Cincinnati’s economy and its capacity to attract new residents and jobs reflects several converging market trends. The public University of Cincinnati has significantly rebuilt its campus in recent years, attracting more students and national attention, and serving as the foundation of an expanding medical research and health services industry. A growing number of independent marketing and branding companies, many focused on online markets, are developing with the help of and through various collaborations and partnerships with Procter & Gamble, the city’s consumer products mainstay. And upriver from Cincinnati, the energy industry is investing billions to develop deep shale gas and shale oil reserves. The aim is to revive the state’s steel industry, generate a new petrochemical sector, create thousands of jobs and strengthen urban economies from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati.

That is no small goal for a river city founded as a western frontier outpost in 1788. By 1950, Cincinnati had grown into an industrial powerhouse of nearly 504,000 residents. But since 1960, as the metropolitan region expanded to more than two million people and globalization drained manufacturing jobs, Cincinnati has been losing an average of 4,000 residents annually. The median household income is well below the state and national average.

Still, with 80,000 downtown jobs, Cincinnati’s business core is thriving. And with nearly 300,000 residents, 10,000 of them living downtown and now on the waterfront, it remains the third-largest city along the six-state, 981-mile Ohio River, behind Louisville and Pittsburgh. Like its bigger neighbors, and several smaller river cities — including Marietta, Ohio; Owensboro, Ky.; and Evansville, Ind. — Cincinnati is experiencing a strong revival in urban core business and residential growth, much of it prompted by development along a scenic river that state and federal water quality data show is cleaner and more ecologically vital.

On a bright blue afternoon, just the sort of day that prompted Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831 to describe this part of the Ohio River as “one of the most magnificent valleys in which man has made his stay, ” the full sweep of Cincinnati’s new development, clearly designed as the city’s gateway, comes into full view.

Construction workers laid stone walkways and sod in the shoreline park. Alongside, on the upriver end of an 18-acre expanse of grass, walkways, new streets and pocket parks are the first two buildings of the Banks, which opened last year. The sleek six-story brick-and-glass buildings, which cost a total of $82 million, have ground-floor restaurant and retail space and 300 rental apartments above.