Aaron M. Renn
Aaron M. Renn is The Urbanophile, an opinion-leading urban affairs analyst on a mission to help America's cities thrive in a 21st century that will be very different from the 20th. In his
blog and elsewhere, Renn regularly offers innovative strategies for urban success found nowhere else. He believes that by discarding old stereotypes and adopting new strategies based in progressive planning principles across an integrated set of disciplines, America can create sustainable, everyday cities for the majority of its citizens to visit, live and work in. His particular focus is the oft-overlooked cities of the Midwest.
Renn started the
Urbanophile in 2006, and it has developed into one of America's top urban policy destinations. His writings have also appeared in publications such as Forbes, the Dallas Morning News, and the Portland Oregonian. His insights on urban issues have been featured numerous times in national and regional news media (see Awards/Press), including by the New York Times, Time, the Economist, the London Daily Telegraph, and many more. And he's also shared his insights on TV and radio, as well as through in person speaking appearances.
He was honored by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce for his innovative ideas for public transit in Chicago. The Urbanophile was also cited as among the most important urban planning web sites in America by Planetizen.
Renn's insights are rooted in a 15 year career in management and IT consulting, where he was a partner at Accenture. His clients included companies such as Walgreens, United Parcel Service, and Allstate. In addition to being the lead manager for several multi-million dollar IT implementations, he was also a senior technology architect and served in several strategy roles, including Director of IT Strategy for both Accenture and Focal Communications. Today he works as an independent consultant.
No stranger to the Internet or urban issues, Renn is a long time innovator in the field. He was co-author of an early social-networking platform at Indiana University in 1991, which attracted over 4,000 users in an era before the Internet. And in 1998 he launched one of the nation's first blogs, The Weekly Breakdown, to cover the Chicago Transit Authority.
A native of Laconia, Indiana, a town of 29 people along the Ohio River, Renn grew up fascinated by those larger places known as cities, and made it his life's preoccupation to learn what makes them tick. He currently resides in Chicago.
For consulting, speaking, media, or other inquiries, you can reach Renn at
arenn@urbanophile.com.
Posted By: Aaron M. Renn
Posted: 5/12/2010
I'll put my cards on the table: I don't like casinos. I'd rather not have a casino in my city. They suck up entertainment dollars that could go to other uses. It seems likely that the Ohio casinos will prove to be yet another way to take money from urban centers and spread it around the state.
But unfortunately the argument was not about whether or not to have casinos in Cincinnati. Cincinnati already had casinos - they are in Indiana. The only question is whether Indiana gets the money from them or Ohio does. In that light, a downtown Cincinnati casino makes sense.
The Broadway Commons site is probably the ideal location for a casino. It's a wasteland on the fringe of downtown, sandwiched between the jail and the freeway - hardly an attractive site. If Over the Rhine still has large numbers of empty buildings, it doesn't seem likely Broadway Commons would be developed soon. The casino project will put taxable development on that spot, and bring activity to a current dead zone.
Casinos are normally hermetically sealed environments. The company wants to get you in and keep you there. This makes them anti-urban, as casinos in places like Detroit and New Orleans will attest. The developers of the Cincinnati casino have talked about creating a more urban casino, with actual street activity, and doing things to integrate the casino into the neighborhood. If they do this, it would set a new bar for what downtown casinos could be.
It is early days yet. Rock Ventures has not even hired a casino operator. The renders are very preliminary. So while they are staying the right things now, Cincinnati should "Trust, but verify" and be sure to stay engaged to make the final product as high quality as possible.
Posted By: Aaron M. Renn
Posted: 5/11/2010
I grew up in Southern Indiana near Louisville and have been coming to Cincinnati since I was a kid. I used to take in Reds games at Riverfront, visit Kings Island, and more. As an adult, I can now truly appreciate what Cincinnati has to offer. It's an embarrassment of riches.
Cincinnati simply has the best collection of urban assets of any city its size in America. I can't name another place like it. It has the stunning geography of the river and the hills. It's got the incredible neighborhoods and historic architecture. It has a great collection of contemporary architecture too. It has a huge number of Fortune 500 companies and great high culture institutions like the symphony and opera company. Most of all, it has retained a unique culture when so many other places have been homogenized.
I hear people in Cincinnati talk about a place like Over the Rhine. But as great as OTR is, there are probably 10-15 other neighborhoods in Cincinnati that most other cities would kill to have. As I took a guided tour of the city when in town last week, I was almost drooling over some of them.
Cincinnati has so much good stuff that it makes me wonder why it hasn't done more with it. Too many of those historic buildings are vacant. There are too few immigrants. Population growth trails the national average, and its economy, while doing ok, trails places like Columbus. I call it a conundrum. Whatever the reason for it, Cincinnati today is a bit like a sleeping dragon guarding a massive horde of treasure. If the urban redevelopment pace keeps accelerating and the city fully wakes up again – watch out America! Cincinnati's potential is simply huge.