"Youngstown Depopulation King"

[Rick Rowlands]

The best communities are not created by master plans and government programs, but by individuals all working on their own to create their own futures the best they can.  vibrant communities, like jobs, can never be the focus of efforts.  They are the side effect of people striving to improve their lot in life and seeking to earn profit. 

The pursuit of profit truly is the best thing to ever happen to humanity.

[Towntalk]

We could go all the way back to the old Model Cities program where most of this business started, but I doubt that many of you remember that program that went back to the 1980's.

We can move forward to the Ecumenical Coalition ... most seem to think that it related to the death of the steel industry, and indeed it did, but it also had it's city component on how we as a city can meet the challenges presented with the loss of a major industry.

Since then, a number of "citizens committees" were formed ... they each generated their plans, and the most infamous was turning Federal Street into a pedestrian plaza, and what happened? What retail stores that were there left the downtown area and Federal Street became a vast wasteland of empty buildings.

Since then a number of groups have formed centering around the downtown area to try to bring it back to live, and without question, step by faltering step they succeeded ... the plaza was torn out, and a number of restaurants and a sprinkling of retail businesses opened up, most with taxpayer dollars as seed money, and now today the private sector is adding their efforts ... three high-rise up market apartment buildings ... two high tech companies ... an arena ... additions to Powers Auditorium ... and the prospect of a hotel.

Then came shale ... with the prospects of a major shot in the arm ... again, the private sector at work, and while it remains to be seen just precisely what it will do for Youngstown remains to be seen, so we as a people must approach this endeavor carefully and thoughtfully as we think about who we want to place in charge of the city, for we can not afford to vote for leaders simply because they are new faces.

One wrong step could set us back permanently, for there are too many other communities contesting for the brass ring.

The question is, do we have the will to do whatever it takes to get the job done?

No one is going to give us prosperity out of the goodness of their heart. It's every community for itself and you can be sure that the other towns and cities in the valley are going to do whatever it takes to keep Youngstown from getting anything, and when it come down to prosperity there is no room for Mr. Nice Guy co-operation. It just doesn't work that way.

To some this may sound harsh, and it is because the real world is harsh, leaving no room for the weak. For me, it's a matter of survival for Youngstown, and there is no middle ground ... no compromise ... nothing.

[Towntalk]

The sad fact of life is that there are those who must perpetually cling to a security blanket, whether it's a real blanket, or the 2010 Plan. I've been around long enough to know that "plans" are a dime a dozen, and most are little more than make work exercises that go unread for the most part. Shoot, there are companies and quasi governmental agencies that spend their every waking hour devising new plans, and I suspect that if you were to go down to city hall's CDA, you'd find dozens of these plans sitting on their on bookshelf's collecting dust.

Certainly planning is important, no one denies that, but when it comes to a city, it's foolish to hand our hats on a single plan for the very simple reason that as I've pointed out, circumstances change that were not previously perceived, and the planners have to go back to the drawing board, and come up with a new plan to fit the changing circumstances.

[Youngstownshrimp]

Williams and D'Avignon's IMO understanding of Youngstown 2010 was, "hey Youngstown is not growing so let's depopulate in an organized manner."  They couldn't even do that right.

[Towntalk]

There is no question that our population has declined ... shrinking population ... but our land area hasn't, it's the same size that it was in 1950, and the only way that we can change that it to annex Youngstown land to Boardman, Austintown, Campbell and Liberty, and that isn't going to happen in our lifetime.

Is the grand 2010 Plan to depopulate the city, no, and any way, it can not legally do it, but it is simply to acknowledge that our population today has shrunk to the point where many of the services we had as a city of 150,000 is no longer sustainable, and that on all four sides of town we have a large number of vacant lots with no present prospect of new homes being built.

When the 2010 Plan was crafted there were few prospects for new opportunities in Youngstown ... businesses were not rushing to set up shop here ... people were moving not just out of the city, but out of the state as well, but things unforeseen in the 2010 Plan started to happen ... things that were no created by the 2010 folks but came through the private sector. Land that was once worthless has gained value ... new companies engaged in high technology came our way ... not in large numbers to be sure, and not offering thousands of jobs but companies that will encourage other businesses to take a second look at us.

The 2010 Plan was never intended to be the final plan for Youngstown to be implemented permanently ... circumstances change, and with change new plans have to be devised to meet those changing circumstances.

For example, along Wick Avenue near the University why not develop a High Tech Belt where such companies would locate and have the advantages offered by the University? There is plenty of space there and we have the access to the Expressway in both directions.

[jay]

Isn't the shrinking of the city's population a manifestation of the Youngstown 2010 Plan?

[Youngstownshrimp]

TT, no better analogy than what you write here.
Unfortunately, the left bent community organizers thrive and exist on the demise, this is their calling card.  Go to the hood and preach salvation and they will come.
Fortunately, they see the handwriting on the wall , that the energy high information population is coming abeit to the suburbs as residences, but Youngstown is the center and will ultimately be invested in.  Depopulation will result in migration of low information types into the suburbs for a resupply of housing since the housing stock in Youngstown is obsolute and ill maintained. The older suburbs will become the new ghetto and depopulated parts of Youngstown will see rapid investment.
I am beginning to see a shift from left nonprofits to conservative free enterprise.  This is good and will result in expulsion of the occupier types.

[Towntalk]

Tie a rope to the back bumper of two cars then have the drivers drive their cars in opposite directions, and what happen? Either eventually the rope will snap, or the bumper of one of the cars will pull off the car. Get two opposing groups groups pulling the city in opposite directions refusing to bend, and what happens? Nothing gets done ... nothing is accomplished, and the decay expands.

As everyone here already knows, one of my passions is the history of Youngstown ... both it's good, bad, and ugly, so it's not that I have, or ever will throw in the towel, but, as a resident of this city, since 1950, I've seen many groups come and go who profess to have all the answers to our future with nothing to show for their efforts.

I have no illusions of the city returning to its former glory, but by the same token, we are being handed an unique opportunity in two areas that could very well stop our decline ... technology and shale oil ... and while neither of these opportunities see our streets repaved in gold, they will open up opportunities for new jobs for our people.

[iwasthere]

as i said it before it takes more then one organization, more then one horrific event, more then one conservative and liberal group to tear down, dismantle a civilization, political grp, town, city and village. there are people that i agree and disagree but we are determine to bring ytown back from its ashes to a new Phoenix. tt and ytownshrimp this report should energized the pro ytown voices from all sides. what happens when you turn your frown upside down to upside right?

[Towntalk]

Personally, I doubt seriously that many people ... even people with a reasonable educational background will understand the anger that some of us feel as we watch Youngstown sink into the ashheap of history, so no amount of ranting on my part will help one way or the other than to vent my spleen.

Youngstown for more years than anyone of us, including myself can remember, Youngstown has had a bad reputation ... in fact, it goes all the way back to as early as 1900, but it's bad reputation aside, Youngstown grew to be a world class steel city rolling in wealth, because a handfull of men didn't allow that bad reputation to stop them.

Today, as others have already pointed out better than myself, a handfull of men and women are doing everything they can to tear this city down ... to destroy every natural instinct in people that would otherwise drive us forward to a better day, and the sad part about it is also the fact that there are many do nothing lay abouts that sing their praise and see themas the great saviours of the city, when in fact that on their own, they do not have a pot to do their business in, and have to get their funding from fools willing to donate time and money, with no hope of any valuable return on their investment. What sad fools they are.

Well, hopefully we are seeing a turn around that they have no investment in ...a turn around that can leave them in the dust, but it's going to take a long time to undo that these people have done to this once proud city.

[Youngstownshrimp]

I wanted to write about this sooner when the award just came out, but was too busy planning my escape from Youngstown.
Pisses me of when facts come out about Youngstown being in the top five of depopulating cities in the country;  and then a coomunity organizer comes out blaming the suburban sprawl and county resources spent expanding outward.
Here's a reality shout out to Phil Kidd: It's the woman who is shot out from under her baby on her porch that is driving decent people out of Youngstown.  It is the LOW information of Youngstown's people and leaders that is making people run from Youngstown.  It is the nonprofits that sing a good song while producing nothing that is driving the brain drain.
And we pay the liberal bent to come up with these stupid excuses why rust belt cities depopulate, I'm leaving too.