Top row (left to right): James Stetson, Jamie Lingenfeltor; Bottom Row (left to right): John St. Leger, Sam Holden (Rachel Stern)
“The streets are really messed up. Police patrol and as far as the empty houses and store front – those should be cleaned up, as well. She should form a committee or group to get people aware of the fact that there is so many properties and distressed businesses that just bring down the value of Syracuse itself and that affects everything else. The crime rate – the fact that there are so many resources going to waste and it seems like it is pushed to the side.”
(Cody Banks, 32, of Liverpool, cooks at Dinosaur BBQ, Democrat)
“The lack of work — I mean there are no jobs here. And that is not just the city problem, it is a nationwide problem. But bring industry back to Syracuse. That would solve a lot of the problems because if people are working there will be less crime because in my opinion poverty breeds criminal activity. The only thing living in Syracuse right now is the university and if that were to leave this place would be a ghost town. They have the buildings downtown for it, you see them falling apart. You see houses all boarded up and foreclosure everywhere you go. More people are leaving because there is nothing here.”
(James Stetson, 34, of the city’s North Side neighborhood, construction worker, unaffiliated with a political party)
“The crime is definitely bad. Every time I turn on the news there is another shooting and that has been bad for the past couple of years. And jobs, like everywhere else. There has been some friends of my parents who luckily they didn’t lose their jobs. But P & C — there are a lot of P & Cs in the area and those would be a lot of jobs lost if the contract doesn’t go through.”
(Jamie Lingenfeltor, 23, of Westvale, who babysits in Syracuse, Democrat)
“I would think maybe employment. I feel like there is a lack of employment is a pretty big problem, maybe number one. There is a lot of poverty in Syracuse, but of all the problems that is probably the highest. When I wasin graduate school we did work with the low-income in Syracuse. In the valley portion of Syracuse, there is such poverty down there and low incomes. And there is actually a grocery store — the P & C just left and people can’t afford to buy nutritious food from gas stations and things like that. And I feel like if they could find decent employment maybe they would be able to travel outside that area.”
(John St. Leger, 25, of DeWitt, Carousel Mall employee, Democrat)
“Nothing downtown worth going to except for going downtown to drink, which is fine. Some tax incentive for entertainment opportunities to move into the area. She can get programs going for so we can stop using Styrofoam and get biodegradable stuff they have at Stronghearts. It is expensive. But if there was some kind of program that made it easier for businesses, restaurants to get a hold of that stuff we would do it.”
(Sam Holden, 24, of downtown Syracuse, works in Marshall Square Mall)
(Rachel Stern is a graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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