Get the power to see more! Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival (MPMF) announced today that music fans can now reserve a 3-day wristband pass offering the opportunity to see all performances for this year’s festival, September 25–27, 2008.

The $29 wristband pass, available for pre-order at mpmf.com, provides festival attendees access to 17 stages and concerts by all MidPoint bands. To order a wristband pass, click on the “SEE IT ALL” button on the MidPoint homepage. Venue admission is subject to legal capacity.

New Producers. New Features.
Cincinnati alternative newsweekly CityBeat is producing MidPoint Music Festival for the first time in the event’s seven-year history. New this year will be an expansion of venues into Downtown, along with many of the historic-Over-the-Rhine neighborhood locations used in the past. Two groups of stages are equally divided north and south of Central Parkway, making it easy to walk between venues, and festival transportation will also be available.

“MidPoint is dedicated to fostering growth within Over-the-Rhine and Downtown,” said Dan McCabe, executive producer. “All the recent discussion about Cincinnati possibly getting streetcars in the central part of the city led us to think it would be cool to show folks the proposed streetcar route, which conveniently works with these venues. It’ll give them a real taste of the streetcar movement.”

To demonstrate the potential of Cincinnati streetcars, MidPoint sponsor Scion is making 20 xB crossover vehicles available to help festival attendees cruise between the uptown and downtown clubs along the proposed streetcar route. Less walking means more listening.

Businessweek recently published a report on the top and bottom cities for specific job functions and who would have thought that Cincinnati would appear twice in the list. According to their research that looks at average pay for the job function and then takes into account the cost of living Cincinnati is the 2nd best city to live if you are a graphic artist, or a veterinary technician.

The importance of this article is that Cincinnati is a an affordable place to live for a number of different professions, in part because housing a large part of cost-of-living index. Some employers have improved relocation packages to relocating more attractive, in some cases covering the loss on a sale of a home. This is particularly valuable to those relocating from areas hit hardest by the housing slump in Florida, California, and Arizona. To find out about your city’s Cost of Living Index click here.

There is some good news recently put out by the Cincinnati Board of Realtors. According to the sales numbers the last 4 months have seen increasing home sale activity, a good indication that the housing market is beginning to recover. An even better secondary metric is that the overall inventory is dropping. This means that more houses are being sold than are being put on the market. Generally speaking a balanced market carries about 5 months of home inventory.

More sales and less inventory helps to return demand to a steady level. It is this relatively static demand that has given Cincinnati real estate has historically appreciated 2% each year. Although modest, it is steady and the recent positive changes in the short term market point to the fact that we will soon return to slow and steady long term appreciation.

Month 2008 Home Sales Inventory

January 1,130 13.31

February 1,334 11.32

March 1,557 9.75

April 1,636 9.49

May 1,913 8.38

Each year Newsweek puts out a list in the spring of its top 1300 public schools. This year 5 Cincinnati area public schools made it into the top half of that list. Sycamore (585), Mariemont (449), Indian Hill (120), Wyoming (87) and Walnut Hills (56) are excellent examples of the high quality public education available across greater Cincinnati.

Loveland Bike Rentals has teamed up with Cultural Care Au Pairs to recognize Bike Safety Awareness Month and to promote the bike safety demonstration and group ride taking place Sunday May 4^th, 2008 at 10:30am. Cultural Care Au Pairs is a service offered in the greater Cincinnati area for families seeking in home child care.

The Loveland bike trail is part of the 70 mile trail that follows the Miami River and is paved over old railroad tracks. After the safety demonstration, those present will take a group ride and enjoy a picnic lunch. The event is open to the public and will provide participants the opportunity to meet and talk with some Cincinnati families hosting Au Pairs to learn more information about the agency and its programs.

Downtown Cincinnati has once again come alive. With plenty of new restaurants opening up and a thriving nightlife, it has once again become a thriving place to be. In the past year, we have seen new restaurants open on or near fountain square such as Boi Na Braza (Brazilian Food), Nada (Contemporary Mexican Food), and Vie Vite (Italian). Mortons reopened in the Carew Tower and Fountain Square welcomed their new tenants Greaters Famous Ice Cream and Potbelly Sandwich Shop. The nightlife has revived with The Lodge Bar on 7th Street, Havana Martini, Sully’s reopening, and Cadillac Ranch the Country Bar with a mechanical bull for endless entertainment. Although McFaddens closed there will be a new restaurant/bar opening soon in the same location.

Since a lot of the 20, 30, and 40 somethings that are re-locating to Cincinnati from larger cities like I did such as Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami one of the concerns about moving to Cincinnati is losing the culture and excitement of living in a large city which includes the fine dining that is available there. The restaurants listed above as well as Jeff Ruby’s (steakhouse), McCormick and Schmicks (steak and seafood), Palomino (American), Pigall’s (French),Oceanaire (a new seafood restaurant opening soon), and Nicholsons (Irish pub food) are only adding to the excitement of the new downtown. These are all trendy restaurants that have excellent food and service and have a contemporary decor and ambiance that was not found in Cincinnati a few years ago. Many of these restaurants have hip bar areas where guests can enjoy happy hour as well.

Fountain Square has been reconfigured and currently has an ice skating rink with rental equipment available for visitors to enjoy. There were many events over the holidays and as the weather warms up the lunchtime events during the week will return. All Cincinnati residents should come see for themselves the changes that have occurred and support the businesses who have taken the leap of faith that things have changed and will continue to improve.

Downtown has returned as the hot place to be. You should feel safe coming downtown to work, eat, and party! Crime rates have decreased in the double digit percentages over the past 7 years and the crowds have returned. I look forward to enjoying the places that are there now and to see the new restaurants and bars that will open soon. You will not be disappointed!

Part of being good neighbors is recycling as much as you can. Rumpke and the city of Cincinnati have changed their recycling requirements lately. At this point they are only accepting #1 and #2 plastics (milk and OJ jugs and water bottles) along with the usual paper, glass, metals containers. Here is a link to the website giving a very clear description of what is accepted and what is not. I hope to soon find a drop off location for our #3-#7 plastics which make up items like yogurt containers, fruit cups, and the plastic containers from take out food. If you know of a center that takes these please post it here in the comments.

Team Lachey hot off of their win on the NBC Clash of the Choirs competition is performing tonight, New Year’s Eve on Fountain Square downtown. As part of Nick continuing to give back to his hometown community those who brave the seasonably cold weather will be no doubt treated to some amazing choral arrangements. The $250,000 prize money from the Clash competition is going to support Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Clifton and is sure to bring much needed support to the nationally recognized pediatric center. If you are going downtown tonight pack warm and dry as the weather will be in the high 30’s with a few possible light showers.

One year ago today the Ohio Smoking Ban went into effect, and was covered by the Cincinnati Blog. More than just being able to breathe easier in bars and restaurants not not coming
home smelling like smoke, it is an investment in the health and well
being of Ohio Citizens. The legislation is helping to insure more
health, productive, and happy citizens who are able to contribute to
and support their local communities. Below is a graph from The American Cancer Society
on death rates of lung cancer in men. As you can see since 1992 rates
have begun to drop due to smoking cessation activities, like smoking
bans. Ohio is not only improving health, it is saving money on health
care and saving lives.

I have been looking over the some of the blogs that talk about Cincinnati. I found a few that were really interesting reads and filled with insightful thoughts. Here are a few of the better blogs I found and a description of them.
Cincinnati Blog - A general blog that talks about local politics and activities
Bearcats Blog - A sports blog about the UC Bearcats
Building Cincinnati - an AMAZING blog about Queen City Architecture with Photos
The ‘Nati Life - A well written blog about life in Cincinnati covering in-town happenings
Cincinnati Urban Life - a fantastic collection of dozens of useful links to just about any topic
UrbanCincy - An urban planner writing about his vision for the city, very inspiring

As soon as I can get our sidebar working these links are going up right away