Absentee landlords are not a good thing, but at least somebody is buying these homes up as opposed to taxpayer-funded demolitions and shrinking city models. They are fixing these places up in Toledo. They would likely have been demolished or burnt down otherwise. From that Blade article on the overseas investors:

 

Jeff Bockrath of Re/Max Preferred Associates said he is working with clients overseas who have found opportunity in Toledo.

 

“I'm working with two people [in Europe] right now who are looking for homes that they can buy for $10,000 or $15,000, that they can put another $10,000 or $15,000 into to fix them up,” he said.

 

“Our rental market is still pretty good. For what you can buy in Toledo and rent out, it's still pretty positive and a pretty good cash flow.”

 

$15k in repairs is not chump change. We're starting to see a lot of homes saved by these Europeans and Australians. This is the better option in the Rust Belt than the shrinking city model. Think of it this way: we can tear down all of these abandoned homes and reduce population, or we can sell them cheap to overseas investors who will repair them, rent them, and help maintain more population. So far, there is evidence in the city's slums that these renovations are legit. I'll choose that over a forest or farm field in the city. There are other options. Toledo seems to have found one. Man, I wish I had enough money to buy one of these homes! That is easy cash flow. I know a guy who is doing this, and he's making a killing compared to his day job (broadcast news). Any Toledoan with 20k in savings should be looking at this as an historic opportunity.

 

So the solution to this shrinking city problem is not a great one. The Rust Belt is between a rock and a hard place. We can tear out huge swaths of our cities or we can sell our cities to people in other countries.

Youngstown, Detroit, and Flint are the 3 big news-makers with regard to the shrinking cities concept.  I haven't read any instances where eminent domain was used or considered.  The Detroit article posted earlier in this thread mentioned that eminent domain can't be used, and it hasn't been (and probably won't be) used in Youngstown.  Everything I've read so far would indicate that people who have chosen not to move, even when offered incentives to do so, are left alone.

 

From this article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/03/15/134432054/a-shrinking-city-knocks-down-neighborhoods

So Youngstown has been offering financial help for those people left behind, offering to move them to a place with more neighbors.

 

"The theory is streets could be closed," D'Avignon says. "Trash wouldn't have to be picked up in that area."

 

That would save the city a lot of money. But nearly everyone responded to the offer to move the way Dolores Marie did:

 

I said I had six kids I raised here. And I said another thing, I got grandkids that's coming up. I been here. I don't feel right moving in any other neighborhood. I want to be here.

 

 

 

I don't think foreign investors make up a large enough market to make much of a difference in the bigger picture.  In Youngstown, non-local investors are doing more to destabilize good neighborhoods, (by becoming slum lords, or doing nothing at all) than fixing up condemned houses in bad neighborhoods.

 

 

 

If Youngstown really followed through with its plan to shrink the city, the few stragglers from the neighborhoods that are already 75% decimated, would move to other intact neighborhoods; helping to stabilize them.  Instead, neighborhoods like mine, that are still mostly intact, still lose houses to neglect and arson, because they remain vacant.

I think what we need are some good hard vacancy rate numbers and also total housing unit numbers for Rust Belt cities. I'd like to see the trend over the past decade. I suspect we already are dramatically shrunken cities. Did any Rust Belt cities in 2010 have more housing units than they did in 2000?

 

It seems like demolitions programs are speeding up, not slowing down. I don't think we need to go any further than that until the sprawl stops (if that stops, then the whole metro is probably going down since sprawl still has huge appeal in Ohio). Tearing out roads and sewers is pretty dramatic and expensive stuff. Before cities approve these plans, they need to look hard at cost-benefit analysis. It could just be a lot of wasted tax dollars, similar to tearing down schools in the city while building new ones elsewhere. I still contend utilities are a mixed bag because while you reduce the city's infrastructure, the suburban infrastructure expands, and it cost more to deliver that far from the core. Regionally, costs will remain high, maybe even increase.

 

  Think about this problem from the point of view of the local utilities. Suppose you have a water main break, so you go out and fix it. Then it breaks again, and you fix it. Then again. Then you decide that it's really better to just replace the whole main with a new one.

 

    The old water main is the original one for the street, which was built in 1910. So, your water main is 101 years old. All of the houses on the street were built between 1910 and 1915. The gas main and the sewer date from the same year. All of the original infrastructure as well as the houses were built by a developer, and the city took over the infrastructure for maintenance. But here's the catch:

 

    Of the 35 original houses on the street, 15 have been torn down, 10 are abandoned, 5 are well maintained but vacant, and 5 are occupied.

 

    The estimated cost of replaceing the water main is $350,000. You look up the assessed value of all the properties from the county auditor, and the sum is $250,000. Thus, it will be cheaper to buy the property than to replace the water main.

 

    You certainly will not gain enough money from the customer rates to replace the water main. You only have 5 paying customers on a water main designed for 35!

 

    Sure, the "ideal" solution is to redevelop all the lots, increase property taxes, and take in more user fees. But this simply isn't happening. In fact, it's getting worse. There are 100 more streets like this one. Your revenues are declining every year - there is no realistic hope that things will get better next year. What do you do?

 

   

The nytimes census maps have change in occupied/vacant units. It really is no surprise to me that even as neighborhoods revitalize they still lose population. A shrinking city could inevitably be a big decrease in population but a decrease in vacant units. Look at Tremont/Ohio City. Homes that once housed families of 6+ have been fixed up to "cool" units that might occupy just one recent college grad or a hip young couple. Replace a block with 5 homes - (2 that are empty, 3 with a family of 4) and then gentrify the neighborhood. Now that block might have 8 people and no vacant homes, looks way better than before, but the population still decreased 33%. Was that a success?

 

 

Good points, Eighth and State, but what are the costs of all the suburban water mains we keep building? What are the densities like on those lines? I really think Ohio should be looking at urban growth boundaries. I know people in this state hate that, but it seems like that's a more long-term solution. Sprawl will continue to kill us if we tear out the cities. In our service areas, people are subsidizing increased utility distance and decreased density on the utility system. So we save a little money on that aging street by avoiding replacement, but then we spend even more money in suburbia, and eventually the same thing will happen out there (like we're seeing with our inner ring depopulation). The shrinking city model doesn't do much to fix the big picture. It's a band-aid approach to a much bigger problem that nobody in this state has the balls to tackle since it's political suicide.

 

  Many private and public utilities have a policy that lets develpers build new utilities on new streets or commercial sites, and the utility will maintain them. So, a new utility costs nothing in capital costs to the utility.

 

    What happens is 100 years later, the pipe in the ground has degraded to the point where it needs to be replaced, and the utility is stuck with the bill. The original development may or may not still be around at that time. Ohio cities have an awful lot of infrastructure built before 1920 that is still in service.

 

    Yes, the logical thing to do is first stop building new infrastructure in greenfields, and renew what we already have instead, but that's not what's happening. Developers don't really make any money rebuilding what was already there. They make money developing greenfields. Why this happens is the subject of another topic, but it is the heart of the sprawl concept. Ohio's population is barely growing, but our cities are losing population. It is conceivable that if developers were not adding new infrastructure in sprawl areas, our central cities would be stable instead of declining.

 

   

Things change. I've seen plenty of 10k sales in the slums turn into $300 a month rentals. That's what people in the Rust Belt want and need. Look, we're talking going from $20 an hour to $10 an hour. The market isn't there in mass for ornate urban homes, fancy lofts, or badass rowhousing.

 

Yes, good point.  I agree you will see these vacancies come back as rentals.  I recall reading that rental housing was more common back in the old days (before the 1920s), even if the houses themselves were built as single-family units.

 

But that will be just some of the housing, since the premise of the shrinking city concept (which came from Germany, not the USA)  is that population itself will be declining.  Right now its due to out-migration.  Later we will be experiencing what Germany is, and this is a demographic transition to where the population itself is declining (deaths exceeding births), which will lead ultimatly lead to reduced number of households as we move into this era of declining population.  In Ohio's case this decline will be excaberated by the outmigration of young adults, who are the ones to form families and have kids.

 

There's also the sprawl issue, but I dont see how you are going to get around that.  It seems this is too locked-in to how we operate, in terms of crosssing powerful political interest groups and issues of intefering with property rights arising from mandatory growth control.

 

Urban growth boundaries are politically infeasible, whereas shrinking cities is a real phenomenon in many Rust Belt cities and needs to be dealt with one way or another.  Moreover, I am not so sanguine about the perceived benefits of urban growth boundaries.  Would such boundaries for Toledo or Youngstown or Dayton really force developers to concentrate on the inner cities, or would they simply leave those metro areas entirely?  The market will only tolerate being forced into a box up to a point.  People will find exit options if the local government limits local options only to options that locals find intolerable.

 

I second the concerns others have raised in this thread about absentee landlords, and that applies whether the landlords are in Australia, Europe, or even simply out in the suburban ring of the same city.  Absentee landlords in Columbus might be located in Dublin, but in practical terms, they're no less absentee than the ones from foreign countries.  (In practice, one thing that really makes a difference in either case is whether the absentee owner hires a decent local manager to handle routine maintenance.  Of course, that increases rents, but it makes an enormous difference over time--if the guy in Germany has a guy in Merion Village that goes around to his different properties in south and southwest Columbus and does routine maintenance, then it really doesn't matter that the titled owner of the property is in Germany.  That guy could sell even sell the Columbus houses to the guy in Australia and the tenants might never even know, if the manager stayed the same.)  In the really bad neighborhoods, though, the absentee landlords often take very little interest in the condition of their properties at all.

 

Of course, even that much assumes that there's at least someone renting the property.  In many of these cities, there isn't going to be enough investor interest to bring entire neighborhoods back even as ultra-low-rent rentals.

 

Also, you don't want the cities to gain the stigma of being the place where all the $10/hr college graduates with no real-world skills end up, while anyone who's actually successful is basically expected to move out to the suburbs.  That almost institutionalizes white-collar flight.

well as long as your not sanguine...

Also, you don't want the cities to gain the stigma of being the place where all the $10/hr college graduates with no real-world skills end up, while anyone who's actually successful is basically expected to move out to the suburbs.  That almost institutionalizes white-collar flight.

 

Agreed, but I think the stigma might already be there. And $10 an hour for those generic college grads without any experience is good. They're lucky to get any job at all without experience. If we can retain some of them with cheap housing/low rent, that's better than losing all of them.

 

Urban growth boundaries are politically infeasible, whereas shrinking cities is a real phenomenon in many Rust Belt cities and needs to be dealt with one way or another.  Moreover, I am not so sanguine about the perceived benefits of urban growth boundaries.  Would such boundaries for Toledo or Youngstown or Dayton really force developers to concentrate on the inner cities, or would they simply leave those metro areas entirely?  The market will only tolerate being forced into a box up to a point.  People will find exit options if the local government limits local options only to options that locals find intolerable.

 

Fair point. Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Dayton are not the same as Portland or Lexington. Hell, I guess the answer is economic boom in the city limits. But I still think regional government could help. The extreme fragmentation of city versus suburb is doing nothing to help the cities.

Fair point. Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Dayton are not the same as Portland or Lexington. Hell, I guess the answer is economic boom in the city limits. But I still think regional government could help. The extreme fragmentation of city versus suburb is doing nothing to help the cities.

 

Regional government and urban growth boundaries are different things.

 

The former would join Akron with Fairlawn, Bath Township, Cuyahoga Falls, Stow, Silver Lake, Tallmadge, Mogadore, Green, Uniontown, Barberton, etc.  Depending on the form and how it came about, I could get on board with that (we have a separate regionalism discussion thread--or more than one--already active for that topic, since it's definitely a significant one for many UO forumites).

 

The latter would put a hard limit on the growth of the combined entity.  Or the separate entities, since it could theoretically be imposed without consolidation.

^I would argue urban growth boundaries make a lot more sense in the Rust Belt than anywhere else since the metro areas are cannibalizing themselves (Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo, Flint, Dayton, Youngstown, etc.). The argument about inflated housing prices is a fair one to make, but probably only in ultra-desirable places like San Francisco and Portland. Ohio is nothing like the Pacific coast and never will be, especially since we're killing streetcars like nobody's business.

 

Also, after looking at Detroit's plans, at least there is a reason to the madness. Only half the city is going to end up destroyed, while the other sections are proposed to remain contiguous and built-up. A lot of the other cities using the shrinking city model are more piecemeal with big gaps between areas. Detroit is at least trying to maintain contiguous urbanity into the the suburbs along key corridors. It could end up a T-shaped city. Detroit is concentrating on Woodward, and then Downtown and the riverfront. That makes sense since those are the best parts of the city with the most potential for revival. For all of Detroit's problems, it still holds a trump card over most of the Rust Belt. Detroit has one of the prettiest rivers in America and it's still a major route for commercial shipping. Yeah, the city has gone to hell, but all the while, they've been doing a wonderful job increasing public access to the water, and they sound serious about light rail. Detroit is a mixed bag, but there is still some hope (big and beautiful river, vital American architecture downtown, New Center, Midtown, etc.).

 

I much more worried about the smaller cities in the Rust Belt.

I'm not too familiar with urban growth boundaries.  How would you implement something like this in a place like Youngstown?  Not only would you have to deal with county and state boundaries, but too many of the surrounding communities still see new housing construction as a major form of economic development.

Urban "Growth" Boundaries isn't the best way to describe it... sounds like growth itself is being limited, and that's surely not the idea... Urban Sprawl Boundaries sounds more accurate and more palatable.

I'm not too familiar with urban growth boundaries.  How would you implement something like this in a place like Youngstown?  Not only would you have to deal with county and state boundaries, but too many of the surrounding communities still see new housing construction as a major form of economic development.

 

I think it's pretty clear UGBs are a total non-starter in Ohio.  Really hard to imagine the state ever passing legislation requiring local jurisdictions to cede significant land use regulation authority to regional powers.  The white house is more sympathetic to the cause, but under current political conditions, highly unlikely it would seek to impose UGB-like demands as conditions to federal funding.

Yes, UGB's are a non-starter in Ohio due to the state's fetish for sprawl. All I'm saying is that they make more sense here than they do in San Francisco or Portland since we have shrinking cities. It will help us consolidate our land use into a contiguous, coherent area. We need to do this if we're going to shrink effectively. It's a hell of a lot better than expanding infrastructure to promote sprawl while draining the core cities. Let's shrink the right way, not the wrong way. Most of what we've seen so far with the shrinking city plan is shrinking the wrong way. Detroit has a mix of wrong and right, but the lean is towards wrong since sprawl continues to expand in its outer counties.

I'm a little late to the game, but I have a few comments...

 

A shrinking city could inevitably be a big decrease in population but a decrease in vacant units. Look at Tremont/Ohio City. Homes that once housed families of 6+ have been fixed up to "cool" units that might occupy just one recent college grad or a hip young couple. Replace a block with 5 homes - (2 that are empty, 3 with a family of 4) and then gentrify the neighborhood.

 

I have no ready source, but I do remember reading that Cleveland and other rust belt cities suffered from a severe overcrowding problem in the first half of the 20th century, when the average home was occupied by 8 or more residents. Much of the "abandonment" that happened between 1950-2000 was the shrinkage of the household size, not the vacation of buildings. (The foreclosure crisis is more to blame for inner-city abandonment than population shrinkage, IMO). So it's important to look at our infrastructure in terms of property values and taxes instead of raw population numbers which can be quite misleading. The purchasing power of an average American is far greater than it was in 1920, allowing homes that once housed extended families to be occupied by a single resident or couple.

 

I recall reading that rental housing was more common back in the old days (before the 1920s), even if the houses themselves were built as single-family units.

 

It had to be. Before Fannie Mae was created in 1938, the most common mortgage was a 50% down payment, 5-year term with a balloon payment at the end. Essentially a homeowner had to seek refinancing every five years, which was one of the chief causes of the Great Depression--the housing credit party ran dry in 1929, just like it did in 2007. Large suburbs of Cleveland as well as the entire city of Miami were built thanks to easy credit and a home construction craze that ended exactly as it did 3 years ago.

 

Would such boundaries for Toledo or Youngstown or Dayton really force developers to concentrate on the inner cities, or would they simply leave those metro areas entirely? 

 

What happened in Lexington was that the "cheaper" and more intensive (industrial) developement spun off to surrounding county seat towns (Nicholasville, Georgetown, Winchester), and the developed that did happen in Lexinvton was still "suburban", but higher density suburban (more condo/apartments and higher-end residential).  Lexington did have an industrial boom early on, but after , say, 1970, a lot of this started happening in the other inner-Bluegrass county seats surrounding Lex. 

 

So yes, urban growth boundaries do lead to higher density and less inner-city abandonment, but also do drive higher land prices, leading to more spin-off development outside the "greenbelt" (or protected area).    Lexington is probably closest actually existing example of growth control but is not truely comparible because the Lex metro is a growing metro, in both population and GMP.

 

 

What happened in Lexington was that the "cheaper" and more intensive (industrial) developement spun off to surrounding county seat towns (Nicholasville, Georgetown, Winchester), and the developed that did happen in Lexinvton was still "suburban", but higher density suburban (more condo/apartments and higher-end residential).  Lexington did have an industrial boom early on, but after , say, 1970, a lot of this started happening in the other inner-Bluegrass county seats surrounding Lex. 

 

So yes, urban growth boundaries do lead to higher density and less inner-city abandonment, but also do drive higher land prices, leading to more spin-off development outside the "greenbelt" (or protected area).    Lexington is probably closest actually existing example of growth control but is not truely comparible because the Lex metro is a growing metro, in both population and GMP.

 

I would be interested to hear more about Lexington and how it legislated a green belt boundary.  Can you enlighten us or provide links to good summaries of what was done in Lexington?

Hey Cleveland, stop shrinking!

 

Wow, it worked. This Richard Florida is onto something:)

Traditionally, there are about three models for urban development in the U.S.. One is New York City - extremely high density, mostly tenements and later large apartment complexes. Two is Philadelphia - almost entirely single family housing (in Philly it is rowhouses w/ shared walls and quite small). Third is roughly Boston - lots of twos and three family buildings - not a lot of tenements or massive complexes and not so focused on single family. The New York model is very rare especially from the 30s on. The Phila. model is dominant w/ Boston a distant third (though some places adopted a mix of Boston and Phila. in the 20s - 50s (pre-suburban tract boom).

Blighted Cities Prefer Razing to Rebuilding

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Published: November 12, 2013 94 Comments

 

BALTIMORE — Shivihah Smith’s East Baltimore neighborhood, where he lives with his mother and grandmother, is disappearing. The block one over is gone. A dozen rowhouses on an adjacent block were removed one afternoon last year. And on the corner a few weeks ago, a pair of houses that were damaged by fire collapsed. The city bulldozed those and two others, leaving scavengers to pick through the debris for bits of metal and copper wire.

 

...It is not the house itself that has value, it is the land the house stands on,” said Sandra Pianalto, the president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “This led us to the counterintuitive concept that the best policy to stabilize neighborhoods may not always be rehabilitation. It may be demolition.”

 

Large-scale destruction is well known in Detroit, but it is also underway in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo and others at a total cost of more than $250 million. Officials are tearing down tens of thousands of vacant buildings, many habitable, as they seek to stimulate economic growth, reduce crime and blight, and increase environmental sustainability.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/us/blighted-cities-prefer-razing-to-rebuilding.html?hp&_r=1&

 

 

SHRINK OR DIE TRYING

By Richey Piiparinen

 

Since the 1950s, Cleveland has been steadily losing population. That means most people who were born and grew up here do not remember a time when the city was growing.

 

There’s a term for this consistent depopulation: shrinking city syndrome. Definitions vary, but according to a widely quoted 2009 Tufts University study, a shrinking city has lost at least 10 percent of its peak population since 1950. Though Cleveland ranks high in the shrinking city roster—it’s the fourth most depopulated city in the nation, having lost 56 percent of its population since 1950s–it’s certainly not alone in its decline.

 

Fifty-nine cities in the United States are considered “shrinking,” including seven in Ohio. St. Louis has experienced the largest population drop–more than 62 percent since 1950–followed by Detroit and Youngstown. And there are shrinking cities all over the world, from Dubai to Athens to Adelaide.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://beltmag.com/shrink-die-trying/

Pretty fair, neutral perspective.  As always, the devil is in the details--what gets razed.  I haven't seen pictures of what was standing in some of those other places like Philly before the city made the demolition decision.  However, I've had reasonably close seats to a handful of buildings demolished by the city here in Akron, and I can see with complete conviction that every single one of them deserved to go.

Meanwhile, up the lake in Buffalo:

 

Buffalo’s Young Preservationists build on their love for city’s architecture

 

The Buffalo Young Preservationists have a website

 

Also in Buffalo:

 

Bufflove Redevelopment

 

The Atlantic Cities features this in the larger context of vacancy and demolition:

 

 

...and....

 

The Curse of the Vacancy Vortex

 

 

I really like the Buffalo Young Presvationists guiding principes:

 

Guiding Principles

 

•Buildings, structures, monuments, and sites where significant historical events took place or where architectural style is emblematic of Buffalo’s culture and roots should be maintained for future generations.

 

•Existing buildings that maintain massing, density, set backs, and frontages pursuant to the Buffalo Greencode will be staunchly advocated for.

 

•Buffalo’s unique historic assets contribute to a vibrant destination and define a unique sense of place that visitors cannot find anywhere else. Our historic structures provide an experience that has proven to bring in regional tourism dollars and economic development multipliers.

 

•It is always more environmentally sustainable to maintain a building from the onset and adapt buildings for new and updated uses rather than to demolish them, transport debris to sit in landfills, truck in new, lesser quality building materials, and build new. Historic preservation is also about reducing waste streams.

 

•Older structures have unmatched material integrity and craftsmanship that cannot be replaced or replicated by today’s new construction standards

 

•A public participation process should be created around the reuse of culturally significant/ historic buildings and thorough evaluation of a buildings current condition and financial reuse potential should be undergone before any demolition is proposed.

 

•Historic and culturally significant buildings should be maintained by their owners throughout the buildings life. Owner neglect and bureaucratic stalling tactics do not diminish the buildings cultural significance and the cause for historic preservation, they only make it harder and more expensive to re-appropriate the building. These circumstances will not impede BYP involvement and long range efforts to hold owners responsible for building neglect and abandonment.

 

careful teardowns are important, but so is making use of the vacant land. i think owners should be given creative outs, such as turning lots into parks or gardens or given credit for proper maintenance. otherwise, the city should tax the hell out of long vacant lots and give more incentive to build on them than leave them vacant. deblasio wants to do something like that in ny:

 

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131124/REAL_ESTATE/311249973

Yeah, Buffalo has a real preservation movement with teeth. They aren't making excuses. The city has horrendous poverty and a stagnant economy that's lower tier in the eds and meds model (the cities that Richard Florida sees as potential losers once universities and hospitals peak), but even the regional population decline hasn't convinced people to give up. Of all Rust Belt cities, I think it's the best model.

 

*Some of Detroit's recent actions are just insane. Is it basically just going to end up Downtown, Woodward Avenue, and the Riverfront? I know Detroit has a lot of crappy housing in outer neighborhoods that is not worth saving, but a lot of core neighborhoods are still losing too much.

 

**And similar things are playing out in Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo, Cincinnati, Dayton, etc. just not quite on the whole city block model yet. Demolitions ramped up as soon as those public funds became available. Based on what I've read, I fear Toledo is heading down a Detroit path (saving Downtown, Riverfront areas, and a few neighborhoods on surviving urban corridors, but being way too aggressive in other areas). I think/pray Downtown, Warehouse District, East Toledo, and maybe Vistula/Lagrange/Old South End have hit rock bottom (most demolitions complete), but I don't know. I've heard a lot of demolitions are creeping into Old West End now, and that was always Toledo's most stable neighborhood with a very strong preservation movement (Buffalo-level). If buildings are being lost there, they can be lost anywhere in Toledo. West-Central Toledo is practically doomed with how many arsons it has seen in recent years. Five Points also is getting hit hard from what I'm hearing. Lots of $10k-$30k homes with no buyers...

 

I can't believe they tore down historic landmarks like Libbey High School and the Acme Power Plant (though I guess they at least decided to save the brick smokestacks at the last minute). That architectural quality cannot be replaced. Never did I think they would be lost.

 

Regardless of whether it's called a shrinking city model or not, irreparable damage is being done. Tearing down structurally sound historic landmarks with loads of potential is such a waste of taxpayer dollars and horrible for morale in these cities. I know Toledo has a strong preservation movement, but it keeps getting beaten down by cold hard reality.

You hit the nail right on the head. While being suspicious of demolition solutions is certainly justifiable and it is a solution that must be utilized with great caution, there are instances where it is no doubt the right thing to do. Midwestern cities are full neighborhoods with small post-war blue collar homes that were built for factory workers with the bare minimum in terms of aesthetics and amenities. Fast forward 50+ years and what was bare bones back then is 100% obsolete now.

 

Most vacant homes from the post-WW2 are not worth saving. Some of the cheaper pre-war housing isn't worth saving either. But remember lots of Victorians and brick row houses are coming down too. From what I've seen in the Rust Belt, the majority of the demolitions are in core neighborhoods. These are historic buildings built from 1870-1930 (the best stuff in these cities). Way too much good stuff is coming down in this mad rush to level abandoned buildings. Has this increased property values? Has this decreased crime? Has this reduced poverty rates? Has this reduced food stamp usage? This is a lot of taxpayer money spent on a questionable cause. Look to first wave urban renewal for your answers. Tons of historic low-rise commercial buildings along key urban corridors are also meeting the wrecking ball. These buildings are already in short supply in declined Rust Belt cities. Occasionally a larger building will go up in their place (sometimes with parking in front), but usually it's just an urban prairie. This does nothing to foster urban recovery. I just don't buy the "Destroy to Rebuild" mentality. Smart cities only tear down the places beyond repair or of low architectural quality. I think the whole point of these demolitions is a weak attempt at propping property values to increase city revenue and it's also used as a pre-emptive strike against arsonists (Arsons need to carry much bigger penalties). But what's more expensive? The arson or the demolition?

 

The problem in the Rust Belt is that they're tearing down structurally sound historic landmarks in way too many cases. Recently abandoned school buildings, churches, large courtyard apartment buildings, Victorians, blocks of brick row homes, etc.

 

*Yeah, some homes need to go. But not the good stuff...this is happening way too fast for it to be very surgical. Cities use the money when they have it. There is a lot of pressure for them to use these demolition funds fast. The trick is to just it use on places beyond repair and of little architectural value. We're talking outer ring neighborhoods and suburbs, not core neighborhoods. I'd love to see some numbers on where these demolitions are happening...

I still say that a relevant city needs a nightclub district. (Especially a city trying to shed an image of being boring and having nothing to do and a mid sized city with 3 sports teams with athletes who like to be out. I know, I've been out with them in the WHD many times before)

 

True, and I think that in time the Flats will take that title again. If that happens then I would like to see the Warehouse District be more focused on shopping, dining, and more residential (with those parking lots filled in!)

 

Very true. Cleveland really doesn't compare to East Coast cities. Its counterparts are great lake cities, Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo, Milwaukee, and Toronto, although we are still unique and much different than all of those cities as well. East coast cities are far denser have have dense residential/mixed use neighborhoods with architecture and density we couldn't dream of. More history too.

 

In 1950 Cleveland had about the same density as Baltimore and DC. It has the bones to be a dense city again. Unfortunately its density was the greatest on the east side, which is a shell of its former self.

 

Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places:  1950

 

Source:  U.S. Bureau of the Census

Internet Release date:  June 15, 1998

 

---------------------------------------------------------------

      |                          |          |      |  Density

      |                          |          |  Land| (average

      |                          |          |  area|  popula-

      |                          |          |  (sq.| tion per

Rank | Place 1/                |Population| miles)|sq. mile)

---------------------------------------------------------------

    1  New York city, NY *......  7,891,957  315.1    25,046

    2  Chicago city, IL.........    3,620,962  207.5    17,450

    3  Philadelphia city, PA....  2,071,605  127.2    16,286

    4  Los Angeles city, CA..... 1,970,358  450.9    4,370

    5  Detroit city, MI.........    1,849,568  139.6    13,249

    6  Baltimore city, MD.......    949,708    78.7    12,067

    7  Cleveland city, OH.......  914,808    75.0    12,197

    8  St. Louis city, MO.......    856,796    61.0    14,046

    9  Washington city, DC...... 802,178    61.4    13,065

  10  Boston city, MA..........    801,444    47.8    16,767

 

  11  San Francisco city, CA...  775,357    44.6    17,385

  12  Pittsburgh city, PA......    676,806    54.2    12,487

  13  Milwaukee city, WI.......  637,392    50.0    12,748

  14  Houston city, TX.........    596,163  160.0    3,726

  15  Buffalo city, NY.........      580,132    39.4    14,724

 

Very true. Cleveland really doesn't compare to East Coast cities. Its counterparts are great lake cities, Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo, Milwaukee, and Toronto, although we are still unique and much different than all of those cities as well. East coast cities are far denser have have dense residential/mixed use neighborhoods with architecture and density we couldn't dream of. More history too.

 

In 1950 Cleveland had about the same density as Baltimore and DC. It has the bones to be a dense city again. Unfortunately its density was the greatest on the east side, which is a shell of its former self.

 

 

I don't want to get too far off topic, but looking at density on a citywide level is not always the best method as it is greatly affected by hills, parks, undeveloped land, bodies of water, industrial areas, etc. Its better to look at the urban core and neighborhoods to get a better picture of the density of the city. The best method is to actually visit, in which the differences become quite clear.

 

Baltimore residential streets

 

 

Washington DC residential streets

 

 

Cleveland residential streets (hard to find pictures, and this is actually of East Cleveland, which looks like most of Cleveland's houses anyways.)

 

 

Lakewood

^I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point, but let's not cherry-pick photos to prove it.....

 

 

 

^Your photo spread demonstrably makes the point ...

 

I just think any Colonial city with lots of brick-built row-homes in/near its core will have an advantage over a Midwestern city developed in the Industrial Age with a lot of cheap, wood-frame houses thrown up for factory workers.  Also, unlike Colonial cities, Cleveland and other Industrial Age cities oriented themselves to factories and railroads to ship in/out goods.  Many of our close-in areas including, unfortunately our lakefront, are occupied and/or circled by railroad lines and adjacent factories that created barriers between neighborhoods, … not unlike their late 20th Century counterpart, the urban freeway.  In Boston, Philly, Baltimore and Washington, pre-railroad brick townhomes crowd the downtown areas near waterfronts and shipping. 

 

In the Warehouse District, we creatively created a colonial-type neighborhood out of Victorian-era commercial blocks and warehouses.  Some of the ornate brickwork of the buildings  even give them a Colonial feel. Unfortunately, as oft noted here, the demolition casualties of the 50s-through-80s have led to the vast surface parking areas in the WHD which we still have yet to figure out what to do with.  So even our dense, Eastern-type residential, restaurant, entertainment district is fractured.

 

^I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point, but let's not cherry-pick photos to prove it.....

 

 

I did not cherry-pick, Those were the top results for my search.

 

But those pictures still show some great structures that could be saved as well as the density I was talking about. Cleveland has bombed out areas too, except the houses are far less dense and not worth saving. Besides, the point was not to show underutilized housing, just what a typical occupied street looks like. I was focusing on density.

 

You know we'd all kill for even those buildings. We would be screaming about how they haven't been renovated yet and how they are the best in the city! To Baltimore, its just another block.

^I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point, but let's not cherry-pick photos to prove it.....

 

 

 

 

 

Yes Hts, but the fact is those ugly, dilapidated out row houses can more easily gutted and upgraded into trendy housing than a series of small, detached wood-frame housing like what we mostly have in Cleveland (and Detroit, Indy, KC, etc).  Even the famed wood-frame Painted Ladies of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood are closely-spaced Victorian houses of intricate design ... kind of like, in a rough way, our Ohio City and Tremont neighborhoods... so is it any accident that those 2 are our leading trendy neighborhoods? ....

 

... anyway, back to WHD development.

 

 

Youngstown plans to return 90 East Side acres to nature

 

Published: Sun, February 23, 2014 @ 12:01 a.m.

 

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

 

[email protected]

 

YOUNGSTOWN

 

In a unique effort, the city will seek a state grant to help return 90 deserted acres on the city’s East Side to their natural state.

 

...

 

The proposed East Side project would consist of demolition of nine vacant, abandoned residences; acquisition by the city of 900 land parcels with 93 owners; and shutoff of unnecessary water, sewer, gas, electric, telephone and cable TV utilities.

 

By abandoning the unnecessary streets, the city would save money by having fewer miles of streets to salt, plow, maintain and police, said William A. D’Avignon, the city’s community development and planning director.

 

Reducing the number and length of available streets would provide less motor-vehicle access for illegal dumping, which plagues the area, he added.

 

“We are constantly having to send the street department out there to clean stuff up, like tires and building materials” that have been dumped, D’Avignon said.

 

By closing and disconnecting unnecessary sewer footage, the city could reduce the amount of rainwater from those lines that burdens the city’s sewage- treatment plant, he added.

 

More: http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/feb/23/youngstown-plans-return-90-east-side-acres-nature/

Demolition could be triage for 6,000 Cleveland properties, but revival isn't guaranteed: Taking Stock (photos, interactive map)

By Michelle Jarboe, The Plain Dealer

on November 21, 2015 at 7:00 AM, updated November 21, 2015 at 7:07 AM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio –- Wrecking crews have knocked down more than 11,000 empty houses and crumbling commercial buildings in Cleveland during the last nine years, at the behest of the city and the Cuyahoga Land Bank.

 

But there are roughly 6,100 severely distressed buildings left, based on a recent survey of more than 158,000 properties. That survey, more detailed than any past Cleveland property count, provides a snapshot of the current level of blight and a benchmark for future progress reports. And it offers some hope, since there are fewer abandoned homes than researchers expected based on past city reports.

 

The findings also highlight sharp disparities between neighborhoods and lead to philosophical questions about how, and where, scarce money for demolition should be spent.

 

On the East Side, Glenville is still struggling with nearly 1,800 vacant buildings, representing 19 percent of all structures in that neighborhood. On the West Side, by contrast, there are only 34 empty structures in Edgewater, accounting for a vacancy rate of just 3 percent. (Property-level results are available in the interactive map that accompanies this story.)

 

MORE:

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2015/11/demolition_could_be_triage_for.html

While it still certainly isn't good, I was surprised to see the number was *only* 6,100. I was expecting more when this survey came out. And while it's been known that some neighborhoods were devastated, there are still neighborhoods that are still strong and relatively intact. Good to see some headway is being made.