Blogs

Cincinnati is trying to raise its profile from every possible angle and is using a variety of ways to do it.  Several things are working in our favor presently and that makes it fun to show up every day to do our work.  From a strategic standpoint the downtown must work as a gathering place for workers, shoppers, visitors, sports fans, and urban dwellers.  It is our showpiece, and what we use to help generate the dollars to support many other areas of the city.  But the backbone of the community and the key to the city’s success is its neighborhoods.

Aside from being the enclaves where the vast majority of the workforce dwells, we need neighborhoods to include local serving jobs and amenities that support the residential base like libraries, grocers, drugstores, restaurants and outlets for physical activities.  Successful recruitment of the things that add substance and culture in the neighborhood requires the stakeholders there to engage and be actively involved in the life of the area. When people who live and work in a neighborhood give back it brings energy and vitality ensuring endless possibilities.  Such is the case when the City of Cincinnati held the kickoff of the Neighborhood Enhancement Project (NEP) in the Evanston neighborhood in September.

The NEP is a program that is designed to build upon a neighborhood’s existing assets  and to leverage a new wave of sweat equity to reduce crime and blight, beautify the area, and to stimulate new investment to its residential and commercial core.  It is implemented using a partnership approach with the city government departments all working as a single team with the community based stakeholders of the Evanston neighborhood that includes  the Evanston Community Council and the Business Association as well as Xavier University, the Home Ownership Center, the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors, and US Bank among others.  This broad set of partners is working through a 90-day labor-intensive effort that we call a blitz to make a significant impact on that area.  We measure our progress along the way in 30-day intervals and then we do follow up after the 90 day period for an additional nine months.  As with anything meaningful the focus is on identifiable results and much has been accomplished over the last two months.

There are many other efforts taking place around the city involving non-profits, volunteers from the private sector, school community service projects and several others.  All of these efforts are part of the big picture aimed at making our neighborhoods stronger.  The more jobs, investment, and home ownership we can stimulate the better impact we can make on reducing crime, improving schools, and making people want to live in the city.

We need all of our residents to see downtown as a place that has something for everybody.  That spurs a sense of pride that shows when we talk about Cincinnati and resonates with visitors when they ask us to tell them something about the place we call home.  That sense of ownership in downtown helps us as we aggressively court larger and larger conventions.  But the foundation upon which this city will soar is a tightly integrated set of 52 neighborhoods and we can all play a role in making that a reality.