I wrote up a post about all the City Council candidates that have Twitter accounts over on the HereInCincinnati blog. Here is a widget containing all their accounts merged into one feed:
At the beginning of the year I made a list of things that resembled resolutions for the new year. I had this feeling like I was not doing things as much as thinking about doing things. The list was there so that I would have a place to look during those moments of free time when I think, "I should probably try and do something interesting right now instead of wasting my life away."
Then in March I checked back in to see how many things I'd done, and I was honestly a little bit surprised that I had done more things than I thought I would have. So now I'm checking back in, with the year half gone, so see if I've made it anywhere near halfway through the list.
Making stuff:
Cooking - GOAL: Cook "real" food at least once per week at home. - STATUS: Not going so well. I've learned some new recipes that make it easier to cook something that is relatively healthy relatively quickly, but I'm still mostly just making sandwiches and kool-aid for dinner. I'm doing a decent job of staying away from eating junk food at home though.
Bread: - GOAL: I wish I could get good at making my own sourdough bread. - STATUS: I started out making a lot of Amish Friendship Bread, and that got old after a while. I started a regular sourdough and made bread with it once. Making bread is a long ( like 15-hour ) undertaking. Recently, after several months of keeping the sourdough alive but not making bread, I finally had to commit some of the sourdoughs to the drain.
Beer: - GOAL: make beer and root beer - STATUS: The root beer was fun, but kind of petered out after a while. I met some people recently that brew beer, and I might try and learn from them. I also read recently about making your own mead, so I might consider doing that since it might be easier.
Cheese: - GOAL: make chese - STATUS: Haven't made anything. I think I'm going to follow Fankhauser's syllabus where you make yogurt, then work your way up to cheese. I'm not a big dairy person, so I'm not actually in a big hurry to do this one.
Gardening: - GOAL: Grow food. Possibly hydroponically. - STATUS: Well, I didn't get my hydroponics set back out, but I did attend a class at Park+Vine called "Your Spring Salad" and got a really great set of seeds and seedlings. I grew several different salad greens, beets, radishes, and onions. I successfully harvested and ate some of the greens and one radish. Most of the plants died while I was in Minnesota for almost a week. Some are still alive though.
Local Food: - GOAL: eat more local - STATUS: I had a big project in mind a few months ago and was actively learning a lot about local food systems and was seriously considering building or at least running some sort of local food website for the Cincinnati area, but I think I got kind of burnt out on it. Maybe I need to go back and revisit what I want to accomplish and build some more relationships.
Bison: - GOAL: visit a bison ranch and possible eat some bison - STATUS: This is still something I want to do sometime when I have a free weekend and someone to go with. Unfortunately weekends like that are rare for me. There is a ranch not too far from here.
CSA: - GOAL: join a CSA - STATUS: I didn't join a CSA, but I did a lot of research and the CSA page on my Cincinnati wiki is far and away the most popular page on the site. I believe I have put together a table of information there that is not available anywhere else. Although it is fairly well out of date now.
Farmer's Markets: - GOAL: visit farmer's markets more often - STATUS: I've visited the Green Corner Market several times and visited Findlay Market once since March, although I still have not made it a regular practice.
Recycling Paper: - GOAL: make paper - STATUS: Big win. I successfully followed this set of instructions and made several pages of paper. I use a shredder to shred waste paper, then use a blender to blend it into pulp. Then I use a piece of screen to make it into new sheets. The new paper is still a bit rough, but the process basically works. I would like to start making things like greeting cards. I would also like to experiment with adding seeds to the paper.
Crafting / Remaking / Upcycling: - GOAL: turn my busted IKEA hampers into useful new things. - STATUS: I successfully prototyped a folding table made from one of these hampers, but it is now falling apart. I need to figure out how I am going to go from cardboard prototype to real, useful table.
Knitting / Weaving: - GOAL: learn to weave or knit - STATUS: I haven't really done this at all. It seems like lots of people are into knitting, but not as many are into weaving. I would like to track down this video tutorial I saw one time that showed how to weave. Ah, here it is.
Composting: - GOAL: create a place to take kitchen compost outside somewhere - STATUS: I haven't gotten to this yet. I really need to soon though because my under-sink compost container is getting full.
Rapid Prototyping: - GOAL: have something made by ponoko and/or papekura - STATUS: I took a design from Thingiverse and sent it into ponoko. And I got back a sweet laser cut bunny. But I (stupidly) scaled the bunny up and it doesn't fit together the way it's supposed to. I might order something else, now that I see how the whole process works. I just wanted to get my feet wet, so I consider that a success.
Making online stuff:
hereincincinnati blog hereincincinnati wiki virtual vine st. diycity cincymicrocosm citycouncil2rss wikipedia photo hunt cincinnatiparking.info
I'm just going to summarize all of these by saying that I haven't worked a whole lot on any of them. I'm considering working on the wikipedia photo hunt idea some more now that I have a phone with a great browser, gps, and a camera.
New Ideas:
Hackerspace: - It's hard to believe that 4 months ago the hackerspace was just a twinkle in my eye. A LOT has happened since then. The hackerspace is a real thing. It is a corporation, I'm on the board of directors, and we have signed a lease. We are currently working on raising money and making our space awesome to hang out in.
Local Currency: - I've had some more ideas on this, but haven't gone out and implemented them. My desire to run an instance of oscurrency has not decreased.
New New Ideas:
Libraries - Due to several factors intersecting - including the possibility of many libraries closing soon in the State of Ohio - I've been pondering the future of libraries more than usual. Obviously libraries have been struggling with what their purpose is for many years now, but I've started to evaluate what types of alternatives to centralized libraries have become possible in just the last year or so. With the rise of cheap and easy cloud computing, and the maturation of the open-source Koha, I've been thinking that there may be an opportunity to create a community of small-scale independent online libraries. Something like a blog-hosting site, but instead of a blog, you get your own ILS. Still need to think on this some more, but I am going to pursue it and see where it leads.
Screen-printing: - Via a contact in the hackerspace, I was invited to a crafts night at KHAC hosted by the Cincinnati League of Artisans and I learned that it is really pretty easy to screen-print. I was so excited by it, I asked for (and received) a screen-printing starter kit for my birthday. I have some ideas for some shirts and I may also screen print onto my homemade paper.
Android apps - Oh yeah, did I mention I have a G1 now? It is really awesome. I've started doing the HelloWorld tutorials for programming Android apps and I have some ideas for apps that I think I'd like to build if I learn enough. One would be turning the wikipedia photo hunt idea into an android app. Another would be an offline topographic maps application that can be used while hiking.
Kombucha - I've acquired a starter and brewed several kombucha batches. I'm still learning about tea and haven't made the perfect kombucha yet, but I like doing it.
MakerBot - I have been lusting over these for months now, and now that I have the hackerspace, I have an excuse to buy one. And I think I've found some people there that will team up with me to build it.
Just Getting Warmed Up
I've surprised myself again with the number of things I've done between March and now. The biggest thing is that the Cincinnati Hackerspace is real. This was (and is) a big project, but the awesome thing is that it will help me do all my other projects. I've found a community of like-minded people and we now have a really nice facility in which to work. I couldn't be more excited.
1) In 2008 PLCH was ranked in the top 10 in Hennen's American Public Library Ratings for libraries serving a population of 500,000 or more AND the Main Library branch downtown was named the busiest library branch in the the country. Library use is at an all time high.
2) In March of this year, the Fiscal Office at PLCH was awarded the 2007 Making Your Tax Dollars Count Award bestowed by Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor for being in the top 5 percent of finance directors in the state honored for careful spending, accurate fiscal recording and efficiency.
3) Because Library funding is a percentage of the state’s general revenue fund, as the economy has faltered, the Library’s funding has already been reduced 25% since 2000. The Governor’s proposed state budget is considering a 50% cut to the Public Library Fund, a $6 million FURTHER cut to our Library funding. If this proposed funding cut is enacted, consequences would be DEVASTATING regardless if a 1 mill levy on the November 3rd ballot is passed. This is what you would see in September 2009:
* 250 additional Library jobs will be lost * 20 branch libraries will be PERMANENTLY closed * Main Library hours will be dramatically cut * Computer access will be reduced by more than 30% * Fewer new books, CDs, DVDs and other materials will be available * Diminished quality of service and less qualified staff to help
Ok, so the last time I blogged about this was two years ago, but I still think it's interesting and I still have the same questions. I think I've found a better way to illustrate what I mean. I've drawn up some drawings.
I'm going to run through a series of scenarios that could possibly describe what is happening in a gentrifying neighborhood. I don't know which (if any) of them describe what is happening in Over-The-Rhine. I don't know which (if any) of them describe what is happening anywhere. I am not an urban planner. I just want a more concrete way to look at a social justice issue.
Also, here I'm just talking about the issue of displacement, which seems to be one of the biggest stated downsides of gentrification. I'm not talking about other cultural effects on a neighborhood, or other kinds of problems that might occur. I'm just talking about how many people can fit in a neighborhood and who moves out when other people move in.
So, I've outlined two basic situations here. The numbers are completely made up. I don't know what the real numbers are in any neighborhood. I am actually skeptical that anyone knows the real numbers in these situations, and that is part of the point I'm making with this blog post. The numbers I've used here are just to illustrate some of the range of things that could in theory be happening.
We start with a square that represents an urban neighborhood. I've made this one 10 by 10 pixels so that the "capacity" of the neighborhood is 100. That makes it so everything works out as a percent. I recognize that a neighborhood isn't a fixed box and that it doesn't have a fixed capacity. And I understand that the quality of housing varies. Those details are not in this abstract model I'm building here.
In situation A, we suppose that there are 37 people living in the 100 person box. The current residents of the neighborhood are the blue squares. It is 37% occupied.
Now, let's say 16 people want to move into the neighborhood. These are the gentrifying urban-pioneers or whatever you want to call them. The question I am exploring is what happens to the people that already live in the neighborhood when the new people arrive?
Let's say most of the new people move into places that were already empty and 5 of them move into places where other people used to live. And let's say that those 5 previous residents all stay in the neighborhood. I think it would look like this:
Or what if all 5 of those previous residents just move out of the neighborhood? It would look like this:
What if the new people make all the rents go up, or make the neighborhood otherwise repellent or unlivable for the previous residents and a whole bunch of people move out. That would be something we would want to avoid. It might look like this:
The blue number to the right is the number of people that move out due to displacement caused by the gentrification. Assuming that this displacement is a social injustice, then that number is bad. We would rather keep that number small or zero.
Let's look at another situation - again with made up numbers. Let's say that there are 73 people living in the neighborhood. It is 73% occupied.
Now let's say 32 people want to move in. Again, there seem to be several ways this can work out, but right off the bat it should be obvious that not everyone is going to fit, because the neighborhood can only hold 100 people. This is an abstract neighborhood - it has a fixed capacity.
Let's say that everyone that can possibly fit tries to stay in the neighborhood. The smallest number of people that would have to move out is 5. The neighborhood is 100% full:
That doesn't seem the most likely though. Let's say like before that the people who leave their current places just move out of the neighborhood, but everyone else already there stays. Maybe 25 people move out. The neighborhood is 80% full:
What if we make it so that the number of original residents left in the neighborhood is exactly equal to the number of new residents? 41 people move out - over half of the original population. The neighborhood is 64% full:
Or maybe the neighborhood is so different now that most of the former residents move away, even leaving their own former homes empty. The neighborhood is only 54% full. That might look like this:
Remember, the blue number is bad. So, this last scenario is the worst of all.
My real frustration is that I don't know which of the above scenarios is actually happening in OTR. Which do you think is happening? Which does 3CDC think is happening? Which does OTRCH think is happening? Studies have been done in other cities that make actual, factual surveys of neighborhoods where gentrification is happening. Detailed block-by-block surveys and multi-decade record keeping would be necessary to make maps like the ones I made above reflective of the facts on the ground.
The decisions that are being made about OTR development rely in part on a narrative of what is happening in OTR - and everyone has a different way of reading the story. It seems to me that this is due in part to the fact that no maps like the ones I made above can be made accurately. Correct me if I'm wrong.
"In 1950 approximately 30,000 people resided there, with whites constituting 99 percent of that population. Recent data show about 7,600 total neighborhood residents, 80 percent of which are black. Of the current residents, 95 percent live below the official poverty level of $13,000 annually for a family of four. Of Over-the-Rhine's 7,500 apartment units, 3,000 are below housing code standards and approximately 300 buildings stand vacant."
7,600 / 30,000 = 25.3% That's even less dense than I modeled in my first scenario above. In theory a large district like OTR has room for plenty more people before residents start overflowing, but who knows.
I think the thing most people would want to see is something similar to the second graphic above. The neighborhood is mostly empty -> some people move in -> some other people may have to move, but everyone who was there stays within the neighborhood - no one moves out. The neighborhood is fuller and more diverse.
I recently subscribed to the Reds Home Game Schedule using Google Calendar. Today I noticed a cool feature: they update the games that have finished with the scores, so you can see at a glance how the Reds are doing. For example, the event for yesterday was called "NY Mets at Cincinnati" but now it has changed to "NY Mets 6 - Cincinnati 8". Use this url right here:
Put that url into Google Calendar to see what I mean. That's the url for home games, but if you want the complete schedule or the away schedule, you can get iCalendar feeds for those too at their page on mlb.com.
Update: I'm going to attempt to embed the calendar below:
I think that the Critical Mass Pattern makes sense. I think I'm going to go to the meeting tomorrow night at the Brewhouse and see how I can help. Join me?
I've become somewhat preoccupied with this whole "local food distribution" concept and I've been finding different examples of how folks are doing it in other areas. (I list a lot of what I've found in these previous posts: 1, 2 ).
To my mind there are two big components to a local food distribution system. The first component is allowing local producers and consumers to discover each other. The name I have for this component is the "market". It can take the form of a website or a physical meetup at a farmers' market. The second component is moving the food around the region from producer to consumer. I call this the "T&L" component for Transportation & Logistics. This can range from farm stores where the consumer travels to the site of production, to CSA's or farmers' markets where producers and consumers meet up in the middle somewhere at pre-determined times, up to home delivery where food travels all the way to the consumer's home or business.
For the market side of the equation, I've thought mostly about solutions based on the internet. I'm a bit of a technophile and so that is where my mind turns and I honestly think there is a lot of untapped potential there. There are a handful of solutions that can be used basically "off-the-shelf" to varying degrees. Those would be:
I know a lot less about T&L than I do about websites, so I have not figured this out as well. In my mind one of the basic problems with farmers' markets and CSA's is the fact that you have to meetup in a certain place at a certain time. I realize that this is probably the simplest way to do the logistics and I'm not trying to knock it. But it does seem like there is room for other types of physical distribution to be tried. What about a CSA pickup point that is limited in location but not so limited in time? Or a system composed of a distribution center and delivery trucks that send food directly to the doors of subscribers? What would the minimum order sizes be? What would be the optimal delivery frequency? All questions I'm not well equipped to answer. I was at first inspired, then disappointed hearing about CityCargo that seemed to have a good idea that ended up being cancelled. It may in fact be that the weekly or monthly meetup is the most efficient way of distributing goods from many producers to many consumers - I have no expertise in the field, so I can't really say.
City Council Race 2009 - Follow It On Twitter!
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Five of our nine City Council Members are currently on Twitter. In addition,
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