A Tale of Two Cities...
November 22, 2007

This Thanksgiving, Defend Youngstown takes a moment to reflect on our progress as a city and region at large.

We focus on a story The Vindicator published last week regarding this year's CQ Press Most Dangerous City Rankings which listed Youngstown as the 15th most-dangerous city, an improvement from last year's rank of ninth (in cities with populations of 75,00 to 99,999, Youngstown ranks fourth).

The story sparked some dynamic discussion on the Vindy.com message boards, a board most often recognized as a source for anything other than intelligent and civil dialogue regarding the local issues. Below are a few postings of note from the conversation:

posted by "To Ytown":
"...I too have stayed, for too long. On December 1, I will be resigning my residency here. The new house is ready, and not a moment too soon.

We've been hoping things would change. We have DONE everything in our power to ask the authorities to fix my neighborhood. Three years ago I went on a letter writing campaign. I contacted, by phone, email, and letter EVERYONE and ANYONE who I thought would help stop the further decline of my neighborhood. People would be shocked to know some of the people I've talked to and some of the things they told me. Let me just say this, the people we pay, with our tax dollars to run the city DO NOT BELIEVE THERE IS HOPE FOR YOUNGSTOWN. Several have told me that flat out. They go through the motions, but they do not believe this city will get any better.

One of the murders earlier this month was right down the road from me. Sunday morning, at about 2:30 am and then again at 5:00 am, I was awakened to rapid gunfire--a fully automatic.

This "random" shooting goes on very frequently. When you call the cops they say we'll get someone out there "when we can...we're really busy." No one ever comes. Ironically, several cops and sheriff deputies live in the immediate neighborhood. If I heard the shots, I know they heard the shots because of where their homes are. Everyone in my family was awakened and the kids were afraid. Hell, we all were, to be honest.

I don't think our street was plowed one time last winter. I used to live in Canton. When the snow is heavy there, you are not allowed to park on most streets, so that the plows can clean them. Everyone knew this, because signs were posted, and obeyed because they wanted their streets cleaned. Even in the years where the plow came down our street here in Youngstown, it couldn't even plow the street because of all the cars lining both sides. We don't even have signage like we should. The most basic things are beyond this city's scope of knowledge or ability. The street sweeper is a distant memory. The abandoned houses are multiplying like rabbits and of course the grass is uncut and the vandals have set in.

Law enforcement is a joke. I'm sorry. Not to belittle the good cops who really do care and really do try, but they are so few and far between in this city. It's an embarrassment. I know they read the comments posted here and a few people complained, myself included, that there are not signs indicating no loitering. So, to make good on "zero tolerance" they threw up some signs in a few areas. I had to laugh when I drove by one of the new "No Loitering" signs and saw a thug draped over it. LOL! I noticed across the street there was a cop parked in a parking lot, ignoring the thug draped over the sign. LOL. This was DURING zero tolerance when everything was supposed to be ticketed. Yeah, right. LOL.

Zoning and housing code laws mean NOTHING in this city. Absolutely nothing. If you call any of the lazy people downtown they seem shocked that you are actually calling them, asking them to do their jobs. ESPECIALLY the heath department and the housing codes department. Don't waste your time. They will lie to you, ignore you, refuse to return calls, and make up the most ridiculous excuses in the world as to why they can't do the job my taxes pay them to do.

I leave for work and come home in the dark. My husband actually meets me in the driveway with a baseball bat and walks me from the garage into the house for fear there's a stick up kid waiting in the shadows. He was thinking of buying a gun. Things have gone too far when you need an armed escort into your own house.

We have not used our yard or porch for over 10 years. There is a sex offender/pervert who lives behind me. He was molesting himself right in front of me. We called the cops. "We can't do anything unless we see it." My husband had a private conversation and the perv stopped. Over the years these people have had sofas, toilets, junk cars, teams of dogs, a festering pool, and other manners of filth and junk in that backyard. What a view! Calling the health department is like calling on the tooth fairy. Nice fantasy, but it just ain't so.

Twice when we were sitting on the porch, once with my newborn son at the time, people with guns ran through our backyard chasing each other. One time the cops was chasing one of them.

The good, decent neighbors around me are long gone. All that remains are trash. Slum lord tenants, dope users, petty dope dealers, car theft rings, dope mules, shoplifting rings, break in gangs, and a bunch of up and coming gangster thugs, passing themselves off as "children."

Their low-life parents let them run amok and actually laugh and encourage them to harass people, damage other people's property, steal, and disrespect adults. All the while laughing. I see it and shake my head because I know that in ten years time, that five year old will probably be dead.

I watch as the "mothers" lock the kids out of the house on cold mornings and even colder nights because their "boyfriends" are visiting. I've called CSB. After I noticed a pattern of this and a pattern of these kids setting fire to the grass and paper, playing in lightning storms, and throwing rocks at cars, I called. They are so overwhelmed they can't even get to complaints like mine.

So, where is the hope? When is a good thing dead? This city will never be like it was. My new home is clean, quiet, and NORMAL. Can't wait to get away from the gunshots and chaos that passes as normal in Youngstown."

response by "Generation Next":
"Large sections of the city are going to die-off and have to be eliminated. There is is no way around this fact. It's simply way too big of a city for the current infrastructure and resources to support. The city is build to accommodate a city population of 150,000+ and you have 83,000 living there...and they are spread all out. This saps an enormous amount of the limited resources we have to work with. The result is extreme frustration and hatred by individuals in parts of the city that have remained in those neighborhoods for years or even decades.

It began 30yrs ago when the mills closed. No one had the vision to 1.) begin to find ways to diversity the economy and 2.) accept that the city population was going to drastically drop and to start addressing the management of decline aggressively. In all fairness, many rust belt cities didn't. This is because political leaders and the public remained in denial. As a result, 30 yrs of urban blight was allowed to accumulate. More people left. Crime rose. Even more people leave. Tax base declines. Resources and personnel decline. Yet we try to accommodate a city about twice the size we can handle. This is why Youngstown 2010 was conceived. It is shrinking of the city and building upon existing strengths. Aggressive demolition. Targeting of neighborhoods that can be revitalized. Rebuilding of the urban core. Diversifying the economy in technology, higher education, medical, and advanced manufacturing.

Youngstown is a violent city and will remain that way for years to come. It's not an easy pill to swallow and there is no short term answer we can give to "Ytown" or "to Ytown". You can certainly be doing more with your law enforcement though - community oriented policing, implementation of surveillance technology in high crime neighborhoods, more aggressive and progressive citizen blockwatch activism, etc..all working together. Rebuilding Youngstown isn't going to be done in 5, 10, or even 15 years. We are working and fighting for the next generation.

The old Youngstown is dead. It must be reinvented. At present, it is absolutely tragic, but there are going to be many causalities in the transition as the old Youngstown dies off. This is the reality of many post-industrial, mid-size cities across the nation. Such is the consequence of a virtual do-nothing, corrupt city leadership and head-burying from the townships. Now we live in a global economy and we still fight. This is why we don't have time for fighting any longer. We need well-informed, visionary leadership throughout the Valley willing to work together."

response by "Wood Street Refugee":
"One thing to consider is that the study looks at actual cities versus Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The rate of violence in a particular city is in many ways an accident of geography or old city planning. The "criminal" cities tend to be the traditional city centers of older, fragmented metropolitan areas. As in the other places, Youngstown was founded well before cars. It is a physically compact area when you consider the population of the Mahoning Valley. Because many of the MV's thugs live there, Youngstown rates as an ultra-violent place. Yet the Mahoning Valley itself is not particularly violent in comparison to other places.

Contrast that to San Diego, which is a massive city of over 2 million people, maybe 40 miles North to South, 20 miles East to West. In there are truly scary neighborhoods, like 37th Street. This neighborhood is run by a gang that carries out assassinations for the Arellano-Felix Cartel of Tijuana (they shot a presidential candidate to death in 1994, several journalists, the police chief, a cardinal of the Catholic Church in 1993, and are suspected in massacres of up to 20 people at a time). These guys are so violent they make Youngstown gangs look like the Sharks and Jets from West Side Story. Yet because the violence of this gang is "diluted" by the relatively normal population of San Diego, SD rates rather low on the list. If San Diego were an "old" Eastern city, it would probably consist of 10-40 separate cities, townships and municipalities, several of which would be scary, most of which would be fine.

You can see this pattern in several places....NORTH Charleston, South Carolina is violent...small part of the overall area, Ironically, Compton, one relatively small area in the 15 million of the LA basin we have all heard of, is 42 miles from Mission Viejo, the safest city in America. That is closer than the distance from the top edge of San Diego (San Marcos) to its bottom edge (San Ysidro). It's all an accident of where the city and county boundaries were drawn.

All I'm trying to say, is take this latest report with a grain of salt. The City of Youngstown is definitely not the kind of city most people would choose to live in. Yet overall, the Mahoning Valley isn't that bad. Is there work to do to move the area forward? YES!!!! Are people leaving? Sure! (I did). But is it all gloom and doom? NO!!!! People are trying to make a difference. Maybe someone can "save" or "solve" the Youngstown problem. My bet is that individual people making individual positive choices and doing what they can to better themselves will keep the MV going during these rough times and make the area the kind of place people will choose to live in."

The conservation highlights the complex state Youngstown finds itself in during its fight for renewal in a post-industrial, global economy. It shows the front line tragedies that many good citizens who have lived and worked their entire lives in this city now face (as the "old Youngstown dies off", as stated above) and it also points to the necessities that citizens dedicated to the fight for the future understand.

This Thanksgiving, let us be thankful for those who are wise enough to recognize the balance and importance of the two, yet remain committed to the fight for advancement so that one day a future generation may never have to understand the context of the battles we face at present... and the often difficult realities that come with it.

Here are to the defenders of Youngstown on this Thanksgiving Day.

Actual Release w/ full listing: "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America"

The Glass Jungle (Toledo) Blog says: take with a grain of salt:
Glass Jungle: "Crime rankings, useful or irresponsible?"

Lastly, Defend Youngstown would like to give The Vindicator a Thanksgiving punch for a subtle yet detrimental statement made in today's (Thanksgiving edition) paper.

In their front page "Thanksgiving Chatter" article which lists several local issues for family members to discuss at the dinner table (which, to their credit, was a smart idea), the following statement was made under the piece "That Pavlik guy, he's gotta be thankful":

"In short, (Pavlik is) a fun fighter who gives Youngstown a reason to be proud, something that's in short supply these days."

We contest. Defend Youngstown alone could supply you with slightly over 10,000 folks who would disagree. I suppose the following list of recent accomplishments do not qualify as "reasons to be proud" according to The Vindicator:

Besides the success of world middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik....

- National and international recognition of the Youngstown 2010 plan;
- The beginning of revitalization of the Wick Park district by citizens and non-profits;
- The appointment of our area congressman to the powerful Appropriations Committee and the securing of $10.5 million in his first appropriations bill for technology, medical, and advanced manufacturing initiatives;
- Establishment of one of the first STEM Colleges in the United States and the creation of the Center for Excellence in Industrial Metrology and 3D Imaging Research (one of only 14 in the nation and managed by Youngstown's M7 Technologies);
- The ongoing revival of the city's downtown (reopening and makeover of Federal St. and Spring Commons Bridge - over 10 new bars and restaurants - soon-to-be creation of high end apartments and condominiums as well as YSU student housing);
- Creation of a $250 million progressive urban living community in Smoky Hollow;
- Demolition of a long-time, high-crime project living area (Westlake Terrace) and replacement with Hope 6 community "Arlington Heights";
- Over $2 million allocation for aggressive demolition throughout city (hundreds upon hundreds of residential structures demolished in last 2 years);
- The creation of professional hockey (Steelhounds) and arena football (Thunder) teams;
- Examination of both county government structuring as well school consolidation in the 3 county area;
- Examination of free college tuition initiative for all public school graduates in Mahoning, Trumbull, and Columbiana counties (Youngstown City Schools examining their own free tuition initiative);
- Expansion of Youngstown State University toward the downtown with creation of a $30 million business college in said area;
- 2 state football titles (Cardinal Mooney) with possibly 2 more next week (Ursuline and Mooney...first time in Valley history Youngstown area would have 2 in one season);
- Election of an Independent (first in 70+ years), 34 yr old (youngest), African-American (1st) Mayor;
- And this Mayor being the recipient of the prestigious National Frontier Award (rather than an indictment);
- Restoration of the YSU football team to national prominence;
- Soon-to-be first ever community college for the Valley;
- Discussion of regional cooperation and consolidation of services (ex. 911);
- Having the #1 ranked Business Incubator in the state of Ohio;
- Rapid growth of the Technology front in the downtown area (ex. construction of Taft Technology Center and razing of the Wells and Semple buildings) bringing with it hundreds of well paying jobs with average employee age at 26yrs;
- Being home to the #1 fastest growing small business software company in the nation (Turning Technologies);
- Establishment of the state-of-the-art Chevrolet Center and the birth of the DeYor Center;
- YSU enrollment reaching nearly 10yr high;
- Finally, the rise of young, intelligent, and passionate citizens organizing to ensure the proper advancement of the city for years to come.

None of the above could have been listed 5 yrs ago.

Perhaps the Vindy's statement was cut from a 1982 article when Mancini won the title? Or perhaps it's just irresponsible journalism, particularly when you have family members returning to the Valley from all over the nation and today's paper is one of the few annual editions of The Vindicator they may happen to pick up and read. Nice.

Everyone knows the problems that the Valley faces and has faced. It isn't about placing a positive spin on issues but it also shouldn't be about issuing a negative, generalized, and assumed accepted opinion by our media on behalf of our community, one of which a number of Valley residents would strongly disagree with.

Do we have severe challenges we must meet and defeat that hinder our ability to advance the city (and the region) properly? Without question. However, are there many recent accomplishments that we can and should be proud of? Without question. Building on those accomplishments are how we are going to help alleviate the problems of the present in future chapters of the city's story.

Here's a suggestion, editor: Report the news on the front page. Save the casual opinions
of your staff writers for the proper areas designated for such commentary or keep them to yourself. Either will suffice.

But being that it's Thanksgiving and all....we forgive ya.

Happy Thanksgiving, Youngstown Nation

DEFEND YOUNGSTOWN