Background on 10,000 Friends’ New Castle South Side Neighborhood Work

Introduction

10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania is a statewide non-profit organization focused on creating great places to live, work, and play.  Our project will support work in New Castle’s South Side through our Healthy Communities program—which focuses on creating healthy and walkable communities.

Place

New Castle’s South Side is a neighborhood of 1,540 residents and a median income of $23,310 that has suffered serious population loss over the decades.  Economic indicators are well below City and Lawrence County medians.  Despite these challenges, the South Side has opportunity to build upon a number of assets including a local hospital, existing businesses, quality children’s enrichment services, and the availability of land for development.  In addition, the South Side has a locational advantage of being close to downtown.

Problem to be Addressed

New Castle’s South Side suffers from significant disinvestment and as a result has a high degree of vacancy and blight.  These factors have discouraged investment in the neighborhood.  As a result, population has declined, and the remaining population has a higher concentration of low-income households, making it difficult to support existing businesses and services. Our approach is to address the physical factors of deterioration—blight and vacancy.  Median housing values are roughly 1/3 of the Lawrence County Median, and almost 1/3 of the population lives below the poverty line.  Many families are eligible for housing assistance, and working with our local partners we will address these issues.

Project

The work will execute priority projects for the re-use of vacant and blighted land to implement, over several years, a 2016 Redevelopment Area Plan to make the neighborhood healthier and more walkable.  We will leverage existing assets, and address current liabilities and priority needs identified by residents, consistent with our proprietary ‘Healthy Communities’ program -- a holistic process fostering revitalization. Our program creates coordinated, multi-project component revitalization strategies incorporating: 

 Street Map of South Side

Economic conditions in the neighborhood reflect a significant level of distress.  Median income for the neighborhood is well below both the City and County medians.  The vacancy rate is high, and home sale prices are low.  A summary of key demographics and indicators appears below.

Key Demographic & Economic Indicators

Source: U.S. Census Bureau