• Social Separation
   
• Urban Sprawl
   
• Fiscal Disparities

These trends have negative implications for all types of communities in Greater Cincinnati.  Central cities in our region have high and growing poverty, severe racial segregation and slow-growing tax bases.  Older, inner-ring suburbs have social strains similar to those in central cities, but they tend to have little commercial tax base and a declining residential tax base.  Many newer, outlying suburbs have fewer social needs, but they have moderate residential tax bases and are struggling to build new schools and other infrastructure to keep up with growth.  Even the very small group of affluent suburbs is experiencing problems that diminish quality of life, such as increasing traffic congestion and loss of open space.

In 2002 and 2003, CCR conducted a campaign to educate citizens, elected officials and business leaders about the trends identified in the Cincinnati Metropatterns report.  This public outreach campaign involved distributing 3,000 full reports and more than 15,000 executive summaries to citizens and making presentations to nearly 50 civic groups, governmental agencies and business associations across our region.  In addition, CCR task forces and staff worked closely with other community leaders to identify potential strategies to address these trends identified in the Cincinnati Metropatterns report.  These strategies have been integrated with updated and new maps from Ameregis into a second report, “Responding to Cincinnati Metropatterns.”   Also, CCR staff has organized meetings with Myron Orfield and a bipartisan group of state legislators representing southwestern Ohio to discuss some of the proposed strategies.

Link to Cincinnati Metropatterns (pdf)

For copies send email to Steve Johns.