Sophia+A


 * Final Project**

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 * Link to Photos of restored buildings in Over-the-Rhine**


 * Good websites to use:**
 * []
 * [|http://zfein.blogspot.com/2009/06/abandonments-of-over-rhine.html]
 * []
 * [|http://www.unrv.com/empire/roman-population.php]
 * [|http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_livingconditions]
 * []
 * []
 * []
 * []
 * []
 * []

"Article | Urban Decay." //Manhattan Institute//. 14 Mar. 2008. Web. 01 Feb. 2012. .
 * Bibliography**

"Book | Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities." //Manhattan Institute//. 2009. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. .

Boyle, Kevin. "ORIGINS | Requiem: Detroit and the Fate of Urban America." //EHistory at OSU | Welcome to EHistory//. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. .

Conde Pooner, Sara Maia. "08.03.07: Why Rome Fell and Is the United States Next?" Web. 31 Jan. 2012. .

Drehle, David Von. "U.S. Crime Rate Drops: Why There Are Fewer Murders - TIME." //Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com//. 22 Feb. 2010. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. .

"FASTSTATS - Leading Causes of Death." //Centers for Disease Control and Prevention//. 2009. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. . Fein, Zach. "Abandonments of Over-the-Rhine." //Local Architecture: Cincinnati//. 21 June 2009. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. .

"Living Conditions" //American Indian Relief Council//. American Indian Relief Council. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. .

"Over-the-Rhine Foundation Preserves, Protects and Celebrates." //Over-the-Rhine Foundation - Working to Improve Historically Significant Neighborhood in Cincinnati Ohio Since 1992//. Over the Rhine Foundation. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. .

"Roman Empire Population." //UNRV History - Roman Empire//. 2003-2011. Web. 02 Feb. 2012. .

"Roman Sanitation." //Rich Hamper's Rth Dimension Web Site//. 20 Jan. 2008. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. .

"Rome.info Fall of the Roman Empire, Decline of Ancient Rome." //Rome.info Rome Tourist Information, Ancient Rome Travel Guide//. 2003-2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. .

"Understanding Why Buildings Decay - Advice & Guidance - Faith in Maintenance." //Faith in Maintenance - Faith in Maintenance//. 2008. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. .

Yousuf, Hibah. "Solution to Detroit's Jobless: Move." //CNNMoney - Business, Financial and Personal Finance News//. 28 Oct. 2009. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. .


 * Expert contacts**

- (513) 369-4221 - wkjohnson@porterwright.com
 * Zach Fein: zachery.fein@gmail.com
 * Yale National Initiative: teachers@yale.edu
 * Kelly Johnson (lawyer):

** Email between Zach Fein and I: ** Dear Mr. Fein,

My name is Sophia Antunes and I am a 7th grader at Nagel Middle School in Cincinnati, OH. In social studies, we have been assigned a project to solve a problem of Rome that led to the empire's downfall, and I am researching urban decay. I saw the pictures you took of some buildings in Over the Rhine and I was hoping you could answer some questions I have.


 * 1) Why are so many buildings in Over the Rhine not being restored, even though people realize it's an issue?
 * 2) What factors are contributing to the urban decay of Over the Rhine? Do you believe it is political? Social? Economic?
 * 3) Why are some of the buildings that were abandoned years ago //still// abandoned? So basically, why hasn’t the government come in and used these building for different uses?
 * 4) Are the structures of the buildings causing them to crumble and decay? If so, what types of structures are poor and cause the decay?
 * 5) In your experience, what are the best solutions or strategies a city can take to ensure there is no urban decay in their area?

Please get back to me when you can. I look forward to hearing from you! Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Sophia Antunes

Sophia,

Thanks for your interest in urban decay. Here are some answers to your questions.


 * 1) The reason so many buildings in Over-the-Rhine aren’t being restored is that there are thousands of buildings, and each one takes time and money to restore. There are hundreds of buildings that have been restored; in fact I live in one. If you look here you can see some examples of the restored buildings: []
 * 2) The urban decay in OTR is a political, social, and economic problem. Ever since the 1950’s, people began to prefer living in the suburbs rather than the city. This caused the population of OTR to fall from around 50,000 to less than 10,000. The people that were left were the ones who couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, and also couldn’t afford to take care of the historic buildings they lived in.
 * 3) The buildings that have been abandoned for a long time are still empty mostly because of their location. Over-the-Rhine has had a lot of buildings renovated and reused, but only in the southern half of the neighborhood, since it is very close to downtown. The neighborhood gets renovated one city block at a time, and the blocks farthest away from downtown will be the last to be reused, but it is hopefully only a matter of time!
 * 4) The structures of the buildings in OTR are actually very resilient. The brick and old timber hold up well compared to newer buildings that use drywall and aluminum, for instance. The brick and old wood decay slowly, which is why they look the way they do. However, while they look decayed they don’t fall down or collapse entirely, so they can almost always be reused. The biggest danger is water; when roofs leak water can cause the wood to rot. If that happens it is expensive to repair.
 * 5) The best thing a city can do to make sure there is no urban decay is try to find people who want to live and work in historic buildings. Cincinnati and some of the big corporations here joined together and formed a partnership called 3CDC that does just that.

Hopefully this will help with your project.

zfein@bhdp.com D
 * Zach Fein **

BHDP Architecture 302 West Third Street, Suite 500 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 P F    [|www.bhdp.com]

Design for **People**


 * Questions for Mr. Johnson:**
 * 1) How does taking parts of a building affect the structure of it?
 * 2) What do people do with the parts they steal?
 * 3) What are the consequences for stealing parts?
 * 4) What parts of building get stolen most often?
 * 5) How long have parts been stolen from the buildings?


 * Notes from phone call with Mr. Johnson**
 * Taking copper (pipe) affects value of building
 * Copper and aluminum are stolen most, water pipes, air conditioning compressors (copper), screen doors, gutters (aluminum), pulling copper out damages it most, pull out wires and make holes in walls to get the copper
 * Don’t usually take parts back to their own home
 * People have been stealing parts from homes and buildings for a long time, but in the last 10 years people have been stealing medals more and more because there is a higher demand for copper and aluminum
 * Making holes in the walls doesn’t usually affect support of house. If the supports are damaged, then it can decay, but when small parts are damaged it doesn’t affect the structure
 * Jail for theft, up to 5 years (depends on values)


 * Questions to ask experts:**
 * 1) What diseases were causing the Roman population to decrease?
 * 2) What actions are the government not taking to help deal with urban decay?
 * 3) What is the biggest factor of urban decay in the U.S. today?
 * 4) Which state or city has had the highest rate of population decline in the past couple years? Why has the population decreased there?
 * 5) How crimes are being dealt with; what crimes result in certain punishments and time in prison?
 * 6) Were the structures of the buildings in Rome causing them to crumble and decay? If so, what type of structures were poor and cause the decay?
 * 7) What structures that are used today poor and causing buildings to decay?
 * 8) Did the Romans ever attempt to solve the problem of urban decay in the empire?
 * 9) What strategies do you presume the Romans should have used to help stop or slow the rate of urban decay in the empire?


 * __Urban Decay in Rome__**
 * Many people in Rome couldn’t afford luxury homes and were forced to live in cheap apartments. The apartments were like “islands:” tiny, smelly rooms in the apartment buildings. Many were hot, dirty, crowded, and unstable. If the rent couldn’t be paid, the resident was kicked out and forced to live on the dangerous and dirty streets.
 * Many “Islands” covered a whole block of the city.
 * Had public chamber pots (toilets without facilities) on street corners, and large rooms lined with benches – benches had holes and water underneath benches washed the waste into sewers
 * The soldiers and families living in the outer parts of Rome got comfortable with local customs. The population of the Empire was made up of barbarians, Romans, and foreigners from the Italian peninsula. With all of the diversity, the empire began to weaken.
 * Soldiers began to get used to peace in the empire, so they stopped wearing protective armor, which indulged enemies to attack them.
 * Assassinations of emperors and the fight for the throne occurred often
 * The emperor of the eastern half of the empire, Valens, had too much pride in himself. He decided to fight the Visigoths (tribe of barbarians) alone, and was horribly defeated.
 * Though Rome was still filled with power during the downfall, the empire was decaying and was quickly taken over.
 * About 15% of the world’s population was part of the Roman Empire, under the rule of Augustus. (About 45 million out of 300 million). Population increased to 21%, then 40% of population (though the numbers may not be realistic, the population did increase from 45 million to 65 million in 100 years)
 * After the plagues in the 160’s and 170’s, plus the wars of Marcus Aurelius, the population dropped to 40 million. It increased to 55 million people again, but much slower, and the west half of the empire began to make up only 40% of the empire’s population, while the east half increased it’s numbers.
 * Wars, disease, and emigration by the mid 6th Century had lowered the total population of the empire to about 30 thousand-100 thousand people

- Heart disease: 599,413 - Cancer: 567, 628 - Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137, 353 - Stroke: 128,842 - Accidents: 118, 021 - Alzheimer’s disease: 79,003 - Diabetes: 68,705 - Influenza and Phenomena: 53,692 - Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis (kidney diseases): 48,935 - Suicide: 36,909
 * __Urban Decay in the U.S.__**
 * Baltimore, Detroit, and Washington have been considered the country’s urban murder capitol throughout the years. In 2007, Baltimore had a homicide rate of 282 and a 641,000-count population. The homicide rate was 6 times more than New York and 3 times more than L.A.
 * Baltimore also has kept a high usage of crack on record, and continued to even when heroine was popular; many people used both.
 * In 2000, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency stated that Baltimore had the highest individual consumption of heroine throughout the country. Public schools worsened: less than half the students graduated.
 * Graffiti, emptiness, broken windows, peeling paint, leaking water, crumbling structures are common conditions in urban decay. They become this way from people breaking and entering, causing damage (vandalizing), and being abandoned
 * When people try to repair old buildings, they use cement mortar to repair walls. The walls need to be repaired every once in a while to protect it from weather, but cement mortar often increases the rate of decay and can damage it greatly.
 * The population declined in OTR, which left many buildings abandoned
 * **Detroit –** in 1950, there was 330,000 manufacturing jobs; enough to have a population of about 1.8 million people. In the late 1960’s, the factories were moving to the suburbs where more land was available, but many people lost their jobs
 * **Detroit –** 2008: 8.9% jobless rate, August 2009: 17%, September: 17.3%
 * In Indian country, there are 90,000 Native Americans that are homeless, 30% of the homes are overcrowded, and less than 50% of the housing is connected to a public sewer (2004)
 * (2003) 40% of on-reservation housing of Native Americans is “inadequate”
 * Its common to find multiple generations of a Native American family to live in a home with only two bedrooms
 * ===**Over-the-Rhine:**===
 * The reason so many buildings in Over-the-Rhine aren’t being restored is that there are thousands of buildings, and each one takes time and money to restore.
 * The urban decay in OTR is a political, social, and economic problem. Ever since the 1950’s, people began to prefer living in the suburbs rather than the city. This caused the population of OTR to fall from around 50,000 to less than 10,000. The people that were left were the ones who couldn’t afford to move to the suburbs, and also couldn’t afford to take care of the historic buildings they lived in.
 * The buildings that have been abandoned for a long time are still empty mostly because of their location. Over-the-Rhine has had a lot of buildings renovated and reused, but only in the southern half of the neighborhood, since it is very close to downtown. The neighborhood gets renovated one city block at a time, and the blocks farthest away from downtown will be the last to be reused.
 * The brick and old timber hold up well compared to newer buildings that use drywall and aluminum, for instance. The biggest danger is water; when roofs leak water can cause the wood to rot. If that happens it is expensive to repair.
 * **Main causes for death (2009):**

__**Solutions**__
 * George L. Kelling and Catherine M. Coles wrote a book, //Fixing Broken Windows,// which recognized the problem of crime. It suggested policemen partner up with private citizens and civic organizations, so instead of reacting to crime, you try to prevent it instead. It was a “get tough” confrontation that recognized the multiple forms of public disorder (vandalism, vagrancy, panhandling, etc.). In New York (1990), the number of crimes fell by 75% using this method.
 * Over-the-Rhine Foundation (OTRF) – trying to restore the community to make it safe, fun, and beautiful again.
 * In Detroit, the unemployed will have to migrate to another city, which will decrease the workforce in Detroit. The jobs that might come back in other cities wont come back in Detroit, so moving is the only way to get another job.
 * People unemployed in Detroit have been advised to consider moving to Texas, which is second to California for being the largest state with an unemployment rate under the national average of 9.8%. San Antonio: 7.1%, Austin: 7.2%, Dallas: 8.3%, Houston: 8.5%.
 * Treatments for cancer include: Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, Surgery, Gastroenterology, Hormone Therapy, Immunotherapy, Interventional Pulmonology, Interventional Radiology, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Oncology, and Stem Cell Transplantation.
 * The amount of crime fell when more people were in prison.
 * Some people believe less use of drug trade has led to less crime
 * Some veterans (of the Clinton Administration) believe crime rates lowered because they hired more policemen.
 * **(Over the Rhine)** The best thing a city can do to make sure there is no urban decay is try to find people who want to live and work in historic buildings. Cincinnati and some of the big corporations here joined together and formed a partnership called 3CDC that does just that.