why would we want uniformity?

During the recent West Federal Street median removal debate of 2007, a local talk show host asserted that one relevant reason to alter the streetscape of the current configuration is to get the entire street to look like the already-altered East Federal Street.

My friends, this is simply not a good reason.

Carbon copying a lackluster streetscape throughout the downtown is not the best idea.

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To review this arguement, let's take a pictoral stroll downtown - a downtown that is everyone's neighborhood.

Here is the current setup on West Federal. Mature trees along the side and in the median, brickwork on the sidewalk, well-proportioned public spaces. Nice.


Here is a redone part of the street as exists today:


Let's analyze what's wrong with this picture . . .

Orange barrel in place of where tree should be. Dead tree, or at least a tree with no leaves (this picture was taken in July) to the right. Small uncomfortable cheap-looking bench between the orange barrel and dead tree. Fire hydrants surrounded by concrete. Akward diagonal parking. Excessive concrete.

On another trip to downtown, an elderly woman with a very adorable czech accent who lives downtown saw that I was taking pictures and pulled me over to this tree next to the Reality Building.

"This tree is dying," she said. "No one takes care of these trees. I wish someone would care."


Here is a series of these benches next to the Huntington Bank building. Some of these benches, still years after their original installation, have stickers attached to them from the original purchase.


And another good one, a sign in the place of where a tree once stood. A beautiful and thoughtful replacement.


Looking left, looking right, in front of Silver's Vogue Shop and Barley's. A sea of concrete expanding for quite a distance. Very little green, very little comfortability. Ugh.



And finally, these permanent electrical units were recently placed in a few areas along the sidewalk. Big, obtrusive set-ups, that may well have a functional purpose, but were designed and planned poorly. Was this the only alternative?


Do these photos, which have just been presented, give the appearance of a community that cares about how its number one main avenue though the downtown looks?

As people from around the country and the world come to our university and the Youngstown Business Incubator, is this what we want to show them?

To me, it seems like there are two "big picture" concepts, battling each other for the future design of the downtown.

In one case, you have a concrete-heavy, minimal green, excessive parking infrastructure that caters to big-time events and their demands.

In the other case, you have a scalable, living place that is attractive to potential downtown residents and successful business people.

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And of course, like many arguements, perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle.

But in my opinion, we are unfortunately drifting towards the first case, when we should be working hard to reach the second one.

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two concluding thoughts.

First, the current setup of the already redone part of Federal Street needs to be corrected instead of replicated.

The dead trees need to be removed. Life needs to come back to the streets.

Who is responsible for the maintenance of Federal Plaza?

Second, we as a community need to have a serious discussion, with all stakeholders at the table (especially the public), about what we want our downtown to become.

We want the people who have made the personal investments in the coffee places and the restaurants years ago, when they had a vision and very few would support them, to succeed and expand without interruption.

The time for this discussion is now. And the new city council, along with the public, needs to work together to plan out their vision and actionable steps for the next several years.



so, what do you think Youngstown?