CHANGING PLANS FOR AMERICA S INNER CITIE

In the nineteenth century Cincinnati's historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was a diverse suburb, but in the twentieth century it became on inner-city slum, burdened with a broad range of problems. As Zane L. Miller and Bruce Tucker point out, however, Over-the-Rhine's history is also the history of planning for both inner-city neighborhoods and big-city downtowns. Beginning in the 1920s, Cincinnati's government and civic leaders explored the entire repertoire of programs considered or implemented in cities throughout the country for such close-in neighborhoods. The first attempts included schemes for comprehensive planning, zoning, slum clearance, redevelopment, and neighborhood rehabilitation. Over-the-Rhine survived this first assault, but at mid-century a new understanding of the city generated different visions of Over-the-Rhine's future and bitter fights for control of that future. While factions fought, the neighborhood deteriorated, and by the 1990s it was one of the poorest and most violent parts of the city. The story ends with a double irony: the adoption of an Over-the-Rhine "urban renewal" plan that endorsed a ghettoish status quo; and the murder of Buddy Gray, the city's premier white community organizer, by a mentally troubled man whom Gray had rescued and befriended. Miller and Tucker look beyond the fight over slums to illuminate other issues in American civilization. They focus on changing conceptions of culture, neighborhood, and community and lay out the consequences of those conceptions for city planning and plan implementation. Changing Plans for America's Inner Cities is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of urban neighborhoods.