Union Terminal: Businessmen, railroads and city planning in Cincinnati, 1869--1933 (Ohio)

Cincinnati businessmen felt their commercial power drop after the Civil War, and formed clubs to improve the city's trade. Their solutions were technological: adequate freight transportation to make Cincinnati rise. First they had the city build a municipal railroad into the south, but inadequate terminals prevented the railroad from doing its job. Businessmen hoped for a Union Terminal to serve all the railroads in the city, but were thwarted for the remainder of the century.; Later, they found reformers with similar interests. City planners' interest in railroad consolidation helped shape the city's form. Municipal reformers wanted efficient, business-like government. Planners arranged public control over private property. Union Terminal was part of the city's first official plan, and its construction (1925--33) changed its neighborhood. Thus the business elite got terminals in two ways: in city plans, and in the establishment of planning commissions in municipally reformed city governments.