More Homes to be Demolished

[jay]

Today I was a passenger in a car as we drove on East Florida between Market Street and South Avenue.  I was able to count 15 homes that were stripped out on that street alone. 

There is a need for thinning out some of the homes but there is no program to make that decision.    We do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which homes to remove.  If you leave a house vacant on most parts of the south side of Youngstown, it will be vandalized within weeks.  The houses in the worst shape are torn down first. 

The concept of neighborhood centered services could prevent a good neighborhood from additional decline.

[AllanY2525]

Demolishing old, broken down and vacant housing units will NOT single handedly
solve all of Youngstown's problems, but do the math:

Youngstown had about 175,000 people living within the city limits at its
peak.

Now it has about 82,000 people.  The city now has about twice the housing
stock that it needs and half of the population to fill all of these housing
units.  It only makes sense to "thin out" the housing stock and find other
uses for the land, like bigger home lots for new housing construction and
more parks and green spaces, etc.

I agree that  bad deeds done by bad people strip many of these beautiful
old vacant houses of their copper pipes, aluminum,  fireplace mantles, etc.
but with no one to own or care for these vacant homes, they will deteriorate
with or without the help of vandals and scavengers.  When this happens, they
need to be torn down for the benefit of the neighborhood around them.

The answer to bringing back Youngstown's  neighborhoods is a complicated
one that  requires lot different of things to happen, but down-sizing
the physical infrastructure of the city to meet its actual size in terms of
population is a MUST.  The city simply cannot support the current number of
buildings it has with only a small fraction of the taxpaying population it used
to have. 

[D.A.]

Jay Williams believes demolishing many more vacant structures will solve the problems of the city.  WAKE UP JAY!  The problems are the people who do the destruction and the neighborhood people who see it happen an do nothing.

The house in the photograph did not self destruct.  Actually the roof looks new.  The house was broken into by bad people.  The windows were removed by bad people.  The siding was stripped by bad people.

Most of the problems of the city are the result of the behavior of people.  Improve the quality of your citizens and you will improve your city.

[AllanY2525]

This is good news!  Youngstown needs to keep moving forward on
reducing the number of housing units to more closely match the
city's present day population.

Not to mention that these buildings pose a safety hazard to neighborhood
kids, and provide places for druggies, criminals, etc to hide out in.

[Rick Rowlands]

Thank God!!!  This is one type of structure that should be endangered.

[jay]

It was recently announced that the city of Youngstown has appropriated additional money for the demolition of dilapidated homes.  Structures like the one below may soon be gone from the city's landscape.