Author: Randy A. Simes

Randy is an award-winning urban planner who founded UrbanCincy in May 2007. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side in Covedale, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning in June 2009. In addition to maintaining ownership and serving as the managing editor for UrbanCincy, Randy has worked professionally as a planning consultant throughout the United States, Korea and the Middle East. After brief stints in Atlanta and Chicago, he currently lives in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam district.

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Up To Speed

Do Hamilton and Middletown possess a unique advantage when it comes to urban agriculture?

Do Hamilton and Middletown possess a unique advantage when it comes to urban agriculture?.

We have seen urban farming grow in popularity throughout Cincinnati – by far the largest urban center of the more than 3 million person mega-region – but is there an even brighter future for these community green spaces and food production zones in other smaller cities throughout the region? Might small, older cities like Hamilton and Middletown be well-suited to take the trend to the next stage? More from Urbanful:

Some two-thirds of the world’s urban land is located in small to medium urban clusters, defined as areas that are less than 10 square kilometers and up to 100 square kilometers, respectively, Shareable reports. Because more people live in small/medium urban centers, farm land in these areas can have a greater impact on the population than those of their bigger counterparts. Beyond that, less population density in smaller places means there’s a greater chance for larger land plots, which accordingly, can yields larger harvests.

A medium-sized “urban cluster” like Flint, Michigan, for instance, is just about the same size as Manhattan. According to the logic of the study, the smaller people-to-land ratio means more land would be available for urban farming in Flint. As a result, more food could be produced, and more people could reap the benefits of the production.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Stunning timelapse views of New York and Chicago

Aside from public policy in general, if there are two topics that define UrbanCincy they are transportation and urban design. So often these two elements are beautifully captured in photographs, and, in special occasions, through wonderful videography as well. Such is the case with Geoff Tompkinson‘s timelapse video of New York City.

The European-based photographer has been known for his global travel and breathtaking imagery. One of his more recent videos is New York Noir, which is an alternative to his originally produced Moving Through New York.

The roughly three-minute video takes viewers through some of New York’s most impressive transportation structures, while also taking a general tour of some of the city’s most well-known urban spaces.

Tompkinson’s video of New York is just one in a series of timelapse videos he has put together in a series that has also included Istanbul, Hermitage, Venice, St. Petersburg and Chicago, which is also embedded below for your viewing enjoyment.

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Arts & Entertainment News

Final SSOM Event of the Year to Celebrate the Coming of Fall

Crosswalk Painting at SSOM [Provided]

The temperatures are cooling down and the summer festival season is drawing to a close. That means that this weekend’s Second Sunday on Main street festival will be that last of the year.

As is always the case, there is a theme for the festivities at this month’s event. In a nod to the changing seasons, SSOM will celebrate in ‘Fall Carnival’ fashion with a pumpkin market, costume parade, live music, food trucks, an outdoor biergarten and trick-or-treating.

There will also be the standard collection of dozens of local vendors and specials at Main Street businesses.

In addition to the costume parade, which will take place at 3pm at the MOTR Stage, organizers say that there will also be a costume swap where people can bring any clean, still wearable costumes with them and take home something else of their choosing for free.

Crosswalk painting will continue this month, as it has in the past, and represent the fourth crosswalk along the several block-long stretch of Main Street. Festival organizers say that the crosswalk to be painted this Sunday is at Fourteenth Street and Main Street, and will get started at 12pm with artist Pam Kravetz.

Another interesting component of this month’s SSOM will be the celebrity chef demo at Mr. Pitiful’s with Chef de Cuisine Mapi De Veyra and area bartender Tyler Delmatto who is known for his work at Quan Hapa and Asian Food Fest. This demonstration is also free and will take place at 2:30pm.

Second Sunday on Main is a free event open to the public and is one of the city’s oldest open streets festivals. Festivities on Sunday will run from 12pm to 5pm, with Main Street being closed to vehicular traffic from Thirteenth Street to Liberty Street.

EDITORIAL NOTE: UrbanCincy is an official media partner of Second Sunday on Main; and is proud to support the city’s oldest open streets festival.

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Up To Speed

An easy fix for dramatically reducing the cost of building and maintaining our roadways

An easy fix for dramatically reducing the cost of building and maintaining our roadways.

Whether you know it or not, the standard width of traffic lanes on our roadways has increased over the years. The standard set forth by most state DOTs is now 12 feet for a typical lane. An increasing amount of evidence, however, shows that these widths create safety problems for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists alike. Furthermore, the additional width adds significant costs to the price of building and maintaining our roadways, and squanders valuable land. More from CityLab:

On city streets, most drivers ignore posted speed limits, and instead drive the speed at which they feel safe. That speed is set by the cues provided by the environment. Are there other cars near me? Is an intersection approaching? Can I see around that corner? Are there trees and buildings near the road? Are there people walking or biking nearby? And: How wide is my lane?

[…]

Our lives are currently being put at risk daily by fifty state DOTs and hundreds of county road commissions who mistakenly believe that high-speed street standards make our cities and towns safer. In my most considered opinion, these agencies have blood on their hands, and more than a little. There are many standards that they need to change, but the easiest and most important is probably the 12-foot lane.

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Up To Speed

Could a different design approach change the conversation about skateparks?

Could a different design approach change the conversation about skateparks?.

There aren’t many official skateparks throughout the region. Some spaces have become popular destinations for skateboarders, while others have been labeled as unwelcoming due to their designs intended on keeping skateboarders away. But has the design of skateparks often been their ultimate road block from being implemented, and would a more multi-purpose design help rectify that? More from Next City:

Inga Saffron, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s architecture critic, noted in her review that Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund had to raise $4.5 million to bring their vision for Paine’s Park to life, and they did so by “badgering state, city, and private funders to pay for the project.” The space reveals the shift in how skateboarders and architects imagine skateparks. But it also represents a surge of civically engaged skateboarders who are taking city building seriously. The kids who clung to their boards in the ’80s and ’90s have grown up, some of them into advocates. San Antonio has a “skate plaza” program. Seattle welcomes boards not only to skateparks, but “skate spots” (1,500 to 10,000 square feet) and “skate dots” (smaller than 1,500 square feet). Portland’s system has branched out to designate skateboard routes in the city’s downtown.