you do. Academic rankings drive home values, which is why the property taxes in sought-after districts are sky high compared to how they are in much of the city. Part of what makes a community live up to that title is school spirit. Deer Park is incalculably more close-knit because of how its citizenry rallies around the schools and supports theater productions, sports, etc, ditto for Reading. On many a Wyoming lawn you'll see a burglar-alarm-company-sized sign with a logo announcing the name and graduation year of the WHS athlete who lives at that address (an invitation for not-nice things to happen if you ask me, but the cautionary rules of East Coast cities must not apply in 'nati suburbia.) By contrast there is zero evident school spirit in Roselawn. Its "district" high school for those who don't pass the entrance exam for Walnut Hills or don't care is in the rankings basement, along with the neighborhood's Roselawn-Condon school with its new-in-2010 replacement building and subterranean test scores. Despite the middle- to even some upper-middle-class income level of the Gaslight and Garden Districts, over 3/4 of the school children qualify for subsidized breakfast and lunch. (Many better-off and/or "connected" families follow their Caucasian counterparts in Hyde Park etc and send their offspring to private or parochial schools.) The sturdy brick-box and duplex apartment buildings prevalent along Summit Rd and the southern reaches of Eastlawn have degenerated into a sorry state, having long since become Section 8 housing as a rule. Motels including the Carrousel are now flophouses and "vice" magnets. Rates of transiency, poverty, and crime have correspondingly skyrocketed. The universal unwritten law in urban areas is that such "negatives" rarely spill over into "good" sections. Such is true in Woes Lawn, but when only the neighborhood's name is mentioned in a headline about the latest shooting or drug bust a stigma is reinforced. It wouldn't be a bad idea to be mindful of home security, to be sure, but neither would one have to necessarily fit a "ghetto gate" over one's front door or be paranoid after sundown.
To put it more or less into the proverbial nutshell - Roselawn as a potential home is a toss-up for me and could go either way for the OP (on whom I have about two decades, which does make a difference in this situation.) North of Summit is out of the question - the brick boxes in the vicinity are human roach motels if not vacant and vandalized. They and the dens of iniquity on Reading Rd that once fed, lodged, and entertained tourists and celebrities are generators of trouble. Between Summit and Section are some VERY nice blocks, along Northwood for instance, but the nearness of "good" to "bad" is unsettling. South of Section Rd (whence the Gaslight District begins) is where this paleface looks. I, too, was schooled in a diversely-populated environment. I call one home now and will only look in similarly multifaceted communities. Roselawn fills the bill...sort of. Even what would typically be a "domino effect" (Jewish Community Center relocation elsewhere, Kroger's and the aforementioned delicatessen's closing, overall retail collapse including the conspicuous death and failed reincarnations of Swifton, shuttering of the Catholic church) hasn't led to fatal segregation. But, again as is typical of urban areas, you have to scrutinize closely block by block. It's not scientific or infallible, but one thing I do is track a street using whitepages.com (on which you can look up at least everybody who has a listed land line phone.) Many names such as Sheldon Feinberg or Tonei'sha Jones can give rise to a safe assumption as to what ethnic category the person happens to fall under. Doing this in the Garden and Gaslight Districts I've learned that some streets appear to be 95% or more AA, YET the very next street over could be as much as 1/3 White. So the "pioneer" label wouldn't stick to us. But the resounding cautionary notes still ring out - atrocious schools, moribund business district, safe "depending on where you are and when." My overriding concerns are whether or not the Catholic church, once an anchor to the Gaslight District but now sitting empty, can find a new occupant and whether or not the supermarket that supplanted Kroger's can stay open and be a decent place for food shopping. How those concerns are borne out by fate will determine whether the community rebounds or sinks still lower along with the alarmingly plunging property values. (I've seen the asking price for a house descend from the already bargain rate of $82,900 to $54,900 over a few months' time, for instance. YET the majority of places continue to fly off the shelves, as it were, at a rapid clip and without price reduction.) Another open question would have to be how many "underwater" and foreclosed mortgages are fueling the fire sale in effect now. I really really like Roselawn, but I can't state that without reservation so therefore can't wholeheartedly recommend that anybody pursue living there themselves. With all that in mind, something to definitely do ahead of time is not only a "windshield tour" or better yet a walking tour of one's own but to attend at least one Community Council meeting. This is where age makes a difference. Someone in their 30's has time to invest in and commit to a neighborhood that someone a fair ways north of there does not.
Even goyguy outdid himself in "writing a book" this time. But rare is it that a thread starter presses enough buttons that I know EXACTLY where they're at and where they're coming from.
I am sick sick sick and more sick of all the cheerleading for OTR, a clumsily executed effort at wholesale urban removal. The OP is looking for a neighborhood, not the latest gentrification hot spot where everybody's from someplace else and few can be bothered to meet whoever lives upstairs or next door. After all the virtual ink I've spilled writing about Woes Lawn I'll forgo any screeds about Hartwell, Westwood, or College Hill here. Matter of fact, I will altogether unless the OP direct-messages me otherwise. Y'all who have been in this forum for a while know where I stand.
Check out Walnut Hills, Over-the-Rhine, Pendleton, Northside, Madisonville, and pretty much any of the uptown neighborhoods (Mount Auburn, Clifton Heights, University Heights, Fairview).
I would be hesitant to look at the outer neighborhoods. Economic and demographic trends don't bode well for them.
If you're looking for neighborhoods with residents who've been around for years, you might look at Northside and Camp Washington.
Northside has a large transient crowd component, which goyguy derides, but it also has its stalwarts who grew up there and have ridden the hot-neighborhood wave along with the lesbians and artists who have in the past few decades set the neighborhood on an upward trajectory. It's also in the running for most diverse neighborhood in the city.
Camp Washington is far from being trendy like Northside. It has an industrial character, but pockets of great historic housing stock. It's centrally located on flat ground between the hot Over-the-Rhine/Downtown and Northside/Clifton areas, which IMO bodes well for its long-term health. It scores well on the metrics of safe and cheap, two criteria often in competition with each other.
Over-the-Rhine is the gentrifying neighborhood of the moment (north of Liberty St. is still ripe for new investors); Walnut Hills is believed by many to be next in line, with seeds already planted. The "Brighton" area in the West End neighborhood is host to artist colonies and the premier hipster bar of the moment. Prospect Hill (the Downtown end of the Mt. Auburn neighborhood) is quite gentrified but has room to grow. Corryville is experiencing 1960's-style urban renewal, where historic buildings are being torn down and replaced with cookie-cutter student housing.
Neighborhoods that might take off but are currently in a depressed state: Lower Price Hill, East End, West End, Mt. Auburn, maybe N&S Fairmount
Wow, goguy! I really want to read your post because based on what I've seen you post before you've got some good stuff to say...but....man that is hard on the eyes. Maybe some more paragraph breaks next time
Check out Walnut Hills, Over-the-Rhine, Pendleton, Northside, Madisonville, and pretty much any of the uptown neighborhoods (Mount Auburn, Clifton Heights, University Heights, Fairview).
With your criteria you have lots of options.
This is the perfect list of neighborhoods to consider. And I'll throw in Pleasant Ridge for consideration.
Well I made the move to Cincy from Indy. I looked seriously at OTR but found it is overpriced and too speculator driven right now. If you want a huge house (woodruff place type) then Walnut Hills, Avondale or Westwood. If you are looking for something like Chatham Arch, look at Dayton street. Most of the people on this board are 'afraid' of urban neighborhoods and really can't tell you much about the because they havent been to them in years. Or they are tied up in this silly Eastside/west side argument (which never made any sense to me)
I restored in all the downtown Indy areas , Lockerbie, Old Northside, Meridian Park, Chatham Arch, Holy Cross. If I know where you were restoring in Indy I can probably give you and equivalent.
I decided on the West Side (because it was underpriced for the quality of the architecture and it has some of the best views). Specifically, I am restoring in an area called Knox Hill in S Fairmount. Great Views, 5-7 minutes to Findlay Market and downtown areas. Neighborhood is ethnically mixed and culturally diverse with a lot of out of staters and a good mix of people who stood by the area and have lived there for years. We also have a 19 acre nature preserve and park at the top of the hill (Christian Park) Happy to give you a tour sometime. We had our first Home tour last year , planning a second one this fall. Send me a private email and I'll send you some links. Architecturally homes dating between 1850 and about 1910, Large concentration of Italianate and Second Empire homes and cottages. Its a cross between Lockerbie, Holy Cross, with a little Old Northside/Herron Morton thrown in . Rows of cottages and substantial 2500-3000 sq foot townhomes and a few big (over 6000 sq foot) mansions thrown in for good measure.
The big difference in Cincy is you need a permit for just about everything (a fence, any electrical and plumbing) The permits system is a nightmare compared to Indy and plan on spending much more on the permit side with your restoration efforts. Given the architecture, and the fact they are 15-20 years behind in their Urban neighborhood turnarounds compared to Indy. It is a good time to get in, which is why we own seven properties and five vacant lots for future development.
The neighborhoods in Cincy are more "Block by block" as opposed to neighborhood, and its not at all uncommon to have 200K houses in one area and few block away they are 20K.
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But rare is it that a thread starter presses enough buttons that I know EXACTLY where they're at and where they're coming from.
