Cincinnati gets a unique treat (ment?) from one of Soapbox's favorite new contributers and barristers, Casey Coston. Mr. Coston comes to the city of Porkopolis from Detroit where, among many other things, he was a free lance writer for many years. Sit tight and buckle up. This blog rocks.
read full bio
Soapblog 1
Posted By: Casey Coston
5/20/2008
As a transplant to Cincinnati from the Detroit area, I am often asked for comparisons between the two cities and regions. For the most part, it is a conversation about apples and oranges in which I choose not to indulge for fear of being unduly negative on my much beloved, yet undeniably dysfunctional, former home. After ten years in Detroit, both as a practicing attorney as well as (in my rare free time) a free lance writer, I often traversed and chronicled the city’s peaks and valleys (metaphorically speaking, as that city’s pretty much as flat as the proverbial pancake), its architectural treasures, its indomitable and brilliant creative spirit, its lost history, its sometimes halting renaissance. As a 139 square mile city which has been depleted of a big chunk of its inhabitants following the peak years in the 1950’s, Detroit has doggedly endured as the rusting arsenal of democracy, a scarred but jarringly beautiful post-apocalyptic industrial landscape, continually beating down the lengthening shadows from a more prosperous time. It is a city that, literally as well as figuratively, is the modern acropolis of America's post-war manufacturing might, and which, in its more prosperous times, paved under some of its most treasured and culturally rich neighborhoods in order to build the freeways that enabled its population to quickly flee for the suburbs.
Oh wait…I thought I wasn’t going to be negative.
Anywho, when an opportunity surfaced in Cincinnati, both my wife and I were receptive, despite the fact that we had no friends or relatives or any other tangible connection to the city. What we did see, however, was the opportunity to relocate to a city with a much denser fabric, a city which would reconnect us with our urbanist inclinations (let’s just put our biases on the table right now); an opportunity to live in a city without 30 and 40 minute commutes…where travel mugs are a thing of the past. I’m not saying it’s Chicago or NY, it’s not; but that’s not what we were looking for at the time. Cincinnati is, among many other things, a relatively manageable and affordable Midwestern city with a wealth of historic architecture, fine arts, diversity, natural beauty and a decent level of density in and around the urban core, all uniquely Cincinnati (not to mention, at least for the time being, an airline hub).
After an initial foray during an icy weekend in February, within a week or so we were putting an offer down on a house and preparing to slough off our motor city shackles. As we trundled down I-75, we grew giddy with anticipation, ultimately plunging head first into a new city which was heretofore virtually an unknown [cue the swelling bombastic music] embracing our new status as [crescendo], um, well…. “Cinsters?” No, awkward… “Cincinistas”? Perhaps, yes…a touch more revolutionary, yet softened, ever so slightly, by the inherent, vaguely Southern politesse so prevalent in the Cincinnati ethos.
Although it is something of a cliché, an oft-invoked observation I tend to hear around town is that “the biggest naysayers about Cincinnati are the natives.” Having read many comments and letters to the editor, as well as what I have experienced in daily conversation, I would say that this is, unfortunately, a truism in many respects. Sad but true, but, then again, what's the use of a soapbox if you can't preach the gospel? Conversely, it also seems that some of the more recent rah-rah Cinci-Yay boosters seem to be transplants (guilty as charged), who arrive free of the pre-existing historical baggage and jaded notions which may pile up in the closets of some (but not all) long-time natives. So I'm here to preach my own gospel of the Cincinista, Elmer Gantry style, from the virtual Soapbox© blog. Let me note for the record that, while I realize it’s not all rose colored Polyanna glasses and such, this is not intended to be a comprehensive treatise, so I suspect my observations from high atop Mt. Soapbox will generally skew towards the positive, at least initially.