Rochester NY, ranks among the worst cities when it comes to the maladies afflicting urban America such as homicides, child poverty and job losses.

To the credit of Mayor Duffy, he's actively trying to find remedies.

To combat the city's job losses, which, along with Detroit and Newark, N.J., lead the nation, he's developing creative strategies.

A good example is Duffy's effort to simultaneously improve public safety and job opportunities by demolishing boarded-up homes.

Because these properties can become places of illegal activity, fire hazards and eyesores that can retard neighborhood improvement efforts, Duffy has mounted an aggressive demolition program. More than 113 vacant structures have been taken down so far. And another 400 or so have been targeted for the wrecking ball.

To prod demolition companies to hire residents of the city's poorest neighborhoods, the city offers a $50,000 bonus in contracts. The city also is aggressively seeking minority contractors to participate in the demolition work. Unfortunately, too few have entered the contract bidding process.

The problem? Many lack the bonding required to do the work. Because most minority contractors are small, they simply are unable to meet stringent bonding requirements.

This situation has often in the past led to minority firms being exploited by much bigger, white-owned companies to get sizable government contracts.

Such scams aren't new to City Hall. But they should be a reminder of the need to push even harder to get around impediments to minority-owned businesses.

Just as offering bonuses to companies hiring city workers is a good idea, so is, for instance, breaking up the size of contracts to improve the bidding success of minority companies.

Surely, there are other creative approaches that can help.