Highland Park- Hamilton’s Ohio’s historic place for a “real home”

Highland Park was first platted in 1919 and advertised by developers as the “place for a real home”. This was the place where successful Hamiltonian’s would build their dream house. I also included nearby Prospect Park as it fills the space between Downtown and Highland Park and includes many attractive early 20th century streets. The resurging main street forms the neighborhood’s southern border and is complete with new businesses filling historic buildings.

The biggest areas I’d like to see in Prospect Hill/Highland Park improve include building new mixed-use buildings to fill in the missing teeth along Main Street along with revitalizing the blighted portion of the district along the Miami River.

Click here to view the Highland Park Album on Flick

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great generational and economic diversity.
* For-sale housing is a mix of affordable and middle of the market with prices ranging from 50K-200K. Prices are most expensive in Highland Park with very affordable pockets in Prospect Hill in the more blighted areas closer to the Great Miami River.
* Decent amount of parks including the nice plaza along Main Street, extensive natural trails along two mile run, sport parts surrounding the middle school, and several neighborhood pocket parks.
* Nice urban commercial street along Main with a nice mix of urban retail including a cafe, several bars & restaurants, several boutiques, banks, a drug store, and lots of other neighborhood serving retail.
* Limited cultural amenities within Prospect Hill/Highland Park but one simply needs to walk 5-20 minutes to Dwtn to find this.
* Good architecture spanning the first half of the 20th century. Some blight in Prospect Hill, but not too bad.
* A public elementary, middle school, and high school are all located in Highland Park are ranked pretty well. No schools however in Prospect Hill. 

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Rental product is a bit limited but affordable. Concentrated in Prospect Hill. Highland Park is largely owner-occupied.
* Public transit access is limited.
* Limited amount of racial diversity.
* Generally a stable neighborhood but some blight along the River.
* Limited modern in-fill and what does exist is very auto centric. High Street becomes rather auto centric when passing through Highland Park.