The distinction between East and West Price Hill might be a bit of city fabrication (then again, Vladimir Putin says Ukraine isn't a real country, just something invented by the Austro-Hungarian Empire) but Lower Price Hill is definitely "it's own thing." Although it has shifted greatly in the past 10 years, Lower Price Hill has long been home to a large Appalachian community. I remember the first time I accidentally drove through with my fellow McNicholas High School classmates (We were killing time till the next Omnimax show at Union Terminal, which is what you WISH you were doing back in high school). I remember thinking it's like the city had a baby with eastern Clermont County were I was born and raised.
So one thing that comes to mind when I think of Lower Price Hill is the 8th Street Viaduct to get there or the viaduct that U.S. 50 is on. Then I saw the city flag of Des Moine Iowa. See it below.
The three bridge lookin things are just that bridges over the Des Moines River. A bridge is basically the same thing as a viaduct. So I appropriated the basic design of this flag and applied the pan-Westside colors (purple and cream) to create the flag below.
FLAG 1
And then swapping the cream for white because it's sharper.
FLAG 2
But then I tried to tie in either the Mill Creek, which is Lower Price Hill's eastern boundary, or some Appalachian symbolism.
So here is the flag of the Appalachian Alliance
Color and symbol interpretation:
Blue – sky, unlimited vision and potential.
Brown / Red – earth, hard work, and deep roots, along with the blood and sweat of its people – the backbone of this nation’s rise to a World power.
White Star – purity and guiding light to a rising future.
Green – triangle at the hoist signifying growth (both nature and human) with the Star on its way up the side of the slope – the slope signifies the hilly profile of Appalachia.
Here's an Appalachian proudly holding his flag!
Why does Appalachia need a flag you ask? Well, the Appalachian Alliance has an answer.
"To represent the people of Appalachia, beyond politically imposed borders, and all its potential that is within its people. Appalachia is home to nearly 25 million people, as the borders are defined by the Appalachian Region Commission, that extends across the globe increasing the number of people from Appalachia exponentially. We proudly fly our flag"
So I took the basic design of my flag from above and merged it with the Appalachian flag. The first result is below. I simply replaced the brown bar with a purple bar with the viaduct on it.
FLAG 3
These colors are not a great combination, though, and I tried a simplified two toned flag.
FLAG 4
I was trying to keep it with two colors. But the two toned star look awkward that way, maybe it's just my poor execution. I tried the old stand by of adding some Cincy flag colors in there.
FLAG 5
And trying a different color combination.
FLAG 6
So the symbolism of the flag is that it works off of the template of the Appalachian flag in honor of the numerous Appalachians who made Lower Price Hill their home. The viaduct at the bottom symbolizes the 8th street and 50 West viaducts that take you to the neighborhood from downtown. The red and blue symbolize Cincinnati and the purple symbolizes the West Side.
After thinking about it, Lower Price Hill is not pound your chest proud to be Westsiders like Price Hill or Delhi. And, again, the colors don't go well together. So I tried one more dropping the purple entirely and using Cincy colors and the blue from the Appalachian flag.
FLAG 7
I like this one best in terms of color and losing the Westside Purple doesn't seem like a big loss since to me they don't seem like "real" Westsiders. Then again, Finland while geographically Scandinavian, is not linguistically Scandinavian, yet they use the Scandinavian cross on their flag. If you love talking about Scandinavian flags, make sure to read next week's post.
I am sure there will be many Lower Price Hillians who be reading this flog and adding their comments/votes/submissions.
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