Friday, July 22, 2016
Take a drive down South Avenue and some of its adjacent neighborhoods in the city of Youngstown, and you might be a bit surprised at what you see: a marked thinning of blight.
Fewer abandoned and decrepit commercial buildings such as Krakusy Hall and the Brown Derby restaurant, scar the commercial corridor. Fewer dilapidated and unsafe homes mar neighborhood aesthetics, and pleasant green space and robust urban gardens have taken firm root.
But what you’re actually viewing in that corridor and others like it throughout our incredible shrinking city is the potent power of partnerships.
To be sure, enhancing the visual appeal of the city and cultivating the urban terrain for long-term residential and commercial improvement have gained momentum in recent months and years. That’s thanks in large part to the increasingly cohesive and adequately funded network of groups and individuals working with city and state leaders to make a visible dent in the wide swath of urban blight.
And though incredibly much more work remains, even the most doubting Thomases cannot deny many striking improvements.
MOMENTUM GAINS STEAM
Thanks to a $6.9 million grant to the Mahoning County Land Bank to be used to demolish an additional 450 run-down homes mostly in Youngstown, that momentum should gain additional steam over the coming months and years. Similar success is evident in Trumbull County, which was awarded $6.5 million through the same grant program this summer.
“We’ve accomplished a lot as a region, and because of that, we’re receiving additional money,” said Debora Flora, executive director of the Mahoning land bank.
Dollars for that highly competitive grant program come via Ohio’s Neighborhood Initiative Program with cash funneled from the U.S. Hardest Hit Fund program. That fund aims to reverse property-value declines and lessen future foreclosures in cities hard hit by vacant and blighted homes.
The proof of the Mahoning Valley’s stellar performance in putting to productive use 2014 dollars from the program is evident in a comparison of this year’s awards. Mahoning and Trumbull counties received significantly larger awards than significantly larger Summit and Stark counties. In addition, the Mahoning land bank garnered a $500,000 performance bonus last November.
The land bank and its vital partners, including the city, the county, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., and other public and private entities cannot let that new funding go to waste. We’re confident they won’t.
Despite noticeable improvements in the city’s urban landscape, blight remains the rule – not the exception – in many residential and commercial sectors of the city. After all, much of the decay results from a network of infrastructure designed to support a city of 200,000 people that has now shrunk to less than one-third that size.
Meeting that challenge can continue to succeed through cohesive partnerships and creative game plans designed to get the biggest bang for each buck.
One example of such creativity comes from Youngstown. City leaders recently restructured water and sewer rates to create an annual fund of an estimated $2.6 million to be used to demolish about 250 additional vacant structures annually.
In addition, the land bank, YNDC and others have recruited hands-on support from a variety others committed to the cause. For example, volunteers from the Youngstown Air Reserve Station’s 910th Airlift Wing recently worked tirelessly to demolish 88 blighted homes in the city. Other volunteers from Americorps, United Way and similar service groups have chipped in as well.
Collectively, those and other efforts are making a difference and are gaining notice beyond the confines of the city limits. This month’s issue of the internationally circulated Atlantic magazine, for example, puts a decidedly positive focus on Youngstown as a model for cleaning up and revitalizing other shrinking cities in the U.S.
The vast array of groups and individuals responsible for that success cannot, however, rest on their laurels. More work, more recruits and more creative strategies must be mustered to keep at bay the insipid enemy of urban decay.