The visual might be comical if it weren’t so sad. Behind the disintegrating front porch roof at 226 E. Lucius Ave., on the front door hangs a sign advising that the property has been winterized.
It’s been two years since Youngstown first started using new laws to take over abandoned properties through a program called spot blight eminent domain.
A handful of enterprising urban farmers in the city and close environs are reclaiming city lots in some of the city’s most economically-deprived neighborhoods and turning them into small working farms.