For many University of Cincinnati students, walking through downtown Cincinnati comes with a consideration that shouldn’t be necessary.
Before heading out, we think about which streets to avoid, whether to travel in a group and whether it’s worth staying out late if it means navigating the wrong block at the wrong hour. It’s an unspoken routine everyone understands, and it says something important about the moment we’re in as a city.
While Cincinnati invests heavily in new districts, new buildings and new amenities, one thing hasn’t kept pace: the sense of basic safety that allows a city to function confidently. The tension between those two realities is becoming harder to ignore…