jay in U.S. News, art in a bakery, and full frontal nudity

You wouldn't think these three things are related - and really they're not very interconnected - but they all involve to a slight degree exposing yourself for a good cause.

#1 - Mayor Williams is interviewed in U.S. News and World Report.

Youngstown's emerging brand is a city that is (1) protecting its heritage and (2) shrinking strategicially. Just a stockholders expect a company to responsibily manage itself during an economic transition, Youngstown is becoming a global leader in attempting to responsibly manage its affairs.

An exerpt:

"What's been the response to the initiative?
The community has been overwhelmingly supportive. There are critics to the Youngstown 2010 initiative; some are concerned about gentrification. And I've actually said that we could use a bit of managed gentrification. But we have to be sure that the people who are here aren't pushed out and put in conditions that would be not affordable. Overall, the Youngstown 2010 plan has been well embraced because it's about right-sizing the city and redefining the city economically and socially to where the world is today.

Have other communities inquired about the initiative?
Oh, absolutely. We've had the opportunity to visit and talk with communities across the country—and foreign entities—or have them come here. There have been foreign journalists and officials who have visited."

more here on the small city with a big brand.

#2 - Ward Bakery Artists' Open House

From the infrastructure our industrial past, artists have become intertwined with Ward Building and its many artists are opening the doors of their studios over the weekend. The picture explains all the details:


The Mahoning Commons is a funky mix of old churches, renovated warehouses, shotgun houses, community theaters and in-town city artists. Look for more artist space developments to be announced soon. If you are a Cleveburgh artist, this neighborhood might be place to investigate as a place to do your thing with no one bothering you. A good preview of the event can be found at the blog for The Stage.

#3 - The Full Monty begins at the Oakland this weekend, and will continue for the next three weeks.



the story: a couple of steel workers find creative ways to make ends meat. based on a true story in Struthers.

- - -

ps. Le Nouveau Rock Festival will take place in downtown youngstown this saturday.

building a courthouse-only structure on the Master's block is not a good idea

The latest arguement du-jour making its way into the local media is if the city will build a new courthouse to house its municipal judges.

While you can read more details of the back-and-forth here, there is a component within the story which caught our attention:

"In a May 2002 resolution, city council “expresses its intent to allocate future city capital improvement funds to support the construction and amortization of debt to fund a city justice center.” A lack of money has stalled the project since then.

The courthouse would be a 35,000 square-foot facility on two levels with a 20,000 square-foot basement and 50 surface parking spaces. The site picked is a lot at the southwest corner of West Federal Street at Vindicator Square, once the location of Master’s Tuxedo."

Whether it's wanted or not, here's our 2 cents worth:

Without a doubt, other alternatives to constructing a courthouse-only structure on Federal Street should be sought.

The downtown of Youngstown in 2008 is a much different place than the downtown of 2002.

Federal Street is looking much better, and the need for more and more government-only structures on our main street is not needed at this time.

We are witnessing right now a split of usage along West Federal Street. Restaurants and ground floor business are clustering around the Wick to Hazel Street area. Entertainment options such as the symphony are clustering on the other end. And a gulf of government-only structures is set to dominate the space between these two destinations.

While the expansion of the YBI is a welcome circumstance, its buildings and the county's government buildings on the site of the former massive McKelvey's store are creating a pedestrian's no-man land, with no street level commerce and activity as people shift between the culutral institutions and entertainment options.

Using the Master's Tuxedo space for the same purpose for government buildings is a step in the wrong direction.

- - -

Some thoughts/questions:

If anything goes up on that space, why can't it be a mixed use structure, with commerce on the ground floor and "judgement" on the upper floors?

Why can't the now-empty judges' chambers within the City Hall Annex be used for the municipal courts?

Does it make more sense to build the courts closer to the jail or other county justice-related buildings?

What efficiencies are gained by promoting proximity and lessening the cost of prisioner movement?

Why does the main drag of the city need to be filled with public buildings instead of private businesses?

Should the Youngstown 2020 plan contain a downtown master plan?

- - -

The downtown has come a long way in a short time and will continue to get better.

The need to destroy blighted structures such as the Paramount Theater, the Kress Building, and the facade of the State Theater should not be placed before the need to retain the things that make our downtown unique.

The same concept of good planning should extend to what buildings we place on what spots thoughout the downtown.

idora cleanup - southside's finest

Looking for something to do this weekend?

There are two events taking place on Saturday that go hand and hand with the South Side of Youngstown.

First, there will be a neighborhood cleanup from 9am to 11am for the Idora neighborhood.

The neighborhood gets its name from Idora Park, an amusement park that was situated in the center of the city. Similar to Conneaut Lake and Geauga Lake, Youngstown's "million-dollar playground" is now closed. You can visit a good Idora Park site here.

All participants should meet on Parkview Avenue in front of the former Idora Park site. Trash bags and equipment will be provided. Here is a map with the meeting site on it:


The Idora Park neighborhood and its residents are beginning the process of neighborhood revitalization, and everyone in the Mahoning Valley is invited to participate in the cleaning and greening of this historic south side area. It's always amazing to me to see all the mansions in this neighborhood, especially the enormous houses that are on Volney Road, adjacent to Mill Creek Park.

One interesting side story in the saga of the Idora Neighborhood has been the land of which the park now sits, owned by a local church. Despite decades of promises for rehabilitation, it remains probably the largest abandoned parking lot in the city.

From the wikipedia entry for Mill Creek Park:

In 1985, Mt. Calvary Pentecostal Church in Youngstown bought the Idora property and announced plans for a religious complex, to be named the "City of God". The Ballroom remained open for various events until Memorial Day 1986. The church lost the property in 1989 after accumulating more than $500,000 in debt on the land. A group of preservationists got Idora Park on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. This group put together a bid that year to buy the property and restore it, but at the eleventh hour, the church got the property back for a reported $300,000 mortgage.

For the next fifteen years, the church failed to build their religious complex, the property decayed, and it was not secured from outsiders. All remaining structures were not given proper historical preservation and each would eventually be vandalized, destroyed by natural elements, or succumb to arson.

On March 5, 2001 the final chapter to Idora Park's history was written when the historic Idora Ballroom burned down. The fire reportedly started in the basement and was suspicious in nature. The Jack Rabbit and other remaining wooden structures were not destroyed by this fire. On July 26, 2001 the Wild Cat, Jack Rabbit, and all other decaying structures were demolished by bulldozers to prevent any future fires. The property owner (Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church) ordered the demolition without notice in response to safety concerns. Both the Jack Rabbit and Wild Cat roller coasters were listed on the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) preservation list.

Inaction by the park property owners to preserve the remaining (non-auctioned) Idora Park historic structures—such as the Ballroom, Wild Cat, Jack Rabbit—ultimately led to their destruction.

from this provided history, a question to be answered:

What should now become of the land, and what are the responsibilites of the land owners?


Then later on in the evening, on HBO, the Ghost of Youngstown will be competing for the middleweight boxing championship.

Kelly Pavlik lives and trains on the South Side.

Plenty of well-deserved hype has gone into the fight, including specials on HBO and SportsTime Ohio. You can watch the 30 minute HBO special on YouTube in three parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

From today's paper, "Boxer Gets Hometown Sendoff""

YOUNGSTOWN — If boxer Kelly Pavlik could harness the outpouring of love, support and cheers he received from hundreds of his friends, neighbors and fans during his hometown send-off Tuesday night in front of his house on Cornell Street on the South Side, he would pack dynamite in his punches when he challenges Jermain Taylor for the WBC middleweight championship Saturday night. . . .

"I think he will win because he is a very good boy, good with me, polite with people. He never was a bad kid. When he was a boy and came over my house, his favorite food was pizza, and we all would spread out a blanket and have a picnic on the living room floor," recalled Stella.

Neighbor Dove Ross agreed with Stella. "He is wonderful. He is very good to everyone. It is a very close-knit neighborhood. His personality is wonderful. He has a lot of respect for you and is a gentleman. He is a good model for young kids to look up to," she said. . . .

"Kelly goes to our church. That's why we are celebrating today. He is a good Slovak boy and he has a great father and mother. I pick him to win in the 10th round," he [Smercansky] said.

well, to sum it all up, a wise quote from a wise man:

DEFEND YOUNGSTOWN. DESTROY TAYLOR.

a smarter youngstown, plus propre, plus petit, plus vert

Similar to recent stories from Germany and the Netherlands about life in Youngstown and the 2010 plan, France has now jumped into the mix with an article in Challenges, France's largest business magazine.

You can read the article (in french though) here.

The article reviews Youngstown's history as the once 57th largest city in the country, the steel crisis, and its new approaches to city planning that have garnered international press.

Penned by Philippe Boulet-Gercourt, the article quotes Hunter Morrison, le directeur du Centre d'études urbaines de l'université: "Nous sommes au coeur d'une mégalopole de 7 millions d'habitants. Mais nous ne pouvons pas rester les bras croisés à attendre que d'autres viennent nous sauver. Dès qu'un quartier a accepté le fait qu'il ne redeviendrait pas le quartier ouvrier qu'il était, on peut faire beaucoup de choses en termes de qualité de la vie ou d'accès aux infrastructures."

word.


You can hear a new interview with le directeur wednesday night at 7:30pm on WYSU through Sherry Linkon's radio show. Hopefully he'll be speaking English this time.

You can access Dr. Linkon's blog here and wysu here.

UPDATE" the interview is up, and can be accessed here.

introducing: treez please

Yesterday morning, a new organization named "Treez Please" planted a red oak (Quercus rubra for you Linnean types) in Wick Park on Youngstown's historic North Side.


Local citizens heard from Arborist David Sturtz about the proper techniques of tree selection and planting. And in this effort, a truly grassroots organization took their first step forward in their quest to beautify the Mahoning Valley.

Their next project will be the creation of "pocket parks" in local neighborhoods that combine landscaped greenspace and eco-friendly sod furniture. They have aquired a few pieces of property on the North Side, and are beginning work on a parcel on Broadway between Elm Street and Wick Avenue. Check out this photo for an example:


Treez Please will have their next meeting [which open to the public, please attend] this Thursday, September 20th at 5:30pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Elm Street. (go to their webpage if you need directions - it's on the east side of Wick Park).

All donations to Treez Please are tax-deductible.

Besides monetary donations, they are in need of topsoil and dirt to provide fertile ground for the greenspace to develop, as some of their sites have the remains of houses that have been demolished on them. They also could use your ideas, your energy, and your time as they progress with their vision.

For more information contact Debra Weaver at 330.744.1748 or
debraweaver2000 (at) hotmail (dot) com

Treez Please
P.O. Box 2292
Youngstown, Ohio 44504

a smarter, schonere, kleinere, groenere youngstown

"Een leeggelopen stad"

More international press for youngstown and the 2010 plan continues to appear.

Joost van Egmond from the Netherlands visted our city (our stad) a few weeks ago and his piece has now aired on NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, or the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation). NOS is pretty similar to BBC in the UK or a much larger multi-station version of PBS in our country.

Every single home in the Netherlands gets NOS. Indeed NOS 1, NOS 2, and NOS 3 is what I watched in the evenings when CNN International got boring, especially when Larry King was interviewing anyone from Hollywood or the legal profession.

Even though the report is in Dutch, you can listen to the story here.

- - -

We as a country and a region can learn a lot from the Dutch. Their urban and rural land use strategies, their use of mass transportation, and their approach to solving conflict.

We can certainly learn how to party like them:


We should also follow their lead and have the freedom to drink alcohol in public places.

But even with all those benefits, they could keep all the herring they want.


Thanks for stopping by Youngstown, Joost. You and your colleagues are welcome to visit us again at any time.

youngstown . . . the smart, green, international city.

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.

Public Planning Meeting will be the first of many

Tomorrow (Wednesday) kicks off an important step in the Youngstown 2010 Planning Process - The very first public planning meeting will be held at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center at Fellows Riverside Garden (7pm) to discuss ideas about what is currently being called the Garden District.


This neighborhood, the first of nearly 130 within Youngstown City limits to be planned, is bordered on 2 sides by Mill Creek Metroparks. It is also hugged by Calvary Cemetery to the west and Mahoning Avenue on the north.


Public meetings like these are priceless to the City Planning Department as it gives them an opportunity to hear directly from the residents of that area. Without that valuable input, it can be difficult to determine exactly what the best plan for an area is.

If you live in the area, if you don't live in the area, if you want to move to the area, or if you have ever passed through the area to get to Fellows, please try to contribute to this discussion. You can have a say in what happens here.

The format will be somewhat informal, with the Planning Department presenting several preliminary thoughts, ideas, and observations about the neighborhood. These rough ideas are meant to initiate discussions by the public about what may or may not work in this particular neighborhood. From there, the Planning Department will have some material to work with to generate new and improved plans, which will again be presented in a public forum at a later date.

Be there and be vocal.

- - -

In addition (and because it wouldn't be a Youngstown Planning Meeting if they didn't use Youngstown-based technology) participants will be using Turning Technologies' audience response system.

During the presentation, the public will have the ability to voice 'Yay' or 'Nay' the ideas with the touch of a button.

---

'Garden District' Public Planning Meeting

June 27, 2007 7pm

D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor's Center

Fellows Riverside Garden

the pillars of a community

The Defend Youngstown blog posted a great interview today with Anthony Kobak, Chief Planner of the City of Youngstown and one of the driving forces during the Youngstown 2010 planning process. You can find the interview here.

Defend Youngstown's work brings a human face to some of the pillars in the region. His interviews reinforce the notion that government is, well, just a bunch of people at the core, and not some abstract object.

- - -

Since my posting yesterday about the Toffler speech inside Stambaugh Auditorium, I have had a few requests about additional info on the building and its wonderful pillars.

The Indiana limestone, oak, and marble structure was inspired by the Pantheon in Paris, and was designed by Helmle and Corbett Architects from New York City. Its opening concert was held on December 6th, 1926 and featured the humorist Will Rodgers.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and recently Jerry Seinfeld have all performed in this historic building. Its rooms throughout the structure are available for rent, and is a great place for a wedding reception. In fact, here are a few photos of the place when I was one of the groomsmen for a good friend who had his wedding there:

two more 2010 mentions, and a new website

This Ohio Sunday is winding to a close, filled with walking on trails through the snow-covered park, followed by snowball fights, and then football by the fire. What could be more exciting?

Well . . there are three new things in Youngstown to blog about.

That's what.

- - -

a - The first is a story in today's edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review titled, "Extreme Makeover: City Edition." Justin Vellucci writes about the economic shock to Youngstown following the collapse of the steel industry and the abandonment of many residents and commercial businesses, eventually describing how the 2010 plan is planting the seeds for a sustainable city.

Once you get to the page, click on the Multimedia Slideshow:Youngstown link on the upper right side. There, mixed among pictures showing the removal of blight, you will see some nice photos with dialog provided by the mayor. Especially cool are the ones taken in the middle of West Federal Street, and the shots of Mayor Williams standing in the convocation center's parking lot with the city in the background. (note: I was thinking of posting the pictures here, but a friend who works for the Trib told me their legal department is pretty viscious - so check them out yourself from their page)

The piece ends with a comment by Bill Lawson, executive director of Mahoning Valley Historical Society.

"In a large respect, we lost a whole generation of people my age. ... There just weren't any opportunities here. So, people that I know are gone," he said. "These young people (today) are doing it. The future's looking up."

And on that note, the youth are indeed taking a step forward and being noticed:


b- Thanks to the efforts of local rap artist Shug B, the 2010 project has also found its way onto the Mtv2 channel.

Shug B submitted a video about the local music scene to the television network for their show "My Block". Individuals across the country submitted documentaries illustrating their home city. From this year's applicants, Phoenix, Long Island, Seattle, and Youngstown were chosen as finalists.

The television commercials from My Block, now airing on the network, have Mayor Williams talking about the 2010 program. You can jump to the Mtv2 site here, and then you can vote for the Youngstown video an infinite amount of times.



I thought this "infinite amount of clicking" form of voting was a bit strange, but it turns out Ohio-based Diebold is charge of the voting, so they can be trusted.


Speaking of infinite, here is a link to the infinite ohio shoutout.

Cause as cmoss says: "If a tree falls in the woods, and don't noboby hear about it, will it make a noise?"

"No, motherfucker, it don't." . . . "you gotta let it be known."


c - And from the students who organized the meeting last week regarding the State Theater downtown, a new website has been created. Click here to see their work in progress of the "Friends of Youngstown Theaters". What is especially cool is their still growing list on the left side of the page mentioning all of the theaters in town, either renovated, hoping to be renovated, or otherwise.

I especially like their pictures of the Palace, which was a beautiful building. The developers claimed to build a downtown mall and theater complex in its place, but since its demolition in the summer of 1964 for their project, it has been a parking lot.

Let's hope no more of our historical treasures will see the wrecking ball.

http://www.youngstowntheaters.i8.com/

youngstown in USA TODAY's cover story

You know, a cool thing about being a blog is the ability to be quick and nimble, and to get the news to the public in a much quicker fashion than other media outlets.

The cover story in today's USA TODAY is about creative shrinkage in cities. Youngstown has a role in the article.

Youngstown, Ohio, is an exception. It has fully embraced its shrinkage. The population, now about 83,000, is less than half what it was when the steel industry collapsed in the 1970s.

"You look at the facts and come up with solutions," chief planner Anthony Kobak says. "The first step the city has come to terms with is being a small city."

Youngstown approved a 2010 plan. The goal: "A safe, clean, enjoyable, sustainable, attractive city," Kobak says.

The city long was better known for gritty steel mills than green space. Now that the mills are gone, there is plenty of space. With the help of a grant, Youngstown preserved 260 acres. It's targeting neighborhoods and redesigning them with the help of residents who stayed.

The city may let homeowners buy abandoned lots next door to create gardens. It's considering relaxing zoning rules to allow small horse farms or apple orchards. It's offering incentives for people to move out of abandoned areas.

"If you had three or four square blocks that at one time had 40 homes per block and now have maybe five homes total, we could relocate those people across the street and convert the vacant area into a large city park," Kobak says.Residents would live be living across from a park rather than being surrounded by decrepit homes and lots overgrown with weeds.

click here for the entire USA TODAY article.

click here to see how other bloggers have covered this topic.

click here for the webpage for the Youngstown 2010 program

+2 kudos to Anthony Kobak for making it big-time

how pimp is this?

so over the weekend, did some random You Tube searches for our town.

Check out this fantastic video with the killer music . . .


And here is a collection of some nice downtown shots at night . . .


And here are some shots of the downtown catherdral after it was struck by lightning in 1954:




thanks to those who took the time to arrange these and upload them!

- - -

But it got me thinking, would the You Tube format be a good way to advertise our neighborhoods as part of the Youngstown 2010 neighborhood plan? We have the pictures of homes, maps, and now national recognition from the APA for the plan. All we need to do is assemble it, add some great background music, and post it online.

Speaking of which, maybe all the Youngstown 2010 broadcasts should be on You Tube in addition to the 45/49
and 2010 sites . . .

youngstown in nytimes magazine: an update

more and more blog writings just keep on popping up!

is a particularly interesting comment from one of the readers of Pittsblog:

Robert Bruegmann in his book "Sprawl" briefly discusses the growing suburban development around Youngstown, and notes that anti-sprawl zealots (like me, I suppose) point to these communities as evidence of all that is wrong with current development trends. Why are developers throwing up all these subdivisions when you the population of Youngstown proper keeps plummeting? The answer to Bruegmann is that the presence of these communities is the only thing that keeps the remaining middle and upper-middle class families from fleeing the metro area; and eventually, it is these people who are most likely to revitalize the city itself. It's definitely a different take on the relationships of suburbs to cities than many Pittsburgh residents maintain.


Photo courtesy of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society from Metropolis Magazine.

here is a review of blogs out there that reference the nytimes story:

"CEOs for Cities" - Chicago, IL
- - link - -

"Blogging Ohio" - various cities in Ohio
- - link - -

"BLDG BLOG" - Los Angeles, California
- - link - -

"Antirust" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- - link - -

"Space, Place, and Identity: Brand Avenue"
- - link - -

"Resilience Science" - Montréal, Quebec
- - link - -

"Pittsblog: Learning from Youngstown" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- - link - -

"Blueprint for New Orleans" - Lafayette, Louisiana
- - link - -

"Reurbanize Buffalo" - Buffalo, New York
- - link - -

"Downsizing Pittsburgh" - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- - link - -

I'll add more to this post as they come up . . .

youngstown in today's nytimes sunday magazine

Hi readers,

As it is many people's custom to read this blog with their cup of coffee and pancakes religiously every sunday morning, maybe this weekend you'll want to do something a little different, and purchase a copy of sunday's new york times.

You see, every December the New York Times Magazine looks back over the year through the "mountain range" of intellectual concepts and ideas, and presents some of them to the world.


This year's version has this article about "Creative Shrinkage" and its subject is Youngstown and the 2010 plan.

some clips from the story:

"Few communities of 80,000 boast a symphony orchestra, two respected art museums, a university, a generously laid-out downtown and an urban park larger than Central Park. "

"[Jay] Williams’s strategy calls for razing derelict buildings, eventually cutting off the sewage and electric services to fully abandoned tracts of the city and transforming vacant lots into pocket parks."

"The city has also placed a moratorium on the (often haphazard) construction of new dwellings financed by low-income-housing tax credits and encouraged the rehabilitation of existing homes."

"Instead of trying to recapture its industrial past, Youngstown hopes to capitalize on its high vacancy rates and underused public spaces; it could become a culturally rich bedroom community serving Cleveland and Pittsburgh"

"Youngstown’s experiment has not gone unnoticed. Williams’s office has already fielded calls from officials in a few of the many American metropolitan areas."

- - -

As indicated in the blog entry before this one, there are many afforable houses to purchase in the city of superior craftsmanship and design. If you are looking to downsize from your house in the suburbs, or looking to invest in a quality housing stock, maybe a house in Youngstown is a great concept.

Our city is moving in the right direction, and we would like to have good people who enjoy good living to be our neighbors.

Care to join us?

new 2010 show tonight

The next show about the future of the Youngstown 2010 comprehensive planning plan will be held tonight, Thursday September 7th at 8pm. You can listen to the live streaming show here, simulcast by WYSU.


And new to the Youngstown 2010 website is a section about the neighborhoods of Youngstown. It states "Youngstown is a city with a rich history and an exciting future" and the site can be found here.

The first neighborhood featured is Boulevard Park, full of beautiful homes on the South Side of the city. Details on the neighborhood can be found here, a variety of homes for sale (with pictures) can be found here, and a map on the neighborhood can be found here.

Please listen to the show tonight, and if you want to see the show live and participate in the audience you need to be at the Chestnut Room at YSU by 6:15pm for the taping.