Jazz Cafes+Dog Walkers+Riots = Chic Urban Real Estate = Your Patriotic Duty

Remember those riots? 19 year old Timothy Thomas was shot. Hours later, the city found a galvanizing force. Violence and a sense of temporary empowerment took over Vine Street. We are HERE and we ain't gonna take it no more. Until the tear gas, riot squads, curfews, and subsequent unrelenting police force presence.

Some people remember it quite differently. Ran Mullins, owner of an advertising studio recalls, “The riots set this neighborhood back a decade.” Set back education? Set back community self-reliance? Set back community investment? Nah, set back the 1990's gentrification. People are entitled to their priorities.

Fast forward to 2006, things are lookin' up in the Nati. If you have money, credit, a $30,000 down payment, a job, and a cosigner for your mortgage. Main Street ain't what it used to be. Peep the evidence:

When there's blood on the street, buy property. After the 2001 riots, 500 of the area's 1200 buildings were left vacant, making them easy pickins' for development and revitalization corporations. So far, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation has completed 28 condos, building 68 more, and just bought 100 condos and 100 vacant lots.

With the real black folks gone or in jail, the Art Academy of Cincinnati decided to spend 13 million dollars to move its campuses to the hot new urban environment. You see, the black folks that are here, are the hip, new types. They have college degrees, love red wine, and listen to TV on the Radio. They speak so well too!

Now that Magic has put a "blackness-seal-of-approval" on Starbucks, TGIF's, theaters, and Washington Mutual Banks, YOUR hood is next. At least the new folks movin' in pick up their bichon frise's shit while walking it.

Tupac: Me Against the World