Over-the-Rhine, Our Community
Understanding Over-the-Rhine: A Brief Context
Over-the-Rhine is a predominantly low income neighborhood, adjacent to the city's central business district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has always been a home for poor migrants from Appalachia and the rural south looking for a better way of life, and has all the consequences of a poverty-stricken community. It suffers the classic problems of poor inner city neighborhoods, including population decline, homelessness, increased segregation, building abandonment by absentee owners, high rates of unemployment and underemployment, and lack of access to political power.
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.
Dominant and media-saturated perspectives of Over-the-Rhine characterize the neighborhood as an "absence" or as a "lack." That is, outside of the new businesses, art galleries, and night entertainment spots that have converged mostly on Main Street, there is little else, only a territory marked by drugs, crime, prostitution, chaos. Such perspectives never see that the community is organized. Prominent here is the Over-the-Rhine People's Movement, a coalition of progressive groups based in organizations of social service, community education, the arts, landlord-tenant relations, welfare rights, and affordable housing development that marks a 30-plus year history. These organizations have provided needed services for residents in OTR for the past 30 years. Despite this record of traditional "community development" work, these organizations clash with the desire to "revitalize" OTR into a chic, gentrified neighborhood as an extension of the central business district. Very different visions of development meet and conflict in OTR.
Links to other resources about Over-the-Rhine
Wikipedia Article - extensive history and other useful information