Cincinnati : Featured Stories

When something as destructive and disastrous as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurs, the country's top experts, specialists and industrialists rise to the occasion. Some of those experts are right here in Ohio.

You've got the passport. You've got the pocket dictionary. All you have to do is launch your trusty PowerPoint and wait for those Big Deals Abroad to become reality. Right? Slow down, globetrotter, and take this advice from Anne Cappel: "You can't simply go there and do business as usual."

In the wake of the Arizona immigration law rancor and anti-immigration rhetoric, Cleveland civic activist and author Richard Herman finds himself shaking his head a lot these days. "Contrary to common perception, immigrants aren't a drain on the economy. They're what fuels growth."

What separates creative minds from -- um -- less creative minds? This video provides a glimpse of how a new web portal, Secret Cincinnati (see our story in Innovation & Job News), came together over one weekend and the type of creative thinking that flourishes among Ohio's young entrepreneurs.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates once said his biggest competitive fear was "someone in a garage who is devising something completely new." Now, across Ohio, collective tinkering is taking place in hackerspaces -- for all practical purposes, modern, uber-garages where trained engineers, tech enthusiasts retirees and casual DIYers, work on what could be the "Next Big Thing."

In January, Gov. Ted Strickland announced that Ohio had received $400 million in federal stimulus money to develop a "3C Corridor" passenger rail system linking Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati. Immediately, questions flew: Will the trains go fast enough? How many stops? Who will ride it? Will the benefits be worth the money?  hiVelocity caught up with James E. Seney, who served as executive director of the Ohio Rail Development Commission under former Gov. Bob Taft. Seney, who oversaw the Taft Administration's original Ohio Hub rail plan to link Ohio to midwestern and east coast lines, says all questions are valid -- but that Ohio has an opportunity that's too good to pass up. 

Ohio neighborhoods are finding a second � or third � life as hip, new attractions for business, families and young professionals. Drawing on a combination of historic preservation and interest an urban lifestyle -- and tapping into corporate investment and state aid -- more than a dozen such neighborhoods have risen from the ashes