Lousy Transit Fails Ohio’s Urban Poor

Lousy Transit Fails Ohio’s Urban Poor
Angie Schmitt | Mar 14th, 2012


This piece originally appeared on Streetsblog.

Once every four years, politicians descend on a hard luck steel town in northeast Ohio called Youngstown.

With a 50 percent poverty rate — the worst in the country — Youngstown makes a compelling campaign speech backdrop, illustrating everything that is wrong with government, or maybe America. Mitt Romney appeared there this week on the eve of Super Tuesday.

The irony of the situation is, of course, that decades of promises have done little to improve the city’s lot. Since the decline of the steel industry that was its lifeblood 40 years ago, life has been very hard for many people here. Despite recent promising efforts to rebuild the city around tech startups and downtown living, there’s definitely a class of people being left behind, with few options.

And transportation is at the heart of the problem. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/3447/