Boca and Sotto's David Falk shares his insights on the Cincinnati restaurant boom. Falk will participate in the inaugural Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic September 12-13 in Washington Park.
In this companion piece to our feature story, Soapbox and photojournalist Jeremy Mosher take you along for the ride on Portland, Oregon's Streetcar, introducing the people who use the city's popular public transit system and allowing viewers to experience first-hand the role it has played in the city's re-imagining of its urban core.
On Thursday, Give Back Cincinnati launches a new venture called Fuel Cincinnati which will solicit great ideas for the city and help put them into action.
Finding a sense of pride and ownership in their community, women-owned businesses are on the rise in Northside. Cultivating businesses are a group of talented young women who simply want to invest in their own community, while meeting its burgeoning, eclectic needs.
Happen Inc. is making a big splash in Northside. The non-profit arts center is expanding its hands on approach to art programming, engaging families to work together, and creating life lessons out of graffiti art and toy building. Credit former advertising executive Tommy Rueff, an artist and designer, for bringing families together in this cool new space where art actually 'happens.'
Cincinnati celebrates May's 'Bike Month' with style - and substance. A comprehensive bike plan, new bike lanes, 'sharrows', designated bike 'parking' spaces and even a bike corral in Northside are just a handful of the successes local bike advocates and city officials have achieved in the past year. Soapbox's Jeremy Mosher says that their efforts are not only making Cincinnati more bike friendly, but changing the way we'll all get around in the future - hint: two wheels are better than four.
Two entrepreneurs, Chris Ostoich and Joe Pantuso, have been convening local talent to share their Cincinnati secrets and big ideas with the rest of the world. Whether through installments 1 & 2 of Ignite Cincinnati, or with their web based Secret Cincinnati campaign, they've hit a nerve with creatives in the city and inspired a new culture of ideas. Soapbox hung out during the Secret Cincinnati 72 hour weekend kick off in March to learn more about the people behind the project, and the ideas they're germinating.
Thirty years ago we based paint with lead and insulated our homes with toxic asbestos - and while Cincinnati's existing comprehensive plan might not be outright poisonous, thirty years after its drafting, we live in a world that it couldn't account for, and with knowledge it could only imagine at the time. Enter Plan Cincinnati, the beginning of the city's first comprehensive plan since the 70s - which seeks to answer the questions who are we as a city? and what do we want to become?
This week, Soapbox provides a first-hand account of a native son's visit to Portland, Oregon, and his observations of how a streetcar, and mass transit in general, could benefit a city like Cincinnati. From revitalized retail districts to the creation of eminently walkable neighborhoods, Mosher explores the benefits of 21st century transportation, and realizes it's not all concrete and steel - like the shared public experience that draws Portland's residents out into the open and, ultimately, together.