Changing Pleins for America’s Inner Cities: Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine and Twentieth-Century Urbanism by Zane L. Miller, Bruce Tucker, and: Visions of Place: The City, Neighborhood, Suburbs, Cincinnati’s Clifton, 1850–2000 by Zane L. Miller (review)

Review Essay Zane L. Miller and Bruce Tucker. Chaiiging Plans for America' s Inner Cities: Cincinnati' s Overthe Rhine anti TwentiethCentury Urbanism. Columbus: Ohic) State University Press, I 998. 248 PP. ISBN: 08 I42O7626 (cloth), $ 32.00; ISBN: 08I42O7634 paper), $ 15.95 Zane L. Miller. Visions of Place: The City, Neighborhood, Suburbs, Lind Cincinilati' s Cliflon, I 8 502000 . Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001. 2 I 7 pp. ISBN: 08 i 4208592 Ccloth), $ 37. 50. Scholarship in American urban history has traditic )noilly fc)( Lised on settlcinent patterns, immigratic )11 experiences, technolc, gical advances, and pc,litical intrigue, usually during the years preceding World War II. The history of urb: in affairs during the pstwar period was left largely to social scientists. Of late, however, planning . ind policy issues after 1945 have increasingly intrigued historians who now seem prepared to investigate the times during which they have lived as well : is events in which they have participated . Accordingly, Zane Miller from the University of Cincinnati and Bruce Tucker from the University of Windsor have chosen to examine the Overthe Rhine community of Cincinnati during the I 970s and 198os seeking . inswers to soine fundamental questions in the field i, f urban planning: who Sliould live in a particular area of the city and who should decide the direction of change within a commitnity ? Answers can be fc,und, the authors argue,in debates that ranged across Overthe -Rhine as its future was contested by three groups: residents, city officials, and potential newcomers which included historical prescrvationists and developers. In the end, the 1(, calsor : it least one version of the samecarried the day. German in demography,culture and institutions during the nineteenth century, Overthe Rhine for a time became the city' s premier entertainment district . But, by 1945, however the community' s landscape had aged with little new develcipment and even less promise iii spite of its proximity to downtown Cincinnati. Its population fell dramatically from 44,475 in I900 to 9,75 2 in Iggo by which time seventy one percent of the neighborhood' s residents were African American. The reiiiainder consisted of poor whites migrants fri, m Appalachia. Along the way, the area was repeatedly subjected to an assortment of futures"designed by planners who viewed urban neighborhoods like civil engineers view terrains: challenges to be handled : ind tackled with . tuthority. Changjng Plans opens with . 1 brief histoiy (, f planning theory,both nationwide and 1(, cally, froni the earliest years of the twentieth century thrc,ugh its last decades. Overthe Rhine 's relationship to its neighbor , the Central liusiness District and, in turn, the CBD's place in the metropolitan area played a key role in how planners wanted to rework that commiinity . The I 925 City Plan, fc) r example, promoted removal off the nineteenth century' s residential remnants iii Overthe Rhine thlough accretic, n; leading planners hoped to future development focused on business and industry. Later, the I948 14( 10 advoc: ited a postwar style f urban renewaltear down and redevel(, p. Interestingly, Overthe Rhine seems to have survived intact, according to the authors, becazise of nagging questions that center on racial relocation to other areas of the city. By the sixties, residential input during the planning process took on particular import. ince in the Queen City, : ind th: it had . 1 considerable impact on Overthe Rhine . Reacting to Jane Jacobs's sanctification of neighborhc)(, d preservation over metropolitan planning in the style of Robert Moses, and anticipating the role that maximum lc, cal participation would play iii Great Society programs, Miller and Tucker argue that Cincinnati came to emphasize 1(, cal identity and neighborhood pride. For example, in 1963, : 1 neighborhood planning service was established by the city ti, work with lc, cal entities. Subsequently, the selfserving preferences of locals took (} n added significance whenever public officials considered municipal or metropolitan needs. Given its prc, ximity to the CED, Overthe Rhine kept planners and their consultants busy. Everything 34 Ohic) Valley Hist)ry caine into focus iii the I 980s with battles over the next edition (, f a master plan fc, r Cincinnati, but one that was intentionally designed as a mosaic of individual...