There are only a couple of Yellow Pages listings under "plywood.'' I'm shocked. The longer I live in Troy, the longer I think its badly-outdated nickname, The Collar City, should be changed to The Plywood City.
There are blocks in Troy where it seems there are more boarded-up buildings than there are populated structures. That may be OK in a truly temporary situation, but in Troy
the plywood palaces have by default become an architectural style.
Sheets of ugly wood covering doorways and window openings, many of them
there so long their color has become weathered by the elements, are everywhere.
The "s'' word immediately comes to mind when you travel down such streets.
You fight against giving voice to the word because there are a few
houses on these streets where people have made the effort to dab on some
paint, plant a flower, sweep up trash.
But the temptation to utter the "s'' word doesn't go away easily.
It is
made stronger by the plastic bags of trash that tend to pile up next to
the plywood palaces.
And the weeds that poke up in the cracked sidewalks
near their foundations.
And the grafitti.
And the obvious fact not
enough people care that the boundaries of such rundown neighhorhoods
have a habit of spreading like a cancer in a community.
So, we will surrender to the "s" word and call them what they are: Slums, or darned close to it.
But what we don't do is give up. The situation can be remedied despite
the feuding politicians of both major parties who spend more time
playing "in your face'' with each other than grownups should.
You see, incipient slum conditions don't know from party labels. They are
not affected by whether people in power can get even for political
slights that happened when they were out of the majority. Or by whether
they can exact some sort of dominance over one another for no reason
that has to do with the common good.
Neither are such conditions affected by gratuitous budget squabbles, by
term limit games, by weakly-researched park concession deals, or by any
other time spent unwisely on such ego-centered scuffles.
What those conditions are affected by is attention -- or the lack of it.
If you leave them alone, they assuredly will worsen. Only the plywood
manufacturers will prosper. The Plywood City and its people will lose.
Guaranteed.
If one spends time looking at the conditions in terms of zoning, public
nuisance eradication, property values and community pride, the potential
return on time spent on them by elected and appointed city officials
should become obvious.
In this nation, there are enough urban planners, lawyers and experienced
municipal administrators to tap for methods to limit the time a
building can be a plywood palace; moves that can require building owners
to maintain properties to certain structural and esthetic standards;
methods that can force compliance for the common good by the inevitable
foot draggers.
There are many communities that have enacted codes to act as the
catalyst for pulling declining neighborhoods back from the brink of
becoming permanent slums. Methods that have improved neighborhoods to
the point people actually want to move to them and invest in their
common future.
Troy can use them as a guide to putting together a master plan to overcome this form of urban blight.
No, not one of those boondoggle multi-million dollar master plans. Not
one of those multi-year "blue ribbon panel'' efforts that bog down in
minutiae.
What is being suggested here is using the time now wasted on inter-party
squabbles, on backroom politics devoted to nothing more than staying in
power, for a real accomplishment: the sort of leadership, vision and
achievement that starry-eyed voters dream about when they cross their
fingers and cast their votes.
Dear Politicians: If you truly believe your own political rhetoric about community quality, let the discussions begin.
Rensselaer and Albany counties are connected by five bridges across
the Hudson River. Thus, they are separated not by water, but by
suffocating provincialism.
That is why the revelation that the cities of Troy and Cohoes are exploring some sort of cooperative operations between their fire departments is such a breath of fresh air.
There will be formidable obstacles, real and manufactured, to
attaining such a goal. That's life, but honest debate about any project
can trump hardheadedness and strengthen the final product.
We'll see a lot of grandstanding from the usual suspects who love to
stroke their own egos in the spotlight, but we also will hear some
thoughtful opinions and suggestions from people who have the public good
in mind.
Much is at stake here.
The good residents of Troy and Cohoes, a pair of cities with long
runs of financial woes and tough tax burdens, want top-notch fire
protection but have to be able to afford it.
The people who have doggedly supported regionalism as a way to
streamline public service costs will be rooting for a success story to
support their vision of the future. They're still smarting over the
in-your-face silliness of battles between elected officials over minor
league baseball venues, convention centers and the like.
The money-people who would love to develop the riverbanks and environs
for restaurants, upscale housing, marinas and the like but have been
worn down by control-freak politicians and municipal red tape would see a
cooperative arrangement as an enlightenment in local attitude.
Blending services often takes on emotional overtones unrelated to
efficiency. Take school district mergers. Please.
History is replete
with such mergers initially derailed by voters faced with the potential
loss of such education staples as a sports program, a marching band or a
cheerleading squad.
I've already heard grumbling from Troy people who complain they'd give up something, real or imagined, by sharing services "over there in Albany County.''
Over there? To put it in perspective, the bridges linking the counties
average just two-tenths of a mile each, the equivalent of a long city
block.
Much as the sheer guts of Troy and Cohoes officials to bring up such a topic should be applauded, why stop there? Troy
connects to other Albany County communities as well -- Green Island and
Watervliet, for examples. Why not work them into the initial equation?
The proximity can't be disputed. The downtowns of Watervliet and Troy are connected by the Congress Street Bridge. And the Troy firehouse on 6th Avenue is closer to the new River's Edge apartment complex in Green Island than it is to Troy City Hall.
Such examples abound.
If accommodation can be reached for co-op fire service, why not examine
trash hauling, ambulance services, housing inspections, public works
departments. Even -- dare we say it? -- law enforcement?
A regional police force certainly could be a cost-cutter, and improve
services in such local trouble spots as the City of Rensselaer and its
cesspool of police woes.
The Hudson River is a wonderful resource for the Capital Region. But it
also has, in the minds of many people, become a wall between
communities.
That sort of antiquated thinking is as arbitrary and man-made as are
municipal boundaries on a map. People and their proximity to each other
is the key to vibrant regions. We're long overdue around here to address
it.
Cheers to the Troy and Cohoes leaders for at least looking into what they know will be a political hot potato.
