Western Southern Life: The Biggest Bully in the Playground

Only the rich deserve peace
Only the rich deserve beauty
Only the rich deserve protection


The Anna Louise Inn. I liked living there. I liked walking Lytle Park in the moonlight. I loved weekend afternoon strolls to Serpentine Wall. I loved being downtown in the heart of the city.

I loved the veranda of the Inn. The stately grace of the building itself - it seemed to exude peace, strength, stability. Something I and the other women who lived between those walls needed desperately.

It's been there for decades.

Only the rich deserve peace
Only the rich deserve beauty
Only the rich deserve protection
Only the rich deserve mercy

Sometimes the "where" is every bit as important as the "why". The location of the Anna Louise Inn mattered, just like the location of the Metropole mattered, and just like the location of the Drop Inn Center matters.

Gentrification. Such a gentle word for such a brutal, nasty, racist, classist and uncaring process.

Washington Park, Over the Rhine, the West End. Every city across this nation in neighborhoods whose names I do not know.

The poor are pushed around, pushed over and pushed out.

Western Southern Life is just the most recent in a long line of bullies. Cincinnati is the only the most recent in a long line of cities to fail the people who need it the most.

Only the rich deserve peace
Only the rich deserve beauty
Only the rich deserve protection
Only the rich deserve mercy
Only the rich deserve freedom

All the rest must shift for themselves as they can.