Tuesday, July 17, 2007

NPR gets onboard

NPR's Morning Edition finally ran the piece this morning which they have been sitting on for two weeks. It was retooled a bit to also highlight today's John Edwards visit.

The tagline: Youngstown, Ohio, a former steel town an hour west of Pittsburgh, is getting ready to spend millions of tax dollars to shrink. It's a fairly radical plan, but one that Youngstown's mayor says is the best way to bring his struggling city back to economic health.

The audio is available here.

I guarantee you will see a lot of hope in Youngstown residents by listening to the story. There are excited people out there who really want to see the redevelopment of Youngstown through the 2010 plan. NPR is the latest in a string of media who are just helping us promote it. Last week was the AP story which ran, according to my count, in at least 78 papers or online editions. The possible audience within cities just like Youngstown is huge. I am excited to finally see Youngstown as part of progressive development, even if it means scaling back. Bigger doesn't always mean better and I think people outside the politicians and urban planners are starting to see that.




Miltonia Ave. on Youngstown's East Side, one focus of the story. Notice the lack of homes? Another case of planned development which never happened.

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