the urban news for the week ending Sunday, June 29, 2008
 
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 Columbus City Council member Maryellen O'Shaughnessy, chair of council's public service and transportation committee, will be joined by committee members Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 5:00 PM in City Council Chambers.
City officials said they plan to poll the public to find out what messages resonated with voters after Thursday's bond package announcement.
A $1.9 billion deal with General Dynamics Corp.'s Gulfstream division will bring NetJets Inc. 40 new aircraft over the next several years, the company said.
The loss of a contract with a Central Ohio customer is forcing Pittsburgh-based Genco Distribution Systems Inc. to shut a Columbus facility this fall. The company told the state the shutdown will eliminate 122 jobs.
Another perk for the couple comes from their wallet. They walk everywhere and rarely drive.
The city's suspension of a program to spur new home construction in Franklinton illustrates how difficult it is to lure builders into a struggling neighborhood in a bad marketââ¬Â¦
The revitalization of the Lincoln Theatre on East Long Street is moving ahead as planned.
Valid sales recorded by the Franklin County auditor were down 44 percent last year from a peak of 4,700 in 2004.
Central Ohio's building pipeline narrowed dramatically in May, a new report indicating housing and commercial construction contracts plunged nearly 50 percent during the month.
Central Ohio's unemployment rate went the way of the state and the nation last month, jumping nearly half a percentage point in May, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported Tuesday.
(Columbus) Redevelopment of the former Techneglas site has been a top priority of Mayor Michael B. Coleman since it closed its doors in 2004. Today the City was informed that the project was ranked first over three other local development projects that will be forwarded to the Ohio Department of Development for consideration for a Jobs Ready Site grant.
Downtown Cincinnati Inc. detailed its plan on Friday to spend $1 million over the next two years on a marketing campaign to get more people to live, dine and shop in the city's urban core.
While some see little logic in trying to wipe out state government's largest source of revenue - about 43 percent of it - Adams' effort isn't just some wild adventure by a freshman lawmaker and a band of conservative ideologues.
"Rail is three to four times cleaner than moving by truck (and) has extremely good fuel efficiency," he said, noting that a railcar will go 436 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel.
Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues, all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.
..."There is a strong argument that over the last 10 years there has been a trend of young professionals and empty nesters coming back to downtowns," said Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver. "We built 15,000 housing units in the past few years. If gas gets up to $8 or $10 a gallon, that will dramatically accelerate something that's already going on. There is a silver lining."
Senator Barack Obama told the nation's mayors on Saturday that current urban policy was obsolete and needed to be replaced by a model that focused on rational metropolitan growth rather than chiefly on inner-city crime and poverty.
The number of shuttered box stores and empty strip malls has expanded dramatically over the last six months, according to data compiled by commercial real estate brokers and investment advisors. And the situation is likely to get much worse.
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