Guest blogger Margaret McGurk reports:


Jim Tarbell, recently departed from Cincinnati City Council, has not resigned from his long-running role as downtown booster. He shared his thoughts about Cincinnati's future Monday night at a League of Women Voters dinner.

Invoking the explosive 19th century growth that defined the city, he painted a picture of revival based on, among other projects, a proposed downtown streetcar system due for a City Council vote next month.

"To be having a conversation about whether to have a streetcar system is crazy," he said. The question, he said, should be "When? How soon? How fast? How far?'

"It's friendly, its fun, it's efficient, but even more it's a vision, a statement about where we are going as a community," he said of the $100 million Phase 1 project that would run from Second Street to Findlay Market. Proponents predict it will attract billons in new development.

A new wave of development could recapture "the density and intensity" of the city's glory days, which were, he said, "replete with grandeur and wonders of all kinds." Tarbell suggested the population of Over-the-Rhine, now about 5,000 could grow to 20,000 through redevelopment.