How One Ohio City is Tackling Urban Blight
One Community Update
January 22, 2024
Source: news.wosu.org
A decade ago, there were more than 1,500 vacant homes in the northeast Ohio city of Warren.
The area’s population fell rapidly following the industrial decline of the 1980s, leaving behind a trail of empty buildings.
But one local organization is working to address those vacancies.
The Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, the area’s community development corporation, has demolished about 1,200 vacant properties and renovated more than 600 in the past decade, according to its 2024 Parcel Inventory Update.
The organization partners with the city of Warren and Trumbull County, and it has received state and federal support to carry out this work as well.
“When we first started just two or three years after the foreclosure crisis when there was the most vacancy ever, everywhere, our focus at that time was triage,” said the organization’s executive director, Matt Martin. “Demolish what needs to be demolished, save what we can, and then figure out a land-use plan.”
Now, only about 400 vacant buildings remain in the city. But Martin says there’s a lot more work to be done.
“We’re still trying to clean up and reimagine and rightsize our community,” he said.
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