Monday, March 17, 2008
Without steel, Johnstown relies on defense spending and tourism to come back.
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Under the shadows of a steel mill’s rusting carcass, a new Johnstown is slowly taking shape.
Quaint cafes and even an upscale bridal shop have appeared in long empty storefronts. Downtown lofts are being snapped up. Biotech companies and high-tech firms have set up shop.
Decades after heavy industry died, taking much of Johnstown with it, this Rust Belt community appears to be regaining its footing.
To be sure, acres of decaying steel mills, shuttered factories and neighborhoods studded with ramshackle housing serve as constant reminders that this city’s heyday has passed and it will never again be the bustling industrial hub that attracted immigrants and laborers.
But there are signs this valley community best known for being ravaged by deadly floods — the worst in 1889, the most recent in 1977 — is making some headway. An aggressive city planner, a creative redevelopment authority and tourism officials are trying to turn Johnstown into a postindustrial tourist center with a vibrant downtown.
Since 2004, real estate tax revenues have been flat at about $3.4 million, an indication the city is holding its own after years of declining revenues during the peak of deindustrialization, city manager Curtis Davis said.
The city even reports an uptick in business tax collection, from just over $146,000 in 2004 to more than $162,000 in 2006. The number of vacant lots has been slashed to 600, from 800 three years ago.
“I don’t know if Johnstown’s found its way, but it’s on a path,” said Dan Santoro, a sociology professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.
Santoro looks at the city’s massive hospital complex, the growing tourist industry and what many refer to as the pork-barrel economy — an array of defense-related industries lured in by powerful U.S. Rep. John Murtha — and he sees the backbone of a new diverse market.
The Democratic congressman’s efforts have brought defense contracts and government agencies to the region, but also scrutiny and criticism from those who question who is benefiting most from the jobs and work created and the value of some of the initiatives.
Santoro points to Murtha as part of a regional leadership that is helping the economy by dealing with the reality of a smaller Johnstown — down to 22,000 people from a high of 63,000 just 55 years ago.
In the 1950s, steel companies and mining employed thousands of people. Johnstown produced 2 million tons of steel annually and an additional 23 million tons of coal. Downtown was packed with department stores and restaurants.
But by the mid-1980s, when manufacturing collapsed, Johnstown and other small industry-dependent communities in the Rust Belt were destroyed and forgotten. Lacking the resources, political might and manpower of the bigger cities, these towns fought to attract new businesses while the unemployed left in a mass exodus.
The struggle to reinvent has had mixed results. Cities such as Lansing, Mich.; and Bethlehem, Pa., where outmigration is slowing and new businesses are opening, have done better than communities such as McKeesport, Pa.; Flint, Mich.; and Aliquippa, Pa., where drugs and crime have added to their economic woes.
Some towns razed their mills, filling the sites with unfulfilled dreams. Others, such as Johnstown, couldn’t afford to demolish their mills, and planners are seeking new taxpaying businesses to fill the eyesores.