recap: cle-yo-pitt regional learning conference

Buses full of people from Pittsburgh and Cleveland arrived at the next nexus of Downtown Youngstown, for the first ever meeting of the cleveland+pittsburgh+youngstown Regional Learning Network.


The day began with a welcome by representatives from all three cities, then onto John Austin's keynote address about "Leveraging the Assets and Confronting the Challenges of the Great Lakes Region".

To read Valley24's review of the day, click here.


One of the benefits of the meeting was the ability for individuals to interact with their counterparts from each region - bloggers met other bloggers, economic development professionals met other economic development professionals, and neighborhood leaders met other neighborhood leaders.



Right before lunch, a World Cafe took place to discuss the factors which make the mega-region unique.


Mayor Williams stopped by to chat for a while:



And after lunch, participants moved throughout the Youngstown Club to attend presentations on the following topics:

• Data-Driven Decision Making
• CDCs as Agents of Change
• Addressing Vacancy
• Economic Development Strategies
• Designing Sustainable Communities
• Networking and Blogging for Change

Here's an example of multiple design configurations possible when a vacant property exists between other properties.


To encourage collaboration between cities, mini-grants of up to $500 will be given out to encourage "learning exchanges" where people from one location will go and visit others to learn best practices and witness active programs.


To all who attended, thanks for making the trip to Youngstown. And a special thanks to our new friends who took the youngstown bloggers up on the offer to do a walking tour of the downtown.

the next nexus = downtown youngstown

what does the cle+yo+pitt conference, the i-tree demonstration, the soap box derby, the furthermind festival, and the head of the entire national science foundation (NSF) have in common?

well . . .

- - -

downtown youngstown is the central meeting point of the Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh region, home to 7.5 million people strong.

In Youngstown, we are fluent in both Pittsburghese AND Clevelandish.

We eat Primantis AND Paninis.

We follow Penguins' hockey AND Cavaliers' basketball.

We drink Iron City AND Great Lakes.

- - -

Youngstown is not just a place for the 700,000 people of the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys to enjoy, but our restaurants and traditions are available for all 7.5 million of yous/yinz.

and so, the Shout Youngstown blog is going to pick out a few choice events taking place this weekend in the next nexus of downtown youngstown - if by chance you are looking for something to do.

friday - Cle+Yo+Pitt Regional Learning Network conference - discuss best practices and approaches to neighborhood development, urban design, economic development, and blogging in the mega-region (10am - 4pm at the Club)

saturday - Soap Box Derby down 5th avenue (9am)

saturday - Youngstown Tree Day Celebration, including a demonstration of the i-tree urban inventory system by the Youngstown City Forester, Wick Park at Park and Pennsylvania Ave (9:30am)

saturday - Wick Park Revitalization Community Meeting #2 at Park Vista off 5th avenue (10am)

saturday - city pools open, party at North Side's new pool (12pm)

saturday - furthermind all-day music festival at the B&O train station and urban camping (12pm to 2am)

sunday - yoga at fellows riverside gardens (9am, 12pm)

sunday - tour of western reserve wildflowers at fellows riverside gardens (2pm)

monday - presentation by the director of the federal NSF (yes, that $6 billion agency) at YSU's engineering building. must rsvp with jmsmith (at) ybi (dot) org. more info here.

- - -

“We’re trying, as I like to say, to further everyone’s mind,” he said, “I want to bridge the gap and have Cleveland bands and Pittsburgh bands — make the Youngstown area a little bit bigger.”

This will be the first Furthermind Festival since 1999 and the first one for the Youngstown area. Though its focus will be mainly on the music, it will also serve as loving tribute to Quillan’s father, David Michael Murphy.

Quillan said his father became ill shortly after Vexfest IV in August and worsened in the coming months.

“One side of his body was shutting down, he couldn’t move his leg,” Quillan said, “In October, he needed a cane to walk and then he fell and broke his hip. He was in the hospital from October to December, when he passed away.”

While his father was in the hospital, Quillan said he wanted to have a giant celebration for when got better.

Having his father’s favorite local bands in mind, such as headliner Pennsylvania rock band Fourth River, Quillan began preparing for the event in November.

With his father’s death from the rare and highly fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative brain disorder, Quillan said this would be the event his father would want to go to.

“It’s a festival in honor of him and his love of independent music,” he said, “I’m Irish, so I think of this as a wake for him.”

more from valley24 here.

cle+pitt+yo regional learning network

The time and place are set for people from three cities within our one region to come together.

To explore common concerns, share best practices, and identify opportunities for collaboration in the fields of economic development, urban design, neighborhood development, sustainable communities, and blogging for change.

Introducing the Cleveland+Pittsburgh+Youngstown Regional Learning Network :




The event will take place on Friday June 20th, from 10am to 4pm at the Youngstown Club downtown.

The keynote speaker that day will be:

John Austin, former director of the Great Lakes Economic Initiative at the Brookings Institution and current director of the New Economy Initiative of Southeast Michigan.

Other participants include people from these organizations:

• Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System (PNCIS)
  
• KSU Cleveland Urban Design Collective
  
• East Liberty Development, Inc.
  
• Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition
  
• Slavic Village Development
  
• Cleveland City Planning Commission
  
• Lien Forward Ohio
  
• CWRU Center for Urban Poverty and Community Development
  
• Fund for Our Economic Future
  
• Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity
  
• Neighborhood Progress, Inc.
  
• Civic Innovation Lab
  
• Youngstown Business Incubator
  
• Building Cleveland by Design
  
• Defend Youngstown
  

The event is FREE of charge, but you must register.

Do so here.

Buses are available for those coming from Pittsburgh and Cleveland. But, if you are sticking around for the evening downtown, we'll give you a walking tour (not on the official program) and go out for drinks and dinner afterwards.

Time to jump in.

rising to the challenge

Word on the street is that the Full Monty at the Oakland is doing so well, they've added an extra show for the final weekend.

This "extended ending" will take place on midnight Saturday evening.

That's 12 in the am.

Cleveland, Pittburgh . . . show your regionalism and come down to the Yo.



tickets can be reserved at 330.746.0404, and specify which one you want, if not sold out:

Friday, May 16: 8 pm
Saturday, May 17: 8 pm AND 12 am midnight (technically Sunday)

Apx. running time of the musical: 2.5 hours (so this midnight show is for night owls)

UPDATE:The Vindicator's chief, Todd Franko, gives a review of the show in his blog today.

jay in U.S. News, art in a bakery, and full frontal nudity

You wouldn't think these three things are related - and really they're not very interconnected - but they all involve to a slight degree exposing yourself for a good cause.

#1 - Mayor Williams is interviewed in U.S. News and World Report.

Youngstown's emerging brand is a city that is (1) protecting its heritage and (2) shrinking strategicially. Just a stockholders expect a company to responsibily manage itself during an economic transition, Youngstown is becoming a global leader in attempting to responsibly manage its affairs.

An exerpt:

"What's been the response to the initiative?
The community has been overwhelmingly supportive. There are critics to the Youngstown 2010 initiative; some are concerned about gentrification. And I've actually said that we could use a bit of managed gentrification. But we have to be sure that the people who are here aren't pushed out and put in conditions that would be not affordable. Overall, the Youngstown 2010 plan has been well embraced because it's about right-sizing the city and redefining the city economically and socially to where the world is today.

Have other communities inquired about the initiative?
Oh, absolutely. We've had the opportunity to visit and talk with communities across the country—and foreign entities—or have them come here. There have been foreign journalists and officials who have visited."

more here on the small city with a big brand.

#2 - Ward Bakery Artists' Open House

From the infrastructure our industrial past, artists have become intertwined with Ward Building and its many artists are opening the doors of their studios over the weekend. The picture explains all the details:


The Mahoning Commons is a funky mix of old churches, renovated warehouses, shotgun houses, community theaters and in-town city artists. Look for more artist space developments to be announced soon. If you are a Cleveburgh artist, this neighborhood might be place to investigate as a place to do your thing with no one bothering you. A good preview of the event can be found at the blog for The Stage.

#3 - The Full Monty begins at the Oakland this weekend, and will continue for the next three weeks.



the story: a couple of steel workers find creative ways to make ends meat. based on a true story in Struthers.

- - -

ps. Le Nouveau Rock Festival will take place in downtown youngstown this saturday.

that accent, where is she from?

The most recent version of "Accent on Youngstown" really got me fired up.

First off, the collection of extreme sports in the Ohio snow was just awesome. Good music, good editing, and good imagination - it just shows that people are having fun all over the place.

Second, the interview with Randall Craid Fleischer from the Youngstown Symphony was very insightful. There are "young people's concerts" with the symphony all this week which is a new direction for the YSO, and tomorrow night is a fusion concert as the YSO plays with Latin jazz/funk artist Poncho Sanchez.

check Poncho out:


Fleischer makes the good point Youngstown is lucky to be a market such that an professional orchestral musician can be employed here. There is enough of a demand and a market.

Some communities can't support their orchestras.

Miami Florida lost theirs. Columbus Ohio is on the brink of losing its orchestra.

For 82 years and counting, the region has supported the orchestra - which is fantastic. But the house that the Yo's Warner Brothers buiit, like Youngstown, is a big tent and there is room for more people from "Cleveburgh".

If you are reading this blog from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, come out to Youngstown this weekend and eat at Overture (the restaurant at the symphony) and enjoy the show.

Finally, more good news for downtown dining fans: George from Cafe Cimmento announced in the video that their expansion in downtown Youngstown is underway, and should be finished sometime in April.

watch the second Accent on Youngstown:


This video is great - it shows that people and their dreams are flourishing in Youngstown.

things to do in youngstown

Looking at Shout Youngstown's site analytics, one of the main searches drawing people to the blog is the Google search:
"things to do in youngstown".

Our staff has compiled a preliminary list of about 60 places in Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley that are essential and vintage Ytown - the true unique gems of this community.

So we are unveiling "The Map"
a.k.a.
"The Gems of Youngstown"

click here to see it.

The Map is intended for:
- those who seek the unique things in life
- those looking for the quintessential youngstown
- students in ytown for college
- out-of-town visitors exploring local flavor

The Map is kinda organized by color:
- red for food places (sometimes serving drinks)
- purple for drink places (sometimes serving food)
- yellow for neat cultural/entertainment options
- green for outdoors/nature stuff
- white for historical
- tan for interesting shops

The Map is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every place in the region.

It is a work in progress.

If you don't agree with the contents of The Map, go ahead and make your own.

But by all means, we will listen to your suggestions for future additions.

Make sure your suggestion is a good one though, as character and good food is what drives many of these places to the top of our rankings.

For example, Bw3's in Boardman near the s.p. mall will not make our staff's list because it (a) is not unique, (b) has expensive beer, (c) lacks local flavor.

We realize The Map is created though the lens which represents our tastes. While our tastes are not necessarily superior to anyone else's - they are inherently wonderful.

and with great humility, we give you . .

The Map

youngstown: international leader in "open source community development"

hmmmm.

Maybe the better term is: international leader in
"open source community and neighborhood development"

question: how does the penetration of information technologies (IT) into the existing structure of communities and neighborhoods make these networks faster and more productive?

media from all over the world have been flooding into the city of Youngstown and our bloggers have been having this discussion with them.

Just as IT created its own niche market, then spread to other economic sectors improving their performance, this technology is making its way into the community and neighborhood development sphere as well.

- - -

more details soon . . . stories developing.

a take on the med mart from the czar

The Tech Czar (how does one get such a cool name?) provides a fascinating glimpse of an insider's view of an economic development deal in Cleveland.

What can be learned as Youngstown moves forward? The czar ends with:

"Maybe we should build the Medical Mart in Youngstown seeing how the key piece to Mayor Jackson’s economic development plan is a non-binding agreement with a city 75 miles to our south. How exactly are these two struggling cities supposed to do a development deal?

And here is my problem with how our current leadership represents and implements economic development. As far as they are concerned building a large public works project (always under the pretense of a private – public partnership) is economic development. And this, of course, is faulty logic. Economic development is getting the 35-year male from Hough a job. It is helping a 24-year old single mother secure a career. No one though wants to do the dirty work. Instead, we build big white elephants and call it progress."

more here.

funny, I don't hear a giant sucking sound

I was reading a recent post at Burgh Diaspora last night, and it looked at the top metros that people from the Pittsburgh region choose for relocation.

The data originates from this paper by Christopher Briem at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research. Briem uses addresses from IRS income tax returns to track employees in the years 2000 to 2006. The top 10 areas Pittsburghers move to are:

1. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (9,009 people)
2. Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington (7,708)
3. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island (6,378)
4. Indiana (PA) (5,093)
5. Youngstown-Warren (4,912)
6. New Castle (4,900)
7. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (4,157)
8. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor (3,918)
9. Columbus (3,579)
10. Atlanta (3,451)

Alternatively, the report lists where people are coming from to live in the Pittsburgh region. In this table as well, Youngstown-Warren is ranked 5th, with 4,658 people making the move to the land of the Steelers Nation.

That means in the past six years . . .
4,912 people left Pittsburgh to come to Youngstown, and
4,658 people left Youngstown to come to Pittsburgh.

resulting in a net difference of only 254 people.

Here are my conclusions from this information:

a. Compared to other large metro areas, Youngstown absorbs a relatively high number of people from Pittsburgh. (more than Cleveland surprisingly)

b. Compared to the number of people going between the two metros, the difference between them is relatively small.

c. The economies of both regions, especially when adding New Castle into the mix, shows some interdependencies between regional economies.

d. New people are moving to Youngstown.

This data does not differentiate for the type of job - if someone is an engineer, or bartender, or fireman, etc - so it does not make conclusions on what type of people are making these movements . . . only if they are making these movements.

But within the Pittsburgh region, the population is redistributing. More people are shifting to the Youngstown neighbor counties of Lawrence, Beaver and Butler (home of the technology in Cranberry Township) than leaving.

Even though this is one slice of data from one time period, maybe it provides proof that the local economy is stabilizing and that people don't just leave Youngstown,

they come to Youngstown.

"Yo, Cleveburgh!" . . . listen up.

The rust belt region's blogosphere has been heating up with a discussion about how the region's cities - Erie, Buffalo, Youngstown, Pittsburgh and Cleveland - can come together to promote the region and grow economically.

Probably the best blog covering this drive (and one you should bookmark and read often) is Burgh Diaspora. Check out one of Burgh Diaspora's most recent posts, titled Benchmarking the Real Pittsburgh.

"Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and retired Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill and former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editor John G. Craig Jr., among the founders of the Pittsburgh Regional Indicators Consortium, will give a detailed presentation on the need for area business and government decision-makers to better understand the dynamics of an expansively defined metropolitan Pittsburgh.

The PRI's Web site (www.pittsburghtoday.org) features detailed and continuously updated decision-support statistics on nine key components -- called "indicators" -- of the region's life: Arts, Demographics, Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Safety and Transportation.

The group defines the metropolitan Pittsburgh region as the twenty-two counties surrounding the city, including those in West Virginia and Ohio."

Under this new initiative, here is how the Pittsburgh region will be defined and monitored:


The area in green runs to less than a mile from the city limits of Youngstown.

Not the Youngstown exurbs, the Youngstown city limits.

Lawrence County is a hop (not even a skip and a jump) away, and many would consider this county as both a part of the Youngstown region and the Pittsburgh region.

This is further proof of the region's continuing integration. People commute from Youngstown to Twinsburg . . . people commute from Youngstown to Akron . . . people commute from Youngstown to Cranberry Township.

So as Ed Morrison asked recently in BFD for us to compare how we are measuring ourselves, should the Cleveland, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh regions all be collecting the same data?

Should the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber be replicating the exact model that Pittsburgh is now instituting?

Guided by the style and ease of the PRI website, maybe tracking the Arts, Demographics, Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Safety and Transportation as a mega-region can be a component of the Ryan/Altmire Tech Belt initiative?

Again, from the RPI's website:

"This project’s goal is to spark a more informed civic dialog. By providing a timely and accurate statistical picture of regional life, we hope to stimulate a discussion of where we are and where we hope to go.

This project is closely coordinated with the Key National Indicators Initiative, centered at the National Academies in Washington, D.C. That initiative was begun as one response to a 2004 General Accounting Office (GAO) report recommending the establishment of a national indicator system as a way to help people and organizations answer vital questions about their communities, as well as to give all the people a report card on the nature of life in the United States."

- - -

The Burgh Diaspora blog has even been picked up by Richard Florida's blog recently, for its discussion on a geographically targeted high-skill immigration policy for revitalizing our rustbelt cities.

I'm still eager to see what develops from the first Tech Belt meeting held at Youngstown State University in October.

In the meantime, my new tag for Youngstown, Cleveland Pittburgh posts on regionalism will be:

"Yo, Cleveburgh!"