Interview Themes: Why Downtown?

Throughout our first round of interviews we discovered that regardless of the community we were in, many of the same concerns arose. In this set of posts we aim to shed light on the perceptions of the streetcar initiative in Cincinnati.

Whats So Great About Downtown?

A few of our interviewees brought up a simple question; “Why would I even want to go down there?” Cincinnati is an area with a great history, some polished, some tarnished. We need to help put the class/race issues aside and realize the massive potential for our downtown area.

A large portion of Cincinnati’s residents live outside of the downtown area. These suburban residents wield the most political power and are often the most vocal. They want to know why they should come down “to the ghetto,” as one of our interviewees mentioned it. We live in a city where much of the news that is reported is oftentimes spun in a negative manner, often in the realms of the OTR, Downtown, and Clifton neighborhoods. There is ample opportunity to spread the word about all the positive change happening in downtown.

Once again, since news happens quickly, we cannot expect everyone to know about the latest happenings in downtown. We need to find a way to make the information about our burgeoning downtown more accessible. The Internet is not the final solution – we need to develop a method to spread word about all the exciting happenings in the city. If we can find a way to convince people living at the outer rim of 275 to come downtown we will have made progress.