John DAlessandro

Dr. Martin
Conversations about Life
23 April, 2016
Revitalize Over-the-Rhine From Within
Gentrification is a recurring problem throughout the industrialized world, especially in
the United States. In an attempt to better a city, civic policies actually work to destroy
communities and contribute to the growth of an impoverished black working class. The
community of Over-the-Rhine is currently in the midst of this process of gentrification. Below is
a description of the problem, various opinions about the situation and on gentrification in
general, as well as an examination of an alternative revitalization model and a proposal for such
a model to be implemented in the city of Cincinnati.
Over-the-Rhine is a neighborhood near downtown Cincinnati with a long and troubled
history. In the 1910s, the German inhabitants of the area began to move out to the suburbs. This
led the city of Cincinnati in 1925 to designate the land as industrial and commercial, not as
housing despite the residential buildings in the area (Scheer). In the 30s, Over-the-Rhine was
declared a slum. Since then, various migrations have left the neighborhood a fraction of its
original size. Many of the landlords who owned buildings in the area let the land depreciate.
Crime and a low-income population scared away the middle class. In 2001, riots and protests
destroyed a lot of property in Over-the-Rhine after the murder of a black man by Cincinnati
police. This caused a lot of local businesses to close or relocate. Since then, the city has been
attempting to improve the situation in Over-the-Rhine in part because of its proximity to
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downtown Cincinnati (Maag). These efforts have had the endorsement of local businesses, the
city government, but not the local population, which is generally of the opinion that the citys
efforts have been destructive to the community. The intent of the efforts is to reduce crime and
bring business into the area, but the city accomplishes this by pushing out the existing
community.
This is a prominent strategy in gentrification projects around the nation. Gentrification is
a process of civic policy guiding an economy to rely mainly on real estate as opposed to other
factors (Dutton). This process usually forces out low-income inhabitants by raising the price of
housing, allowing wealthy people to flood in. In the urban United States, this is done in an
attempt to grow the economies in poor areas near major cities. In these situations, the state
becomes indistinguishable from corporate power. Most of the areas being gentrified transition
from a majority lower class black population to a majority white upper class population. Many
scholars have likened this gentrification to larger scale economic processes like imperialism and
colonialism. Movements during the civil rights movement, such as the SNCC and Black Panther
Party, also employ these terms. They saw on the ground what police did to black communities in
the name of corporate interests (Dutton). Cincinnati is no exception. As the sixth most segregated
city in the nation, corporations flocked to build an Over-the-Rhine in their image by using land
speculation, which is encouraged by local banks.
The City of Cincinnati formed 3CDC (the Cincinnati Center City Development
Corporation) in 2003 to act as a semi-public institution for revitalizing Over-the-Rhine. The
strategy they employed was to fill the neighborhood with the existing communities near it:
downtown Cincinnati and the Clifton community, mainly University of Cincinnati students
(3CDC). The corporation itself receives funding from both private interests and the city. The
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private interests mainly include corporations in Cincinnati that want to profit off of having a
middle/upper class Over-the-Rhine. The city also gives the corporation many other privileges,
making the local government more of a progenitor than a regulator (Deobhakta).
In the first five years of its existence, 3CDC was able to consolidate more properties than
its predecessor could in thirty. 3CDC has amassed hundreds of properties, over 300 buildings and
lots, in order to do this. The close partnership with corporate interests for an institution so largely
supported by the city leads many to see it as undemocratic and controlling. The local community
has been absent from discussions for many of the plans the company has made. When 3CDC
does reach out for community voices, those voices are often ignored completely. On top of that,
the company does not hire local labor for projects on the ground. Citing a lack of skilled labor,
3CDC does not benefit the existing community financially at all (Deobhakta). There are also no
programs in place to help train skilled workers.
The Cincinnati Streetcar project has been a large move by 3CDC and other parts of the
city. Since its inception, the city has sunk a large amount of money and time into this project,
even though it has elected officials specifically to stop it. The reasoning for the streetcar, a
tracked vehicle that makes a four block loop between Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, is that it
will spur business in Over-the-Rhine by bringing people from Downtown as well as giving those
who work downtown more convenient transportation to work. This project has been routinely
under-planned and over-budget. Segments of the community feel like the project is simply a
farce to misdirect from the gentrification that provides its context. 3CDC point to the streetcar as
a ploy to revitalize business in an effort to distract from the absurd amount of privileges and
financial benefits it receives from the city.

Many people still support the gentrification process despite all of these reasons. A lot of
this support comes from the people that benefit from these policies, mainly the white middle to
upper class and corporations. They do, however, make arguments for gentrification that they
believe hold some weight. One of the most common words that supporters use to argue for this
process is revitalization. Especially in Cincinnati, people point towards inner city crime as
being a major issue (Smith). After the boiling point of 2001, the city has been looking toward
gentrification as a way to fix their concept of a crime problem. Higher income areas have been
shown to have lower crime rates. Turning Over-the-Rhine into a higher income area certainly
should lower crime rates. This is an expressed desire of the city and 3CDC that supports the
gentrification process. It is, though, precedent in Cincinnati for crime, which trails behind lowincome communities, to simply move somewhere else altogether. When the West End was torn
down in the forties, a lot of the people who lived there moved to Over-the-Rhine.
Over-the-Rhine in particular is home to many historic buildings, making the upkeep of
these buildings a primary argument for gentrifying the neighborhood. The current low-income
population, proponents say, does not have the ability to fix a lot of these buildings from the
nineteenth century. These buildings, many of which are residential, have been left to decay by
previous landowners. A gentry living in these neighborhoods, backed by local corporations and
the city, will have the ability to renovate and maintain such historic buildings (3CDC).
There are also economic growth reasons that lead many to support gentrification. Raising
property values raises home equity and causes other positive economic indicators. Cincinnati
corporate interests have a lot to gain from gentrifying Over-the-Rhine. Higher income in Overthe-Rhine would mean more consumer spending in Downtown and Clifton. This is the reason
that many in the city government have supported the Cincinnati streetcar, they believe it will
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hasten this economic growth in Over-the-Rhine that will feed into the economy of Cincinnati
generally. 3CDCs website claims that the future of Cincinnatis economy rides on the success of
the Downtown commercial district.
There are plenty of reasons for people to be fighting against the gentrification of Overthe-Rhine. Lack of press coverage and poor organization by activists and movements have led to
a gap in organized opposition to gentrification, but the individuals who are opposed are mainly
members of the local community and people worried that the city will gentrify their community
in the future. Despite personal interests, there are social and economic reasons to oppose
gentrification.
For one, the local community has had little say in any major decisions made by 3CDC,
the City, and invested corporations. This not only prevents democratic representation from the
community, but also creates a schism between the new gentrified Over-the-Rhine and the old
Over-the-Rhine (Smith). The companys strategy has been to buy land, clear out the buildings on
it, sell to a new business, then market out that business to draw in new investment and interest.
This strategy makes an irregular border between these sides of Over-the-Rhine that currently
despise one another; the former sees the latter as crime-ridden and poor, the latter sees the former
as yuppie hipsters destroying the community.
As is stated above, people currently living in Over-the-Rhine will not simply disappear.
Gentrification causes economic problems down the road that cannot be easily solved. Historical
models for gentrification predict economic growth by overlooking some key issues with the
process that add social cost (Sheppard). Many proponents point to property values alone as a
measure of community benefits. This is only accurate if an analyst assumes that most of the
members of the community own their own homes. Other analysts, recognizing that many
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impoverished communities are forced to rent space from landowners, assume that the landlords
have a vested stake in improving the community. This especially true of Over-the-Rhine, where
slumlords have been exploiting poor tenants for decades. Without accounting for these social
costs by creating extra programs for job training and community development, communities that
get pushed out of their neighborhoods then move to neighborhoods with fewer of these programs
than they originally had.
These economic factors are all byproducts of the imperialism that the US is currently
employing on segments of its population. Continuing imperialism is undemocratic and damaging
to culture and community in the long term. The late twentieth century set a precedent for the
government attempting to destroy black communities. It has been pointed out that areas like
Over-the-Rhine historically export their labor alone and have no means to build up capital
internally to actually grow in a significant way (Dutton).
The economic and social conditions of this internal colonialism has caused historical civil
rights organizations to take a very anti-capitalist stance on civil rights and gentrification in
particular. To combat this, liberal politics has been forced into tokenism in an attempt to bring
communities of color into the fold of the neoliberalism that has hurt them from its creation
(Dutton). This simply pointed out that capitalism as it is presently implemented has no real
solutions for poverty, instead of actually solving the issues that allegedly require gentrification to
solve. Poverty is not about race but about corporate interests being diametrically opposed to the
interests of the communities that those corporations exploit.
3CDC in particular has had a terrible track record in regards to how it treats the current
community in Over-the-Rhine. Most CDCs play the role of a liaison between the community and
the city/corporate interests, but 3CDC simply acts as an arm of the state (Deobhakta). On top of
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that, since 3CDC is a semi private entity, it adds a layer of removal between the city government
and the community. This systemically prevents community participation and input to 3CDC
unless the company goes out and attempts to get some itself. With the help of the city, 3CDC has
been able to grow immensely powerful.
Since 2003, the company has been able to consolidate and strategically plan the
gentrification process more than any group of disparate companies could. Local organizations in
the area look on the company as an external force attacking Over-the-Rhine (Smith). Both
members of the Over-the-Rhine Community Council and leaders from other bodies, such as
charities and churches, have directly spoken out against the company with such an opinion.
There has also been an incident where the mayor of Cincinnati, John Cranley, has been described
as callous in his remarks about the situation, an example of the lack of a platform for locals in
the citys plans (Smith).
There are ways to elevate a neighborhood without displacing the community within.
Although it is uncommon, due to the monolithic power CDCs get from their government
partnership, these alternatives have been shown to be extremely effective at solving the issues
that gentrification projects claim to solve. The concept of a community land trust, where local
organizers incorporate a body that allows them to directly manage the real estate in their
community, has been extremely successful in a little community outside of Boston.
In the 1980s, the city of Roxbury, Massachusetts was heavily impoverished. Between
property owners sabotaging buildings to devalue property and the city literally receiving
Bostons waste, things were only seeming to get worse. After rejecting revitalization initiatives
that had no representation from the community, people in the area formed the Dudley Street
Neighborhood Initiative in 1984 (DSNI).
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The DSNI is a legal entity that the community uses to keep land values low while still
bringing investment and improvement to their neighborhood, and it has been widely successful.
It is the largest urban land trust in the country, having rezoned and improved 1,300 vacant lots
into a modern community (Dwyer). Buying many properties in the so-called Dudley Triangle
allowed the community to develop lots without significantly increasing property values, which
prevented displacement. The organization also has guaranteed representation for all of the major
ethnic groups in the area, meaning that it is accountable to groups that are marginalized in other
communities.
This accountability is extremely important for economic growth. It prevents communities
from becoming disenfranchised, angry, and hostile as the people of many gentrified communities
feel toward their present Community Development Corporation, as is especially the case in
Over-the-Rhine. This economic democracy also means that community members are both
financially and politically invested in the community they belong to, preventing alien landowners
from controlling the real estate market from afar. This model also lowers crime without
displacement (Dwyer), meaning it deters crime on an individual level as opposed to simply
moving it away from a metropolitan area. One of the ways this democracy helps individuals is
by, as some experts put it, isolating them from the housing market. Members of the DSNI are
partially shielded from regular housing bubbles (Dwyer).
The Community Land Trust (CLT) model needs to be applied in Over-the-Rhine. This
will spur economic development in the way that the City of Cincinnati claims to intend. It will
lower crime in a way that is not racist, will not displace people, and will empower individuals in
the existing community (Community-Wealth). Building this kind of grassroots democracy may
also have long lasting implications in the city. After seeing this idea of a CLT, and collective
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control and development of the economy, other neighborhoods that the city attempts to gentrify
in the future and ones that the city has already begun to gentrify may work to apply the model as
well. If every neighborhood in the city begins to do similar processes in the future, Cincinnati
can become one of the most economically progressive cities in the nation without introducing a
substantial amount of government control.
To reach this goal, local government involvement is necessary. Instead of funding 3CDC
and corporate projects in Over-the-Rhine, the city should work with neighborhood community
organizations to have them create a CLT that can take eminent domain over the unoccupied land
that 3CDC currently controls as well as any properties not being used by their owners. This CLT,
armed with the city and federally received finances that 3CDC currently has, can then hire
experts at the communitys discretion to lower vacancy without raising property values. Having
this organ for economic involvement will also train and inspire local leadership, allowing for
greater political participation from an oppressed minority in one of the most segregated cities in
the nation. With more massive application, the city can work to turn around the stigma it has and
hopefully free itself from an awful history of segregation and racism.
Not only is the CLT model the most holistically effective way to revitalize an
impoverished community, but 3CDC is actively hurting the community it claims to help.
Whether or not a CLT is created, 3CDC needs to be stopped. This can be done by restricting the
amount of money the company receives from the city, preventing it from having special
privileges, and breaking it into a legitimate Community Development Corporation that is
democratically accountable to both the City of Cincinnati and, more importantly, to the working
people of Over-the-Rhine.

Works Cited
Deobhakta, Shireen, "Analysis of social costs of gentrification in Over-the-Rhine: a qualitative
approach." (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 336.
http://dx.doi.org/10.18297/etd/336
"Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative." Community-Wealth.org. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Dwyer, Lee Allen. Mapping Impact: An Analysis of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative
Land Trust. Thesis. Print.
Grubesic, Tony H., and Elizabeth A. Mack. "Spatio-Temporal Interaction of Urban Crime."
Journal of Quantitative Criminology J Quant Criminol 24.3 (2008): 285-306. Web.
"History." DSNI. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.
Maag, Christopher. "In Cincinnati, Life Breathes Anew in Riot-Scarred Area." The New York
Times. Web.
Scheer, Brian C., and Daniel Ferdelman. "Inner-city Destruction and Survival: The Case of
Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati." Urban Morphology 5.1 (2001): 15-27. Web.
Sheppard, Stephen. Why Is Gentrification a Problem? Center for Creative Community
Development. Web.
Smith, RJ. "3CDC in Over-the-Rhine: Between Two Worlds." Cincinnati Magazine 5 Oct. 2015.
Print.
Thomas A. Dutton (2007) Colony Over-the-Rhine, The Black Scholar, 37:3,
14-27, DOI: 10.1080/00064246.2007.11413405

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"Who We Are." 3CDC. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

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