The incredible shrinking city

Youngstown, Ohio, has long been on the decline and now is being hit by the foreclosure crisis. Its answer: Razing abandoned buildings and tearing up streets.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (CNNMoney.com) — Youngstown, Ohio, has seen its population shrink by more than half over the past 40 years, leaving behind huge swaths of empty homes, streets and neighborhoods.

Now, in a radical move, the city – which has suffered since the steel industry left town and jobs dried up – is bulldozing abandoned buildings, tearing up blighted streets and converting entire blocks into open green spaces. More than 1,000 structures have been demolished so far.


Under the initiative, dubbed Plan 2010, city officials are also monitoring thinly-populated blocks. When only one or two occupied homes remain, the city offers incentives – up to $50,000 in grants – for those home owners to move, so that the entire area can be razed. The city will save by cutting back on services like garbage pick-ups and street lighting in deserted areas.

“When I grew up in the 1950s, the city was at its peak,” said Father Ed Noga, who heads St. Patrick’s on Youngstown’s South Side. “There were kids everywhere and everyone converged on downtown. You went to eat, to shop and to go to the movies.”

Today, downtown is positively sleepy and even somewhat derelict. Residents have to drive out of town to shop for clothes or housewares. And while foreclosures have long been a scourge in this city, they have recently skyrocketed along with the rest of the country, up 178% in February from a year ago.

“Abandoned houses here are like rainfall in the spring,” said Mayor Jay Williams, “That has gone on for decades.”

CNNMoney.com