By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

If Cincinnati is going to revive its struggling economy, the city needs to stop focusing on factories, shopping malls or office space - and instead look to nightlife, music and the arts.

It was standing room only for the Cincinnati Tomorrow "city summit" at Plush. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

That's the message from Cincinnati Tomorrow, a group of 20- and 30-somethings with a plan to revive Cincinnati's economy by making it a more attractive place for the "creative class" to live and work.

The 2-month-old organization released its manifesto Thursday, a 42-page document titled, "The Creative City: A Plan of Action."

"Cincinnati's image on the Internet is overwhelmed with traditional, old-fashioned, even quaint images," the report says. "Images of steamboats, the cityscape viewed from a distance and the Bengals should be replaced with exciting, modern and specific images of people, neighborhoods and nightlife."

Cincinnati Tomorrow released its report at Plush, a Main Street nightclub, in an event featuring a cash bar and six live bands. Mill, Jake Speed & the Freddies, Abiyah, Clabbergirl, Messerly & Ewing and Wussy played short sets in between chapters of the report.

"Your energy is what this city needs," said Mayor Charlie Luken, whose presence at Thursday night's event underscored the group's growing credibility.

Cincinnati Tomorrow was founded by Nicholas Spencer, a 24-year-old Xavier University graduate student inspired by a single book: The Rise of the Creative Class.

The book, by Carnegie Mellon professor Richard Florida, doesn't have a subtitle, but Washington Monthly gave it one anyway: "Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race."

Spencer and the other young urbanites say tax abatements and other "old economy" economic development efforts no longer work. Instead, they said, Cincinnati needs to cultivate a vibrant, artistic - and, yes, gay-friendly - city.

"You can't deal with the other parts without that," Spencer said. "Regardless of whether you're gay or straight, a lot of young, creative people look at that as a measure of whether a city is tolerant or not."

Luken agreed that Cincinnati's reputation could be better.

"Our image sucks," he said.

"We don't deserve our image," he added. "The first thing we need to do is stop running the city down."

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com