poverty

holy moly

SJ, OTH

I couldn't agree more. However, it will take more than 10 or 20 citizen daily chats on a forum catering to citizens.  It will take 500 to 1000 active citizens who are willing to do a little work and kick in a few bucks to get the word out.  

Pacman

Neil....you are absolutely right. I was driving around town today and just thought what an unsightly mess this city is downtown, east end, north, south. The streets are a mess, weeds growing through them, almost white in composition. This city is near being Detroit.

It would be interesting to have a poll answered.

What in your opinion, caused more decline in Middletown than anything:

A) City council's decisions including the robbing of the annual pavement fund to pay salaries for employees for 25 years.

B)  Lack of "greenfield" sites.

C)  Reactive mindset of all leaders from city council, city leaders, school board, others.

D)  Poverty brought in by the city (ergo Section 8).

E)  Poverty brought in by the city (ergo- lack of economic development).

F)  All of the above.

G) Will Middletown ever come back?

A) Yes
B) No

My answers are F and B.

Detroit version 2.0 is coming; Middletown is already in Mansfield, Youngstown, league. Brighter future? Hell no.  

Acclaro, I also think it's F but i'm hoping there's still a chance for "the powers that be" to wake up though that will mean they will have to admit they may have made a mistake. Can you sue them for dereliction of duty. Just asking.

How about drugs. Would that be put on our police department? With poverty and rampant hardcore drug use going on in this city is it cheaper for our city not to prosecute these individuals because of the manpower and lost money taking to prosecute them. They don't pay their fines and keep on taking up room in our jails between robbing people and stores. Should our police step up and patrol these areas more? Or is that a tax payer drain? I don't see middle class folks getting arrested at walmart for stealing.

Bo, jobs just don't lose themselves. The question is why did companies leave Middletown, taking the jobs with them, and what could/should have been done about it OR whose fault is it that the conditions haven't been there for new companies to move in.

Excellent point, stanky

over the hill wrote: Isn't it our city council and and revitilation dept. and our city manager's job to try to keep what business we have and promote new businesses to the area?

Hmmmmmmmmm......Maybe look at it this way, lower paying jobs still fund the tax base........Being a consumer 100% is the goal. Taxes are not collected on self-sufficiently, they create jobs and avenues which provide for more tax collections based on population density. They want to tax the same dollar a 100 times.....A lot of smaller businesses do not want higher paying jobs to move in, they will be stuck with a less educated pool of employees or slob workers to choose from.

Would be interesting to see the numbers on police responses - pre Section 8 lower numbers versus post Section 8 overabundance. Have read articles citing strains to city resources. Just comments, no data that I'm aware of. See the police briefs in the Journal everyday. Looks like we have a jump in theft from candy bars at the UDF to copper out of the air conditioners at businesses and residential. Can we tie this jump to the increase in the lowering of the income levels and all that that brings? Dunno. By inviting HUD to town in abundant numbers, have we made ourselves a target for influencing those connected with the criminal element here as well? Dunno. How about those "at-large" people we read about in the police briefs? Were they attracted here by the freebies initiated by the city?

I would imagine that with the increase in Section 8 and the invite of freebie hand-outs, the trend that would follow would be a certain amount of criminal element that would also track to the city that normally wouldn't be here. No proof...just stereotyping I guess. Wasn't Parma the other Ohio city saturated with Section 8? If so, wonder how they are faring on crime statistics?

Lay the crime activity maps over the top of the S8 maps.
Scary--however S8 is somewhat scapegoated since the high- density crime areas are also lower- income non-s8 also.

Guess we can't compare Parma's Section 8 program with Middletown. Dug up an old post from Nelson Self and Vivian dated 2010 which stated that Parma is around 80,000 in population where Middletown is around 48,000. Parma has the allotted (correct) 700+ in Section 8 vouchers where Middletown has 1400+ or so. Gonna skew the data a tad bit if we try to compare.

Spider: Section 8.....lower income....one in the same IMO. It is an addition of poverty that this city can ill afford. Guilt by association at best with Section 8. No matter how we slice it, it can't be a good thing to add to a city, especially in the inflated numbers asked for by the city leaders.

Spider and Vet
I posted 2 maps on this blog several years ago showing Section 8 and high crime areas however now I can’t find the post. High poverty areas = high crime areas is a true statement in almost ever city.
However the research and these maps clearly shows that City Hall over the past ten years did not use the HUD Funds in the areas of high poverty and high crime to help solve the problems.

Richard Saunders wrote: Acclaro:   Don't insult Detroit!  Detroit wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight with HUD, as Middletown has done.