The innovative CinciFlags project has concluded with an official flag for each of the 52 neighborhoods of Cincinnati, Ohio. It is an impressive accomplishment, with generally high-quality and meaningful designs with consistent style. (See below.)
What contributed to this success? We notice a number of factors:
- Support from the city government, which funded the project with a $10,000 Engage Cincy Challenge Grant (with private matching funds for an overall budget of $20,000).
- Leadership by community activist Henry Frondorf.
- Support from local designers, who organized the process and had creative control over the final designs.
- Community engagement, not just online but with visits and workshops across the city with “stakeholder/citizens”.
- City events, the Neighborhood Summit and the Frondorf-founded Cincinnati Neighborhood Games , in which multiple neighborhoods participates and can find value in having a flag.
- Positive press coverage, perhaps from a widespread recognition of serious divides in the community (e.g., the riots following the killing of an unarmed Black teenager by police in 2001) and thus the importance of improving civic life.
For more on the process, and an illustration of press coverage, see this video from local television station WCPO.
Here are the 52 flags. Information about symbolism can be found at Flags of the World and CinciFlags websites.
Portland Flag Association 