Infrastructure for Billionaires
Anyone who follows me on Twitter or is friends with me on Facebook knows that I have an interest in infrastructure as well as city planning. My interest in infrastructure and city planning is really just a hobby because the only thing I was ever formally educated on was how to be a teacher, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt.
Sharon Coolidge and Sydney Franklin over at The Enquirer released an in-depth article looking at a variety of development happening in the West End, and there was one major thing that caught my eye. As I’m sure you know, the gentrification of the West End has been in hyperdrive ever since FC Cincinnati kicked out a bunch of residents and businesses to build their 26,000-seat soccer specific stadium. Now along with that stadium comes a plethora of development from both the City of Cincinnati as well as private developers who most likely will be seeking those sweet sweet abatement deals the city hands out like candy.
The City of Cincinnati is investing $20 million into “revamping Central Parkway” and they are describing their plan as being similar to “Avenue des Champs-Elysees” in Paris, France. The city’s plan is to turn Central Parkway into a pedestrian-friendly corridor which is exciting and wonderful. I just find the flurry of investment in the West End interesting for a variety of reasons. In traditional American fashion, the eruption of investment comes AFTER the African American residents, who have historically resided in the West End, are being priced out / kicked out of the neighborhood. Why does it take a soccer stadium for the City of Cincinnati to start investing heavily into a neighborhood that historically had been ignored for decades?
One of the proposed “revamp” designs for Central Parkway presented by the City of Cincinnati and Strand and Associates
It's wonderful that the current city council is taking pedestrian-friendly infrastructure seriously, but it still isn’t enough if the only neighborhoods being invested in are the ones that the millionaires and billionaires care about. Take a look at the neighborhood of South Fairmount, one of my favorite Cincinnati neighborhoods to talk about. Like the pre-gentrification West End, this neighborhood is occupied primarily by impoverished African Americans. According to Census data, roughly 61% of the residents in South Fairmount are black. Additionally, of the 853 “households” in South Fairmount, 60% have a total household income less than $35,000. Queen City Avenue runs right through the heart of this neighborhood and we’ve seen no street-calming or pedestrian friendly measures at all. If you take a look at the City of Cincinnati’s traffic data website, which isn’t particularly user friendly, you will find that there are 64 pages, with 100 accidents per page, of vehicle accident reports when you search specifically for Queen City Avenue. Now to be fair, the dates of those 64 pages range from August 2023 and span all the way back to the beginning of 2013. I’ve never proclaimed to be a math whiz, but that’s approximately 6,400 car accidents occurring on the entire length of Queen City Avenue in the past ten years. Why has the city not invested in traffic calming measures at any point along Queen City Avenue, especially in South Fairmount? Does the neighborhood need to lure some billionaires in and build a stadium to get a $20 million “revamp” of Queen City Ave?
But alas, my constant bitching about Queen City Ave has finally caught the attention of those at city hall. One councilmember informed me that they’ve been sounding the alarm to the mayor and the city’s administration about the dangers of Queen City Avenue. I will leave the councilmember unnamed at this time because I like to keep my sources close to the chest. But if they are reading this, just know I appreciate your friendship and advocacy for Cincinnati’s west side. With all of that being said, they informed me today that there will be “enhanced traffic enforcement on Queen City Avenue beginning on Monday, September 18th.”
There are obvious pros and cons to this strategy and it sure as hell is nowhere comparable to the city throwing $20 million at a street revamp just because some billionaire decided he wanted to own an MLS team. The pros of traffic enforcement are that maybe people will start following traffic laws and stop wrecking their vehicles, making it safer for everyone. The cons are that there will surely be increased interactions between police officers and Cincinnati residents which can lead to a slew of problems, particularly since police have a strange way of treating citizens of color. I assume this is just a stop-gap measure to finally show west side residents the city recognizes the problems plaguing Queen City Avenue after years of simply ignoring them. It’s a start, but it sure as hell better not be the end.
If you want to participate in a survey regarding the Central Parkway revamp, click here.