Canton’s West Park Neighborhood- a relatively intact early 20th century urban district along McKinley Memorial Park

West Park is located between 12th and 30th Street and between Cleveland and McKinley Memorial Park. The district was developed mostly in the early 20th century with a mixture of grand Victorian and Turn-of-the Century houses and elegant apartment buildings along with smaller houses middle class homes. The neighborhood was pretty stable until the 1980s and 1990s when blight and vacancy crept into the district thanks to low real estate prices. Some effort has been made to stabilize the neighborhood and this has prevented widespread abandonment and a mixture of stable and less stable streets. West Park does have some commercial amenities that are pretty walkable along Fulton and Cleveland Avenue but many retail amenities like a supermarket are missing.

To advance West Park to what I would consider a quality urban district it needs more commercial amenities along Fulton & Cleveland, more higher end residential diversity, more stability, and better public transit access. Thankfully since the neighborhood is mostly intact this seems doable. 

Click here to view my West Park Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Generally a stable early 20th century middle class district but decent amount of blight mixed in. Very street by street.
* Decent amount of rentals mixed in.
* Generally good tree canopy, but depending on the socioeconomics of your particular street.
* Good sidewalk infrastructure. ADA curbs are good along the main streets but hit or miss on the residential streets.
* Several schools in the neighborhood but mixed ratings.
* For sale housing is very affordable ranging from 50K-250.
* Decent number of rentals and generally very affordable.
* Good racial diversity.
* Excellent access to Dwtn only 1 mile away.
* Decent access to two dedicated bike lanes.
* Great park access with McKinley Memorial park running down its western border and lots of neighborhood parks.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Some retail along Fulton and more so Cleveland but missing a lot of important neighborhood services starting with a supermarket.
* Cleveland Ave is generally ugly and rather autocentric.
* About 1/3 of the West Park neighborhood lives in poverty and medium of income at 30K.
* Public transit access is so .