Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt
What do you like best and least about where you live?"

I live in a community with a very diverse ethnic mix. We have a high concentration of Greek, Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican, Polish and many other ethnic groups. And with this we have GREAT mom and pop resteraunts where you can get authentic cuisine...cooked the way it was in "the old country" =). (Why does it ALWAYS come back to food with me????)

"With the opening of the city's steel mills, Youngstown proved to be a popular destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Ireland. In the early 20th century, the community also saw an influx of immigrants from non-European countries including Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Such ethnic diversity continues to be reflected in many of the community's neighborhoods, where a Hungarian Orthodox church may share the same street corner with an Italian restaurant." --- Quote from Wikipedia

Another wonderful benefit is the festivals and cultural exchanges that are yearly events here. We have very little racial polarity here and I love that about my town. It is the town I grew up in and cost of living here is GREAT ( live in a 4 bdrm, 1.5 bath 2000 sq ft house in suburb with great schools and my house is worth about 45k)

What I don't like about here is amount of violence. Our community has LOOOONG history of Mafia connections and corruption. Here is another quote from Wiki that NOT so positive

"Meanwhile, the city has attempted to come to terms with its troubling reputation for corruption. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Youngstown became identified in the public mind with Mafia-related murders (committed chiefly via car bombings). Consequently, the metropolis gained the nickname "Bomb City," and the phrase "Youngstown tune-up" became a slang term for car-bomb assassination. Today, however, the city has accelerated measures to limit the influence of organized crime upon all sectors of municipal life. For some observers, the climax of this ongoing effort was the arrest, trial, and 2002 conviction of former US Representative James A. Traficant Jr. on bribery and racketeering charges."

I have done several reports on our Mafia history and its fascinating in abstract or on paper but the effects on our lives can be devastating....

here are some nicknames for my town from the urbandictionary.com

1. The armpit of Ohio
   
2. Murdertown U.S.A in the 1950's & 1960's
3. Rundown Steel City halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh
4. Corruption

I am happy to say we seem to be ushering in a new era for my city and I hope it continues to grow into the great city it used to be.