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.

drinking in nürnberg

The city of Nürnberg was a big suprise to me. Besides being the place where those crazy Nazis held their enormous rallies, today's Nuremberg [the name in English] is a combination of historical medieval walls and buildings mixed with modern design, home to the most outstanding collection of art in Germany, the birthplace of the pocketwatch, and home to the best pierogie I have ever eaten on this side of the Warsaw Pact states.

And it was a great place to have a drink.

You'll see what I mean when you see the design of their drinking fountains they have all over the place.



Just push the button at the base, and water flows out. A great combination of form and function. Here is my foot in action:


The fountains were also a source of amusement and debauchery when walking around town at 3:30 in the morning. They provided some must-needed ammunition to attack friends from England, Australia, and Scotland . . .


And Nürnberg was the city with the largest number of wig shops I have ever seen.


man, this place has everything.

saxon club, eat your heart out

went to a wedding of a good friend and ex-roomate last weekend. The reception was held at a chateau built in France during the early 1600s.

not too shabby.

here are some photos of the estate:







So even though the reception had a 6-course sit down meal and continued until 5am, just for the record, there was no cookie table. [click here and here for more information on cookie tables]

steel valley movie

"we are a network, and not a hierarchy"

such was the quote about the strength of the blogging community and their production of ideas, which came from the Meet the Bloggers recent interview with Tim Ryan - Youngstown's representative in the halls of Congress. You can listen to the entire interview here.

George Nemeth of Brewed Fresh Daily provided this opinion on the interview:

"I was engaged by this remarkable young man and his yearning for all of us to live in a world of ideas and limitless possibilities. He sees the vision, he knows how to lead us toward it, and he knows the difference between hierarchical and networked. He’s a communicator, and I guess you’ll just have to listen to the podcast to see what I mean. Tim Ryan may be the best chance any of us has, either side of the aisle, to move forward and attain our potential as a people. I can’t say enough. Listen. This is the future, beckoning."

now that's an endorsement of vision.

Another interesting thing I came across for the first time while surfing last night is a movie called "Steel Valley". The film has Youngstown native and Ursuline grad Ed O'Neil playing one of the movie's main characters.


So while the movie is not a dead-on biography of Mr. Ryan's rise to Congress, the plot shares a similar theme.

wow. that was quick.

I wonder when the first Jay Williams' movie is going to be in the theaters . . .

get these muthaf*ckin' snakes out of muthaf*ckin' youngstown

UPDATE: (from Paris, 9:03pm CET)

I just made it back to the apartment from the subway stop near Rue de Jonquoy where I took this photo:


So, Prenez ces putain serpents de muthaf*ckin' youngstown!

ORIGINAL POST:
Youngstown native and 1967 East High graduate Dave Dalessandro was the writer for the original screenplay from which the new movie "Snakes on a Plane" was based.


read the Vindicator article here.

read the Pitt article here.

'nuff said.

strolling through stuttgart - part II

The next day after a night out at Winter Fest Summer Fest, I made it over to the new Mercedes-Benz-Daimler-Chrysler Museum in Stuttgart.

Really a stunning building. It just opened in May of this year.



Upon entry, you take these elevators to the top of the building. After seeing a stuffed horse and the world's first automobile, you slowly descend around the perimeter of the building seeing the history of the company and its place in German and world history.


Along the way, you have a handset which tells stories, highlights inventions, and provides historical information. I am not really a big car nut, but I spent 5 hours there.


And then, as all modern museums do, the end of the tour dumps you out into the gift shop.

But this gift shop was nuts.

In addition to the Mercedes-Benz polo shirts and blingish keychains, there were four floors of Mercedes cars that one can sit in, look over, and begin leasing. Cars were available to drive off the lot.



crazy. Maybe we should build a Avanti Museum.

strolling through stuttgart - part I

Also last week I made a visit to Stuttgart, Germany's 6th largest city. There are 600,000 in the city and about 3 million in the metro area.

Stuttgart is home to the headquarters of Daimler-Chrysler, Porsche, and Bosch. The few days I stayed there, they were in the middle of the summer festival in what is left (not much actually) of the historical part of their downtown. It was odd because during the "summer festival" temperatures did not go above 50 degrees. It was mid August and everyone was walking around in ski jackets and scarves. Here is a photo of the central fountain with the opera illuminated in the background:


Small candles surrounded by multi-colored paper lit all the paths near this square. It looked great. Here is a closeup of these candles . . . a nice, non-expensive way to add color to the environment at night:


As the music played at the various stages in this area, the buildings changed color as well. Here is a quick movie of the what the place looked like.



Just around the corner is a new art museum in the downtown. I love the architecture. Maybe the new building for the Williamson School of Business at YSU can incorporate parts of this building for its design. The new structure can really have that "beacon on a hill" look.


I really like how the stairs are situated around the building. The galleries are furthest in, and like a shell, the stairs are further out right next to the glass exterior.



And in the cafe at the southern entrance, there was a great piece of morphing art. Cycles of persian rugs and turkish carpets were created over and over again as hipsters listened to a dj playing drum and bass in the background. very cool.

interactive art in karlsruhe

Last week I made a stop in Karlsrhue to visit some colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute in Karlsruhe Germany. Karlsruhe is the center of a metro area about the same size as that of Youngstown's.

For a city of Karlrhue's size, it seems to have a remarkable about of arts and cultural institutions. One is the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Center for Art and Media Technology) and I had the chance to visit. Here is a photo of the outside of the building:


Three very large floors were dedicated to interactive art. There was even art in the men's bathroom.


One of the coolest pieces I saw was a screen projecting bubbles onto a wall. As a person made a swipe at the bubbles, the bubbles made noises as they bumped off your silhouette. Check out this clip:



Karlsruhe has a large chateau/castle in the middle of the city and many of the main streets emminate from this building. Kinda like the Capitol in Washington DC.


In the stone street in front of this building, they did some neat design. During the day, all of these stones look the same. But at night, certain stones light up and illuminate the ground. I'm still not sure how they did this, but it was really cool.


And one last picture is dedicated to this advertisement in the window of a store. I'm not sure what they were selling (it wasn't toilets) but it certainly caught my eye.

did they leave or did they die?

Today's morbid post develops from an article in today's Plain Dealer about how Cleveland's population is sliding below 400,000 for the first time in a hundred years.

The article goes on to say that "White residents left [Cleveland] in greater numbers, but black residents also moved out" and that Cleveland's population is growing older and poorer in addition to getting smaller.

But are people moving out or dying out?

I calculated a few additional stats for cities around Ohio from the American Community Survey Data. These values are presented in the following manner:

city name:
% of population over 55 - % over 65 - % over 75 - % over 85

Columbus:
16.8% - 8.7% - 4.1% - 1.0%
Cleveland:
20.2% - 11.1% - 5.5% - 1.5%
Cincinnati:
20.3% - 11.3% - 6.3% - 1.3%
Akron:
22.0% - 12.1% - 6.3% - 1.3%
Parma:
26.9% - 16.5% - 9.2% - 1.8%
Youngstown:
27.6% - 17.7% - 10.3% - 2.5%
Mahoning County:
28.4% - 16.6% - 9.1% - 2.2%

Most of these communities are indeed getting older and the truth is, in 25 years many of their citizens in the age brackets above will be dead.

And unless the population will be replaced, these cities and regions will have an excess of housing, infrastructure, and government that will need to be adressed.

Aging populations may also be tied into the sustainability of the local workforce. A story in today's Youngstown Vindicator describes the effort to downsize the number of hourly workers at the Delphi plant in Trumbull County. The original plan was to shrink the workforce from 3,800 workers to a bit over 1,000. But 3,400 hourly works took the buyout, and now union leaders are concerned if they can run the facility with only 400 workers. Is the acceptability of the buyout related to the age of the workforce?

I'm not sure of the answer . . .

But is now the time to discuss regional or state-wide land use planning and housing policies to address population loss and unsustainable sprawl?

three-part series on allentown on 33 news

This week, Amy Radinovic from 33 wytv news did a three-part series on the history and economic development of Allentown, Pennsylvania. You can watch these three segments here, here, and here.

One of the first stories this blog ever covered was a three-part review of Safford´s Allentown PhD thesis which compared the Youngstown and Allentown regions from a social network theory perspective. You can read these three segments here, here, and here.

new floral display in metz

About four months ago, I wrote an entry describing how some cities in Europe add floral displays to cover their open plain spaces during the summer months. This week, I returned to the city of Metz in France to further investigate exactly how these displays were constructed. (click here to read the original post)

This year the city of Metz decorated the space in front of their main train station with a mix of flowers, grass, stones, and sculpture:


This year's design celebrates the arrival of the high-speed TGV train to this part of Eastern France, cutting the travel time to Paris from 3 hours to 1.5 hours.


This display really hightens the beauty of the surrounding buildings.


During the rest of the year, this space is a completely flat surface. When starting construction, the designers place what looks to be a series of beams which are 3 to 4 inches in depth around the perimeter of the planned area.


This bracketing allows for a series of sprinklers and pipes for watering to be placed, as well as rich planting soil to be contained within the planned space.


The design is even more remarkable from the air. On the observation platform, one can see the swirls and curves of color below.


Buses operate right next to the displays, as they shuttle passengers throughout the city.


People are given enough space to walk between the arrangements.


So can something like this be designed and constructed in the central square along Federal Street next our historical structures? Every year, a new design can be utilized. After a few years, professional photographers would have amassed enough photos of this to create images to be sold on posters and postcards.

Should an idea like this become a reality in our downtown?

time to replace my OBX sticker with my NEO sticker?

This evening I listened to an interesting radio interview about the economic development community of Northeast Ohio. You can download the mp3 here. For those of you regular readers from outside of the pierogie-haluski belt, NorthEast Ohio = NEO.

Featured as guests were Tom Waltermine of Team NEO, Ed Morrison from the Institute of Open Economic Networks, and Jay Miller from Crane's Cleveland Business Newspaper. One of the conversation's themes was the developing necessity and ability for the region of Northeast Ohio to network and cooperate together.

So is it important for Northeast Ohio to be better networked culturally as a region before we can move together economically as a region?

And how do we build our shared region-wide culture?

- - -

I know tons of people in Ohio that have the europeanesque 3-letter oval sticker with OBX attached to their rear bumper. It screams to the world, "hey, I'm cool. I went to the Outer Banks one year for vacation. In fact, my uncle has a timeshare down there."


So if people from here sport OBX stickers on their cars, would they ever attach an oval sticker with the letters N-E-O to proclaim their Ohio pride to the universe? Maybe NEO stickers can be like FOP stickers: if you have one on your window, the cops won't give you a speeding ticket. Or if you have a NEO sticker, you can get 1 dollar off parking at the lots in downtown cleveland during a sporting event.

Just think of it: people from around the world will respect your NEO roots and pride. When you are driving in Pittsburgh and incorrectly (although legally) yield to oncoming traffic when making a left hand turn, people will mutter "damn NEO drivers."

Would it ever catch on? . . . maybe . . . maybe not.

A experiement might be to pass them out to all the local economic developers and citizens at the next Voices and Choices meeting. It would be interesting to see if they ever pop up around the region. If 0.25% of the cars in this area sport NEO identification on their back bumper, it may gradually push the concept of "a united region" to more and more individuals.

master plan for the downtown

"everything that you do should be predicated on the fundamental premise that Youngstown is a city with a future."

So said Allan Mallach of the National Housing Institute when he spoke at the the first installment of the Youngstown 2010 - Wick Neighbors Neighborhood Reinvestment Series.

Mr. Mallach presented a number of interesting ideas about how to bring investment to city neighborhoods. One of our neighborhoods is the downtown.

Consider the statement in yesterday's Vindicator and the future of the downtown neighborhood:

"The city is seeking a CIC resolution in support of
allowing the Youngstown Municipal Court to have first option on any development at the former Masters building complex on West Federal Street."

This story made me think of the benefits and drawbacks of placing yet another government structure on Youngstown's main street. I have made no secret in the past of my opinion that the Children Services Building on Federal Street is a poorly designed structure because of its brick wall with no entry or function that runs along the entire front of that building.

The front of the building effectively makes that segment of Federal Street a dead zone, closed to future commerce and accessibility for the next thirty years.

And while the New Court of Appeals on the the other side of the street in a nice building and it replaces some abandoned structures, it's a government building as well. Government buildings, like the possible future Youngstown Municipal Court at the Masters site, will be visited regardless of location in the downtown because people need their services.

So is now the time that we begin to save the space along Youngstown's main street for private sector investment, mixed-use housing with retail in the ground floor, or other structures that are more friendly to foot traffic?

Or perhaps a compromise of function can be utilized: we can have retail and restaurant space facing Federal Street, and the court complex be connected to this, facing another street front. There seems to be a lot of space in that recently demolished city block.

Maybe it is time that we develop a master plan for the downtown.

By drawing together business owners, downtown workers, city residents, urban planners, landscape architects, and other stakeholders to create a plan of action, similar to the Youngstown 2010 process, that can be used to guide the future land use downtown.

my question for each of you is:

What do you want Downtown Youngstown to look like in ten years?

Can a downtown master plan help us to reach that goal?

Youngstowners, go spend your NEO bucks!

First off, I regret that this is my first post of the month. Trying to blog from internet cafes and random people's apartments in eastern europe is a difficult situation to say the least. I have tons of blog ideas in my head right now, and I just need to get them onto the internet.

Getting back to business . . .

Bit by bit over the past two weeks, I have been completing my Voices & Choices Choicebook online. It works like this: over the past two years, the Voices & Choices program has been both identifying the problems of Northeast Ohio's development and collecting possible solutions to our challenges.


The Choicebook is the attempt to have individual residents give their opinions on what solutions should be targeted for implementation. If you are a regular reader of this blog, and have not completed this online survey, please consider doing so.

If you are regular reader from Rome or Paris or Washington DC or Youngstown (thanks for your continual support, by the way) or anywhere, and seek the opportunity to contribute to charting our future, click here to begin.

Each section takes about 8 minutes to compete, and there are six sections. After getting input from the public through these Choicebooks, the results will be aggregated and an agenda will be created.

critical mass youngstown

On days like today, the last Friday of the month in cities all across the world, a cycling event called Critical Mass occurs.

It works like this: people meet at a central location in the afternoon, and then bike together as one large group along a route. In some cities where the turnout is huge, the group is one large mass of people taking up the entire width of the road. In other places where the group is smaller, the cyclists share the road with the cars, staying to the right of the road going single-file along the route.


Whether we have 10 people, 100 people, or 1000 people show up, this would be a great activity to have in Youngstown.

But it doesn't have to be on a Friday afternoon. It can be held during the weekend, when perhaps more families can attend. We can take a slow pace weaving around the park and the downtown. Perhaps everyone who attends can meet up somewhere in the city for a meal or a drink after the ride. The police can even join in, alerting the public to our presence for safety. And everyone gets out of the house and gets a good workout. This is an activity that requires little cost, and has a variety of benefits.

Here is a beautiful poster that was posted at the movement's 10th anniversary website, as created by the San Francisco artist Mona Caron:


Much thanks to guv from the Cleveland Walks! blog, who emailed me the Google Maps Pedometer website, asking me to post my latest ride I wrote about in this blog.

Well, click HERE to check out a map I made online of the journey!

What a cool little program.

So here is an interactive activity and challenge I pose to my readers:

Go to www.gmap-pedometer.com and choose a 10 mile or so route around Youngstown that would be ideal for the first "Critical Mass Youngstown" ride.

Things to consider:
- level of difficulty for beginners (uphill)
- scenic beauty
- historical architecture and neighborhoods
- width of roads
- sharing space with automobiles

POST your IDEAS and MAPS in the comments section of this blog entry! I'll do a follow-up story in a few weeks.

new life for youngstown’s crab creek

A fascinating new set of ideas about urban design in Youngstown appeared this week on a special website of Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. Students from the architecture faculty at the Dresden Technical University in Germany produced some truly stunning concepts for the possible future of design in the city.

Their work encompassed two geographical areas in the city: the Crab Creek river basin and the land adjacent to the convention center downtown.

The Crab Creek runs south from Trumbull County separating the north and east sides of the city, eventually merging with the Mahoning River near the downtown. Miles of industrial property runs along banks of the Crab Creek, which currently has no public access. Their plan includes opening the river to the public again by incorporating features such as pedestrian and bike trails, an “industrial garden”, and an “adventure site” for younger children. You can see their entire presentation here.


I really like the industrial garden idea. It includes illuminating old loading hoppers along the river as a central focal point, incorporating old railroad ties for benches and landscaping, and reusing older buildings for restrooms and meeting and exhibition spaces.

The second presentation (found here) includes ideas for what to do with the land sandwiched between the Market Street Bridge and the South Avenue Bridge near the convocation center. It included building a ramped walkway to the river above the railroad tracks and an amphitheater among others.


One additional presentation on the website gives an overview of the reuse of industrial property in the Emscher Area of the Ruhr Valley. Remember my World Cup blog last week about the area around Essen feeling like Youngstown? – well this presentation backs up that idea. It includes examples of using creative lighting, recreational areas, residential developments, and commercial successes to enhance existing industrial areas.


They close with these important conclusions:

- derelict industrial areas have value
- protect existing structures
- new uses are essential
- new implementation methods are needed
- establish a financial framework before beginning
- place emphasis on long range solutions

So can these concepts on paper become reality?

negative space creates positive spaces

Walking along Sherbrooke Avenue in Montréal, I came across an interesting wall. Ivy was growing across the surface, except for randomly assorted spaces.


Taking a step back, this wall was part of an outside patio for a local restaurant. A creative use of nature in an outdoor commercial space.


Here is another cool example in the same city. The facade of this building was at one point saved, and now functions as a wall separating the sidewalk from the dining public. Another great example of adapting older buildings for reuse.


This last picture was taken by myself in downtown Youngstown:


Some may call for this building to be torn down. But as we see in other cities, we can adapt our structures for new usage before destroying them. Can the space be structurally supported and illuminated? Maybe flowers can be grown along the surface...

There are many functions this type of space can serve as we hold onto our historical character.