youngstown featured on NPR's Morning Edition (Tuesday, July 17th)

UPDATE: The four minute NPR story aired this morning.

You can listen to the story here.

A little heavy on the John Edward's poverty angle, a little light on the planing process . . . but we'll take it.

Being labeled as a progessive city who is thinking ahead and a leader is just fine.

Continued below is an exerpt of the meeting featured in the NPR story . . . the planning process will be coming to your neighborhood soon!

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Friday morning I wandered over to Fellows Riverside Gardens to enjoy a coffee (there was also a wireless network I could jump on) and take in the view of Mill Creek Park's Lake Glacier.

Here is a video of the serenity around me:



Recently, this blog had a story about the neighborhood meeting that took place at the Gardens two weeks ago. It was the first meeting to review the draft plan of the "Garden District" neighborhood, where the public came together and with technology developed at the downtown incubator, provided their opinions on various proposals.

Since that meeting, the City Planning Department has created a website for the Garden District on the Youngstown 2010 page showing conceptual drawings, powerpoint presentation, and comments from the public, among others. It's a nice intoroduction to the neighborhood if you have never visited this section of the West Side of Youngstown.

Among the 70 or so people that attended the meeting, were reporters from NPR in Washington.

They came. They listened. They interviewed.

And on tomorrow's (Thursday's) Morning Edition, there will be a feature story about Youngstown and the city's planning process.

It should take place in the morning between 7am - 9am, and you can listen to it at Youngstown State University's NPR station at 88.5 FM, or streaming from their website here.

Here is a picture of of the Garden District from above:


And one proposal for the neighborhood (only a proposal, the components still yet to be decided upon):


Here's a picture of a possible new neighborhood park . . .


of a new walkway with a view . . .


of new paths connecting the neighborhoods through the park . . .


I have a few friends who moved into this neighborhood in the last few years and they all love it. One remarked to me that she always wanted to live in a neighborhood where the hand-crafted houses are close together and the neighbors are even closer.

"We are like a big family" she said.

The Garden District seems to be becoming a neighborhood that newcomers and new homebuyers are relocating to. There's immediate access to Mill Creek Park, the neighborhood is safe, the houses are sturdy, and it's about a mile to the downtown.

I don't know this for sure, but I would estimate houses there would sell for less than $70,000. That's crazy.

It's hard to figure out housing markets, but even with all those amenities when you are a small neighborhood in a shrinking city (population), contained in a shrinking county, contained in a shrinking metro area, contained in a shrinking state . . . supply and demand seems to dictate the prices.

Maybe the Garden District can become a targeted neighborhood for us younger folk looking to plant some roots in this city . . .

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In international news . . .

Last week Youngstown Community Development Director, Bill D’Avignon, gave an interview and city tour to Philippe Boulet-Gercourt. Mr. Boulet-Gercourt is the U.S. Bureau Chief for Challenges, France’s largest business magazine. The French reporter was very interested in how Youngstown has accepted and embraced the “shrinking city” concept.

On Wednesday, July 11 th Mr. Joost van Egmond from NOS Dutch Public Broadcasting will be in Youngstown for a radio series on urbanization throughout the world. He will portray Youngstown as an example of a post-industrial city, with an explanation of how the city is redefining itself via the Youngstown 2010 Citywide Plan. NOS is the main news broadcaster in the Netherlands, a country of 16 million people.

A research group of professors from six different universities in Japan will travel to the City in September to learn about Youngstown’s urban revitalization efforts. Specifically, the research team is interested in the smart decline policies and practices of Youngstown 2010. Dr. Hiroshi Yahagi, a professor at Osaka City University (the second largest city in Japan), is coordinating the visit.