Akron Has a New Plan to Boost Its Shrinking Population

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Crawford

California has some of the highest outmigration in the U.S., worse than many of the rustiest Rust Belt states.

And inner-city schools are generally bad in CA too. LA schools are awful even for big city standards.

And the most troubled cities in the U.S. in terms of violence, bad economy, and lack of demand, are generally heavily black cities. The West Coast doesn't really have heavily black cities, so doesn't have abandoned zones. But if LA were 40% black like many cities back East, I don't doubt it would have derelict zones like the South Side of Chicago or West Baltimore.

Isn't Oakland, CA (conveniently across the bay from one of the most overpriced cities in the world) up there with St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit in terms of crime and poverty? Also, wasn't Los Angeles burnt to the grown 3 times, and the breeding grown to some of the most violent street gangs in the Western world (Bloods, Crips, MS-13, Aryan Nation etc.)?

[mhays]

Population growth tends to greatly counter flight/abandonment on multiple levels. Especially in cities that control outward growth.

[James Bond Agent 007]

There's a new brewery gonna open downtown this year. I like the name!

Akronym Brewing hopes for fall opening in downtown Akron

Akronym Brewing LLC, a new production brewery and tasting room that hopes to launch in downtown Akron this fall, is looking to be compared to the city’s brewing greats.

“We’re going to be making world-class beer like Thirsty Dog and Hoppin’ Frog,” co-founder and brewer Shawn Adams said. “Our main thing is we’re going to focus on quality.”

Thirsty Dog and Hoppin’ Frog are the city’s two established breweries that have won multiple awards at national and international beer competitions.

EDIT: The location described in the article is here.

[James Bond Agent 007]

^

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Akron definitely seems to be one of those cities that could do a decent job of turning itself around. Many of the ingredients are already there:

1. Close-to-downtown university (University of Akron). With about 25K students, which is a good size.
2. Some halfway decent historic housing stock.
3. At least 1 large company HQ (Goodyear). Too bad it's not closer to downtown, and it's probably not a big growth industry anymore, but it's better than nothing.

Now, I think they need ... something else. Though I can't say what that something else might be.

Maybe that "something else" is ... beer.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by goat314

Isn't Oakland, CA (conveniently across the bay from one of the most overpriced cities in the world) up there with St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit in terms of crime and poverty? Also, wasn't Los Angeles burnt to the grown 3 times, and the breeding grown to some of the most violent street gangs in the Western world (Bloods, Crips, MS-13, Aryan Nation etc.)?

Oakland is a VERY diverse place. The division between the "hills" and the "flatlands" is like East and West Berlin during the Cold War. Leaving aside the extremely tony independent enclave of Piedmont, which is entirely surrounded by Oakland, Oakland itself has its own expensive, chi-chi areas that overlook the violent, poverty-stricken parts of town.

This map, while addressing rental property, pretty much shows where the expensive homes and nice neighborhoods are and where they aren't. You can consider that yellow and orange don't just mean lower rent--they also means more crime and violence.


http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...hborhoods.html

[PoshSteve]

And then just this week, a corporate HQ and 300 jobs moving out of downtown...

http://www.cleveland.com/akron/index...rations_t.html

SummaCare to move corporate offices to Akron's East End neighborhood

The redevelopment (the historic former Goodyear HQ) is a great project, and I love to see that succeeding, but not at the expense of downtown Akron.