Smart Growth America holds workshop in Cincinnati, OH on implementing transit-oriented development

Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati, OH. Photo via Flickr.

Smart Growth America visited Cincinnati, OH, last week to meet with residents and City officials about the many benefits of transit, and development surrounding transit, and why these strategies are important to future development in Cincinnati and the surrounding region.

In June the City of Cincinnati adopted a new comprehensive plan, has updated the Green Cincinnati plan and is currently revising its land development code. All three emphasize strategies that will help support smart growth in Cincinnati.

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Cincinnati Mayor credits smart growth in city’s turnaround

When he took office in 2005, Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory knew he had to turn around a city that had been on a slow, precipitous decline since the 1960s.

It was a lofty task by any stretch of the imagination, even before the recession. But by implementing smart growth strategies and examining how neighborhood development affects economic potential and residents’ quality of life, Mallory has his city back on track.

At the recent New Partners for Smart Growth conference, Mallory touted how his administration embraced a wide range of community improvement initiatives, like tearing down enclosed sidewalks to add ‘eyes on the street,’ and renovating important public spaces to spur economic development and rehabilitate the damaged public perception of downtown Cincinnati.

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Public-private partnerships lead the way in a Cincinnati neighborhood’s revival

At first glance, the history of Cincinnati’s ‘Over-the-Rhine’ neighborhood resembles a storyline familiar to many of America’s urban neighborhoods – a once thriving immigrant community and booming industrial hub turned impoverished and destitute, only to experience a renaissance after decades of disinvestment.

However, there is more than meets-the-eye in regards to the dynamic history of Over-The-Rhine and it’s recent (and unlikely) revival. A unique partnership between city leaders, local corporations and private developers helped to pave the way for what is becoming one of America’s greatest smart growth success stories.

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Smart Growth Stories: A Mayor’s Perspective

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory is on a mission to support economic development in his city, and he’s using smart growth and downtown development strategies to accomplish that goal.

“People were slow to embrace some of the changes we were proposing because they didn’t necessarily see how, say, the development of a street car would lead to more jobs,” Mallory says in Smart Growth America’s first “Smart Growth Stories” video interview. “They didn’t necessarily see how investing so much money in downtown allowed for improvements in neighborhoods. So I’ve had to explain to people that downtown is the engine, the economic engine, for everything that happens in our entire region.”

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