Why aren’t we being warned anymore about the imminent collapse of the Brent Spence Bridge?
Jake Mecklenborg writes about the group that was funding the “bridge collapse” scare campaign, and why they’ve given up.
Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory delays next decision on Lenhardt’s building in Clifton Heights
The future of the Goetz House (better known as the Christy’s and Lenhardt’s building) in Clifton Heights is not looking good, but the building could still be saved. An out-of-state developer wants the building demolished to make way for a new student housing development. Preservationists want the building declared an historic landmark, which would make demolition more difficult.
The Historic Conservation Board agreed that the building should be declared historic, but Planning Commission disagreed. It will be up to City Council to accept or reject the Planning Commission’s recommendation and determine the building’s future.
How Music Festivals Effect Urban Economies
In a 2010 study from the University of Queensland, researchers polled young festival-goers, ages 18 to 29, about their experiences. Eighty-three percent felt they came away more hopeful about the way things are in the world, while 91 percent felt more positive about their lives.
Judge Rules That Movie Studio Should Have Been Paying Interns
A Federal District Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying production interns, a case that could upend the long-held practice of the film industry and other businesses that rely heavily on unpaid internships.
580 Building to be converted to apartments by end of year
The 17-story office building will be converted into 179 apartments that are due to start opening by the end of this year, Birkla said. Thirteen two-story penthouses will have 20-foot, floor-to-ceiling views and private terraces. They will each be about 1,600 square feet with two bedrooms and a den.
Between the 580 Building, Phase Two of The Banks, and the new Fourth and Race tower, that’s almost 800 new housing units (and a long-needed downtown grocery store).
Throw in the proposals for Fountain Place (Fifth & Vine) and Seventh & Broadway, and you’ve got over 1,000 new housing units in the Central Business District alone — not even counting all of the development occurring in Over-the-Rhine.
The demand for living in Downtown Cincinnati hasn’t been this high in decades, and this is just the beginning of property developers addressing that demand.
The Facebook experiment has failed
I am signed into Facebook right now. At a quick glance, the entire list of posts on the first screen are irrelevant to me. If I scrolled down I can find 4 stories I actually care about, from a list of about 30. The most important page on Facebook has more than three-fourths of absolutely useless content.
What’s the matter with metadata?
[Former Sun Microsystems engineer Susan Landau] explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying “who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.”
Ryan Singel puts it another way:
Think of it as how the Internet is built of links. There’s a lot of knowledge just in those links.
Commute to Clifton off I-75 or I-74? Prepare to reroute
Already, nearly $417 million has been spent on plans, the purchase of adjacent land and property and construction. Some portions of the overall I-75 reconstruction aren’t scheduled to be finished for more than a decade – and there are no guarantees the Brent Spence Bridge portion will start in 2015 because of political wrangling over funding.
No mechanism for electorate to challenge ODOT
A letter-to-the-editor from Jake Mecklenborg published in the Enquirer:
Much of the argument for reconstruction of I-75 and the Brent Spence Bridge is the “functional obsolescence” of those facilities (“The big I-75 fix” June 2). We are told that the elimination of left-side ramps and improvement of safety shoulders – at a cost of about $3 billion for a few miles of roadway – will usher in a new era of prosperity.
Since vehicle ownership and miles driven started their decline in the early 2000s, leading cities shifted away from highway projects and instead invested heavily in public transportation. New York City has no plans to improve or replace its innumerable functionally obsolete bridges, tunnels, and left-side ramps. Los Angeles is expanding its subway system and building a downtown streetcar rather than expanding its highway network.
Here ODOT is reconstructing I-75 and building a new Brent Spence Bridge for a future that will never arrive. However, the public has no say in the matter, since Cincinnatians have not voted on a road project since 1956 and no mechanism exists for the electorate to challenge ODOT’s activities.
While “anti-tax” groups and grandstanding governors feign outrage over the cost of rail transit projects, they don’t make a peep about much higher-cost highway projects. (Hint: they’re not actually upset about the cost; they’re upset because they see anything but road construction and suburbia as an attack on their preferred way of life.)
And even if we wanted to, we don’t have a way of forcing a referendum on ODOT. As a reminder, here’s a cost comparison of some local rail and highway projects proposed over the years (some of the numbers have changed since this chart was first published in early 2011):
Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’
After letting go of its entire photo staff Thursday, the Chicago Sun-Times plans to begin mandatory training on “iPhone photography basics.” Media writer Robert Feder referred to the training in a Facebook post, and quotes a memo from Editor Craig Newman: “In the coming days and weeks, we’ll be working with all editorial employees to train and outfit you as much as possible to produce the content we need.”
Newspapers should be focusing on their strengths. They could be differentiating themselves from other media by doing investigative journalism and publishing quality photos alongside their stories.
Unfortunately, many newspapers have chosen to compete with blogs by publishing more frequent, less-researched stories and lower quality photos. If they’re having trouble selling subscriptions now, just wait until the quality of their content starts declining.