Syracuse, New York
From Sunshine Review
Syracuse, New York is the County seat of Onondaga County. The population in 2006 was 140,658 according to Wikipedia. Syracuse is an "old industrial city". Also known as a "rust belt" city. What is meant by that is that the area has seen a shrinking population and tax base for decades.[citation needed]
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[edit] Website evaluation
- Zoning Applications are not published online. The Department of Community Development forwards a digital copy of the notice to elected "TNT Facilitators", and interested neighborhood organizations. It is up to them to identify applications impact on the community and organize action of desired. Obtaining a copy of the application is a unnecessarily cumbersome task: one must appear in person at the zoning office and pay $0.25 a page for a copy of the application. It may not be obtained digitally and may not even be available when requested in person. Where the City once has a practice of mailing a postcard notification to adjoining landowners when applications were received, this practice has been eliminated. Thus one's neighbor my alter the land use, zoning or subdivision of their property without the neighbors ever receiving notice. Many citizens have complained at TNT meetings about this lack of transparency.
[edit] Tax base
Over 50 percent of the cities' minority population lives below the poverty line.[citation needed] A great deal of structural adjustment do to changing patterns of trade has occurred, and continues. Understanding how the flow of funds in this community works would be useful, perhaps in illustrating the negative total economic returns of moving manufacturing jobs overseas.
[edit] Local government
Syracuse is governed by the Mayor and the Common Council. Neighborhood Planning Councils commonly referred to as Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today (TNT). TNT was created by ordinance in the 1990's to advise the Mayor, the Common Council, City Departments, and other leaders of the desires of the citizens.[citation needed] By law these council's five year neighborhood plans must be incorporated into the City's Comprehensive Plan and to the respective budgets. The councils meet monthly and are attended by city officials, neighborhood organizations and citizens. At each meeting time is given for citizens to report concerns to representatives and departmental representatives. The strength and effectiveness of these Councils varies greatly within the city. In general, the poor are under represented at the meetings.
