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Interesting story (none / 0) (#21)
by AlfredMoisiu on Mon Apr 21, 2008 at 08:03:20 PM EST
The decaying Midwest city is a different animal than old cities like Albany. Places like Youngstown were all about the middle class -- hardworking skilled laborers in big industry. The jobs and people went south and west, leaving a vacuum.

Here it's different, as you have lots of poor people who need a place to go. You also have lots of delusional people who'll fight the razing of any derilict building.

I think in the long run, Albany needs to look into the benefit from the Youngstown/Detroit approach. We probably need some sort of way to allow business to utilize abandoned commercial and industrial buildings without taking on the liability brownfields.

The real key to the Youngstown approach isn't the bulldozer -- it's reducing services. They're ripping up streets and shutting off sewers. Albany needs to close schools, liquidate the IDA, reduce the public safety headcount and consolidate other functions with other municipal governments.

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