The Incredible Shrinking City - Youngstown, OH, Razing Empty Houses, Destroying Streets - CNN

[hatrack]

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (CNNMoney.com) -- Youngstown, Ohio, has seen its population shrink by more than half over the past 40 years, leaving behind huge swaths of empty homes, streets and neighborhoods. Now, in a radical move, the city - which has suffered since the steel industry left town and jobs dried up - is bulldozing abandoned buildings, tearing up blighted streets and converting entire blocks into open green spaces. More than 1,000 structures have been demolished so far.

Under the initiative, dubbed Plan 2010, city officials are also monitoring thinly-populated blocks. When only one or two occupied homes remain, the city offers incentives - up to $50,000 in grants - for those home owners to move, so that the entire area can be razed. The city will save by cutting back on services like garbage pick-ups and street lighting in deserted areas. "When I grew up in the 1950s, the city was at its peak," said Father Ed Noga, who heads St. Patrick's on Youngstown's South Side. "There were kids everywhere and everyone converged on downtown. You went to eat, to shop and to go to the movies."

Today, downtown is positively sleepy and even somewhat derelict. Residents have to drive out of town to shop for clothes or housewares. And while foreclosures have long been a scourge in this city, they have recently skyrocketed along with the rest of the country, up 178% in February from a year ago.

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But now, Youngstown's infrastructure-paring strategy may yet become a model for other Rust-Belt cities that must recreate themselves after years of decline. Already, delegations from smaller, post-industrial cities like Flint, Mich.; Wheeling, W.Va.; and Dayton, Ohio, have come to Youngstown to study the plan. "We're one of the first cities of significant size in the United States to embrace shrinkage," said Williams. It's an odd way to pioneer. "The American narrative always includes growth," said Hunter Morrison, Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at Youngstown State University, which works closely with the city on plan 2010's implementation. "No one wants to talk about shrinkage. That's too threatening to politicians, civic boosters and Chambers of Commerce." The demolitions can yield stark contrasts. In many neighborhoods, blocks have more empty lots than buildings.

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http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/08/real_estate/radical_city_plan/index.htm?cnn=yes

[4dsc]

1. This is good and bad

Its bad that this town has lost major businesses but its good its tearing down older, inefficient building..

[hatrack]

2. One key question - what do they do with the newly vacant land?

Lots and lots of gardening space available in Youngstown, it would seem . . .

[XemaSab]

3. About the best book I've read in the last year was

"The World Without Us."

Those vacant blocks will be reforested in a few years without maintenance.

[diane in sf]

6. I'm currently reading that book--it's wonderful. The idea of urban farming is great too.

If there were ways to grow self-sufficient local economies in the rust belt it would be nice to move people into decent housing stock that's being abandoned. One thing I read said that the number of vacant homes was abut equal to the housing needs of the homeless in the US--they're just not available where the jobs are.

[Kolesar]

9. Mine was "Gardening When It Counts" , "Growing food in hard times"

by Steve Solomon. He has a cost-reduced fertilizing plan and all of the "essential" information any new gardener needs.

[kestrel91316]

4. Urban gardens - and just in time..........

Have you heard about all the urban garden plots (some are more like FARMS) springing up in the abandoned, derelict sections of Detroit, too? What better use for them than to produce food for the poor in the area - maybe even enough land for chickens and dairy goats.........

[Kolesar]

5. No, but I would like to hear more

I really dig that gardening stuff.

[kestrel91316]

7. Here ya go:

These folks are sort of the quintessential, uber-urban gardeners!
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/gardening/urbangardening.shtml

Here's a project in Detroit:
http://www.earth-works.org/

Here's our local version in my part of Lost Angeles:
http://www.laparks.org/dos/horticulture/sepulveda.htm

Here's the book no urban gardener should be without:
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

And of course the BIBLE of home food production and processing:
http://www.carlaemery.com/country-living-book.htm
Everybody PLEASE buy directly from Don (Carla Emery's husband)if you can. This book was Carla's life work and he deserves to get the retail profits rather than just royalties. She was a godsend, and singlehandedly kept homesteading alive through some of its lean years - now with hard times ahead her work is proving its worth. RIP, Carla. You changed my life.

[Kolesar]

8. Earth-works in Detroit was nice

Pretty intense writing, but the pics of the young people were jolly. I want my own hoop house.

[tom_paine]

10. Just another day in the Third World.

Imperial Amerika might well be by far the richest Third World Nation on Earth, but there can be little doubt that from any number of perspectives, economically, wealth distribution, judicially, legislatively and especially loooking at the sharp deterioration of the Executive Branch and the Constitution it despises, there can be no NONE ZERO question that our nation is now on it's way to becoming or already is a Third World nation.

We will see more of this as the window dressing falls away because the Dictator and His Party keep stealing the money to buy Cayman Island villas instead of repairing the infrastructure.

Just like any other Third World nation.

Welcome to the Amerikan Future, Youngstown. We are so very jealous because you got there before us, but tke heart, the rest of us will be joining you. It may take as many as 20 more years, but I seriously doubt it will take us nearly that long to catch up (or down) to you.

ESPECIALLY after Emperor Bush McCain takes the throne in November.