What are our Best Neighborhoods?

The August 2007 newsletter of the Project for Public Spaces lists five of the Best Neighborhoods in North America.

Applying their categories locally, here's what I've come up with:

Best New Neighborhood: Downtown
Hundreds of new residential units are either under construction, in pre-planning or proposed. Fountain Square has picked up momentum with new restaurants and activity. Living downtown has become sexy again and is well on its way to being considered a neighborhood--and not just a place to go to work or to catch a ballgame. If service industries catch up, look out.

Best Revitalized Neighborhood: Over-the-Rhine
3CDC and the Art Academy of Cincinnati have been instrumental in creating the Gateway Quarter, filling buildings with residents and new retail tenants. That particular area is clean, safe, and vibrant. Other developers are rebuilding and repopulating other parts of the neighborhood on smaller scale projects. Violent crime is down. Things haven't been this good in OTR in a long time.

Best Hip Neighborhood: Northside
I am biased toward this neighborhood, but it's got a lot going for it--good restaurants, diverse housing options, and diverse people. And it has just enough seediness to it to make it interesting.

Best Small Town Neighborhood: Bellevue
Though Bellevue is rather dense by "small town" standards, its business district is visually interesting and has come a long way since becoming a Preserve America community in the 1980s. Rehabs of its historic housing stock continue at a brisk pace. A more accessible public park would make this city outstanding.

Best Shopping Center That Is Also A Real Neighborhood
Thankfully, we don't have any of those!