Wait!
Today was the first day of class at Cincinnati Public Schools and I'm amazed. Has Summer really passed by so quickly? Did school start this early for me when I was a child?
I've noticed recently how slowly I seem to be moving compared to my surroundings.
Maybe it's my lack of media consumption that keeps me out of the loop;
Maybe it's the constant attention I give to my toddler;
Maybe it's my husband's busy building schedule;
Maybe it's our move from busy Vine St. to this quiet, tree-lined street five blocks away.
In addition to the start of the school year, which always signifies the official end of Summer to me, downtown Cincinnati--and Over-the-Rhine, specifically--seems to be moving very fast. New restaurants; new shops; new neighbors. It's enough to make a girl like myself yell, "Stop! I just can't keep up!" I swear, even though I leave the house every day and walk these streets, I cannot seem to move quickly enough to participate in all the excitement!
More often than not, in conversations with other young parents who live outside the city, I hear a lot of "Oh... I wish I could move into the city, but...." And then they elaborate on one of many (sometimes legitimate) reasons why moving into the city is unrealistic for their family.
To them, I say that there could not be a better time for young families to move into the City of Cincinnati.
Heck, I will go so far as to say that there has never been a better time to live downtown.
(And this is not the idealism of a brand new resident speaking. I've lived in OTR the better part of three years and worked here the two years before that. Even though I may not be a long-term resident yet, I'm definitely not new to the scene.)
It's an exciting time to be in Cincinnati, no?
I only wish I had more time to spend with neighbors, make new friends, eat new foods, buy new goods, and take it all in. Maybe as the weather cools, time will slow down a bit and I will get a chance to really inhabit our great city.
Happy end of Summer, folks!
Maybe I'll catch up with you in the Fall?
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I think you're absolutely right about the fast pace of the changes in the basin. I recently finished re-reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, and her passages about cataclysmic change really resonated with me.
ReplyDeleteI don't have some long-term history in Over-the-Rhine, or in Cincinnati, for that matter. I only moved here four years ago. But, I find the changes sort of alienating and can imagine that longer-term residents might find them even more so. Maybe it's because the economic reality of my life is that I really have to focus to selling our work to outlets outside this bubble in order to sustain our lives within it.
I feel like, when I do have a moment to stop and just be in the neighborhood, I find myself so distanced from these new initiatives that they remind me of the fact that, in the long term, I don't belong here. I should find the changes exciting, but it's hard to be excited when so many of the new things seem to be clearly targeting a group that may not exclude me, but it doesn't really include me. So, I guess I'm with you on the "I can't keep up" tip.
I'm with you both to a certain extent. I wish I could just hang out in the neighborhood sometimes instead of rushing around. I also feel that in some ways the neighborhood is passing us up. Talking to new neighbors in the condos quickly opens my eyes that they have a completely different perspective on OTR.
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