The Immigrants: the source, and the solution, to all problems. Or some of them, at least.
For some reason, I am fascinated with depopulation: first, it was the rural states of the U.S., with their youth-less demographics. And now, with the urban blight, especially in and around the Rust Belt.
Some of those cities, like Detroit, Michigan, and Youngstown, Ohio, are dealing with their shrinking population (and tax base) with radical measures: those boroughs with not enough population are slated for destruction, so the scarce resources would be redirected to the still living parts of the city:
[In order to survive] Youngstown would not grow, but shrink - shuttering swaths of the city through demolition and consolidation on a massive scale.
The announcement was the beginning of Youngstown 2010, a bold plan for a new mode of urban sustainability. With only 80,000 residents left in the city, Youngstown leaders hoped to redirect limited resources to parts of town that they felt had viable futures. Residents would be offered incentives to move into parts of town not yet overrun by vacant properties, reorganizing the city around the university and a long-neglected urban core. A new Youngstown, smaller but more vibrant, would grow amid the shell of the old, which would either be demolished or ignored.
Excellent plan. However, the current crisis have left the city without enough money to carry out the plan. And it is not the only one. For that reason, some cities have taken advantage of an unlike resource: immigrants. The best part? They pay their own expenses:
Facing the kinds of job losses and abandonment known to Cleveland, Schenectady [New York] pursued a creative solution. It introduced itself to an immigrant group in New York City, lured curious couples north to view its impossibly cheap homes, and let capitalism and immigrant dreams run their course.
In less than a decade, people who hail from the South American nation of Guyana have become about 10 percent of the city of 62,000, and streets once considered worthless now stir with fussy homeowners.
"They breathed new life into this town," said Albert P. Jurczynski, the former mayor who marketed his city with bus tours and his mother-in-law's homemade cookies. "They changed Schenectady. And they never asked for a dime from anyone."
(...) Schenectady's rebirth began with a desire to pray. A fledgling Guyanese community needed a Hindu temple but was too poor to build one. Deryck Singh, a Guyanese immigrant who manages a chain of convenience stores, approached the mayor for help.
Albert Jurczynski was intrigued. Who are you people? he asked. How many of you are there? The grandson of Polish immigrants had problems of his own to address. Decay in his city had reached crisis proportions.
Schenectady, the birthplace of General Electric Co., grew up and thrived on manufacturing jobs staffed by waves of European immigrants. When GE moved the jobs out, the "electric city" dimmed.
Population fell by a third between 1950 and 2000. When Singh came calling in 2001, about 13 percent of city homes lay vacant.
The mayor found the Guyanese a temple, a vacant German Catholic church, and shared his dilemma with his new friend.
"I told him, 'You're dreaming if you think middle class families are going to move back to these neighborhoods,' " Singh recalled. "I said, 'Your only hope is immigrants.' "
He told the mayor of a huge Guyanese community crammed into the Richmond Hill section of Queens, 3 1/2 hours away. The descendants of indentured servants from India, the Guyanese spoke English. They shared a thirst to own homes. And they were paying $1,000 a month for basement apartments.
A $10,000 house in Schenectady's inner city might look like a dream.
Jurczynski struck upon a modest idea. He sent a bus to Richmond Hill and filled it with couples rounded up by Guyanese Realtors. The mayor's tour of Schenectady and its big empty houses ended with Italian cookies and wine at his mother-in-law's.
(...) Not everyone was happy to see it happening. Members of older ethnic groups chafed at the attention showered on the newcomers, who brought a new religion, customs and tensions. Black and Latino residents complained the Guyanese were getting ahead with government help, a charge members of the Jurczynski administration hotly deny.
"We gave them zero. Nothing," said Jay Sherman, the city's former development director. "All we did was show them houses no one else would buy."
A once-familiar immigrant story unfolded. Arriving unskilled and often uneducated, the newcomers took low-wage jobs as dishwashers, janitors and nursing home aides. Some employers, mindful of a hungry new work force, began reinvesting.
Even at minimum wage, two-parent, multi-income families were able to buy houses and restore them. Whole blocks brightened as new homeowners sought to outdazzle one another. Property values rose countywide, surging in some of Schenectady's worst neighborhoods.
Between 2003 and 2008, the median home price in Schenectady climbed by 35 percent, to $118,200. Last year, in the thick of the national foreclosure crisis, city housing values rose by another 3 percent.
Steve Jacobson, Schenectady's housing director, credits a prayerful immigrant group for insulating the entire county from the worst of the mortgage meltdown.
"They stabilized our housing market," he said.
Gee, who would have guessed that controlled immigration could be beneficial?
Some of those cities, like Detroit, Michigan, and Youngstown, Ohio, are dealing with their shrinking population (and tax base) with radical measures: those boroughs with not enough population are slated for destruction, so the scarce resources would be redirected to the still living parts of the city:
[In order to survive] Youngstown would not grow, but shrink - shuttering swaths of the city through demolition and consolidation on a massive scale.
The announcement was the beginning of Youngstown 2010, a bold plan for a new mode of urban sustainability. With only 80,000 residents left in the city, Youngstown leaders hoped to redirect limited resources to parts of town that they felt had viable futures. Residents would be offered incentives to move into parts of town not yet overrun by vacant properties, reorganizing the city around the university and a long-neglected urban core. A new Youngstown, smaller but more vibrant, would grow amid the shell of the old, which would either be demolished or ignored.
Excellent plan. However, the current crisis have left the city without enough money to carry out the plan. And it is not the only one. For that reason, some cities have taken advantage of an unlike resource: immigrants. The best part? They pay their own expenses:
Facing the kinds of job losses and abandonment known to Cleveland, Schenectady [New York] pursued a creative solution. It introduced itself to an immigrant group in New York City, lured curious couples north to view its impossibly cheap homes, and let capitalism and immigrant dreams run their course.
In less than a decade, people who hail from the South American nation of Guyana have become about 10 percent of the city of 62,000, and streets once considered worthless now stir with fussy homeowners.
"They breathed new life into this town," said Albert P. Jurczynski, the former mayor who marketed his city with bus tours and his mother-in-law's homemade cookies. "They changed Schenectady. And they never asked for a dime from anyone."
(...) Schenectady's rebirth began with a desire to pray. A fledgling Guyanese community needed a Hindu temple but was too poor to build one. Deryck Singh, a Guyanese immigrant who manages a chain of convenience stores, approached the mayor for help.
Albert Jurczynski was intrigued. Who are you people? he asked. How many of you are there? The grandson of Polish immigrants had problems of his own to address. Decay in his city had reached crisis proportions.
Schenectady, the birthplace of General Electric Co., grew up and thrived on manufacturing jobs staffed by waves of European immigrants. When GE moved the jobs out, the "electric city" dimmed.
Population fell by a third between 1950 and 2000. When Singh came calling in 2001, about 13 percent of city homes lay vacant.
The mayor found the Guyanese a temple, a vacant German Catholic church, and shared his dilemma with his new friend.
"I told him, 'You're dreaming if you think middle class families are going to move back to these neighborhoods,' " Singh recalled. "I said, 'Your only hope is immigrants.' "
He told the mayor of a huge Guyanese community crammed into the Richmond Hill section of Queens, 3 1/2 hours away. The descendants of indentured servants from India, the Guyanese spoke English. They shared a thirst to own homes. And they were paying $1,000 a month for basement apartments.
A $10,000 house in Schenectady's inner city might look like a dream.
Jurczynski struck upon a modest idea. He sent a bus to Richmond Hill and filled it with couples rounded up by Guyanese Realtors. The mayor's tour of Schenectady and its big empty houses ended with Italian cookies and wine at his mother-in-law's.
(...) Not everyone was happy to see it happening. Members of older ethnic groups chafed at the attention showered on the newcomers, who brought a new religion, customs and tensions. Black and Latino residents complained the Guyanese were getting ahead with government help, a charge members of the Jurczynski administration hotly deny.
"We gave them zero. Nothing," said Jay Sherman, the city's former development director. "All we did was show them houses no one else would buy."
A once-familiar immigrant story unfolded. Arriving unskilled and often uneducated, the newcomers took low-wage jobs as dishwashers, janitors and nursing home aides. Some employers, mindful of a hungry new work force, began reinvesting.
Even at minimum wage, two-parent, multi-income families were able to buy houses and restore them. Whole blocks brightened as new homeowners sought to outdazzle one another. Property values rose countywide, surging in some of Schenectady's worst neighborhoods.
Between 2003 and 2008, the median home price in Schenectady climbed by 35 percent, to $118,200. Last year, in the thick of the national foreclosure crisis, city housing values rose by another 3 percent.
Steve Jacobson, Schenectady's housing director, credits a prayerful immigrant group for insulating the entire county from the worst of the mortgage meltdown.
"They stabilized our housing market," he said.
Gee, who would have guessed that controlled immigration could be beneficial?