can the rust belt come back?

probably not.

Harvard's Ed Glaeser received a good amount of attention over the past few months because of this journal article: Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?

Glaeser's answer: Buffalo probably can't come back, and "government should stop bribing people to stay there."

He continues:

"The truth is, the federal government has already spent vast sums of taxpayer money over the past half-century to revitalize Buffalo, only to watch the city continue to decay. Future federal spending that tries to revive the city will likely prove equally futile. The federal government should instead pursue policies that help Buffalo’s citizens, not the city as a geographical place. State and local policymakers could take steps that might—might—help Buffalo stave off its demise, if they avoid the errors of the past. But make no mistake: Buffalo faces long odds."

These comments prompted passionate debates (of course) in communities across the nation, and so to continue the debate, Buffalo invited Glaeser to speak there. His reasoned presentation (with apology) is embedded below, and worth watching:



The essence of Glaeser's Buffalo speech is this:

Regions and communities are too focused on measures such as population growth, population decline, and dollars allocated for construction projects. A community's most important responsibility is to deliver skills to its people and to assist in the creation of a physical environment which allows them to thrive.

It means maintaining safe neighborhoods and educational opportunities for youth. It means judging infrastructure projects on their flexibility of use and cost-benefit. It means attracting smart people and then getting out of their way.

It means concentrating on the things which are sometimes very difficult to measure.

- - -

how might this thinking in this speech impact Youngstown?

Perhaps the conversation shifts, and the often repeated measures such as "number of jobs this project created" and "number of dollars spent on construction projects" become less important. Establishing programs such as tutoring city school kids and strengthening block watches become more preferred actions of the city's Department of Economic Development instead of financing incentive packages and tax abaitments. (the department might be looking for more things to do when the next city budget comes out anyway)

Perhaps the strategy shifts to intentionally cluster people with diverse skills, especially into denser pockets downtown where the technology companies exist, and into denser neighborhoods (like Smoky-Hollow, downtown and the Garden District). The importance of proximity and interactions that come with proximity should be pushed by civic leaders.

Perhaps the actions of individuals shift, in that every person reading this post should be a big brother or a big sister to a youth in the city. Enough of a shift that every young person has even three or four mentors outside of their family and neighborhood they can ask for advice when guidance is needed.

new stories, new responses, new blogs

Elections bring the national media to Youngstown

On the Ground in Youngstown 5 minute video from the New York Times
The Politics of Trade in Ohio in the New York Times
Rust Belt Clamors for Fix, hears Rhetoric in the Chicago Tribune
Ohioans Hear Populist Pleas By Democrats in the New York Times
Democrats Appeal to Working Class Voters in Ohio in the Kansas City Star

Local blogs react

a MUST-READ post in the Defend Youngstownblog
Rust Belt Blues in the Five Husbands blog
Making the News in Meditations in an Emergency
YBI Scores in Connected Youngstown+
NY Times in Youngstown in Meditations in an Emergency

New local blogs to notice

5th Ward Councilman - Paul Drennen
www.councilmanpauldrennen.blogspot.com
the 5 husbands blog
http://fivehusbands.wordpress.com/

from DY:

"While it's nice to receive the attention Youngstown has received from both Democratic candidates here in Youngstown, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is an opportunity to make our case as to the real needs of this community, both presently and in regards to future investments. In an area so economically desperate as Youngstown, it is easy to get swept up in dialogue that appeals to our emotions and speaks to our pain. Peppered with a few items that seem like there is an understanding of how to fix our situation, this appeal can easily and often divert attention from the task at hand which is to addresses true necessities that will help us sustain ourselves at present and begin to diversely invest in our future (more on this in a moment).

In a few short days, the election will be had, the candidates will be gone and the media will move on to the next Youngstown in a state far, far away. The party will be over but Youngstown, OH will still be here. It's time to wipe the stardust from our eyes and place personal or special interests aside. We must begin to start asking some tough, detailed questions that speak to the common social and economic issues that face this Valley as whole before these candidates are on their way."

more on this topic here.

note: this post is cross-posted at In The Yo

u mich city planning ideas now online

Over the summer, city planning graduate students from the University of Michigan came to Youngstown to participate in a design studio. For parts of three days, they met various stakeholders including university and business representatives, city government, and youngstown bloggers, among others.

Then they came back.

Four teams of students presented their ideas and concepts at the downtown convocation center, and recently these presentations have been put online.


You can access the content of the four presentations here. A warning though, the file is a 25 MB pdf because of all the pictures contained within.


Here is just a sample of their ideas, many of them easy to implement and some of them are complex in scale. I particularly liked the presentation that brought the water element into various parts of the downtown.





Please note: this project was a design studio for a university class. It is NOT final design ideas set in stone. Do not get angry if you do not like certain components, because they are at a very preliminary stage of planning and imagining.

However, if you like certain concepts of these plans, be loud about it. Share them with your neighbors and tell others what you think. Perhaps by being loud with your opinions, some of these ideas can become a reality.

And thanks to the students for coming to Youngstown and sharing your great ideas.

young in youngstown

A new television show will be launching this week titled "Young in Youngstown" by the local NBC affiliate.

Produced and hosted by Mollie McGovern, current President of the MVP 20/30 Club, the show will highlight topics of interest to young professionals and young people in the Youngstown region.

The first show will air early this week, focusing on jobs - how to find them, how to get them, and will also feature last month's Northeast Ohio networking event held at the DeYor Performing Arts Center.


The show airs:
Tuesday, September 18th, 7:30pm on WFMJ - channel 21
Wednesday, September 19th, 7pm on WBCB - channel 20

Speaking of the Networking in the Middle event, hundreds of young professionals from across the region gathered in Youngstown for some food, drink, networking, etc. Sponsored locally by the MVP 20/30 Club and by the Cleveland Plus Marketing Alliance, the event sought to connect young professionals from different backgrounds, cities, and professions.



Also, the recipients of the 2007 "Mahoning Valley 40 under 40" were announced, and the list includes some bloggers. You can see the entire list from the Business-Journal story (need subscription) here.

Congrats to all the winners. Even the non-bloggers.

The Youngstown Homestead Act of 2007 : part I

Earlier this year, Ted Halstead, the founding president of the New America Foundation wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “A Homestead Act for the Twenty-First Century” in which he chronicles various programs that the American middle class has used to attain asset ownership.

The Homestead Act of 1862, for example, awarded 160 acres of land in the American West to every family who lived on the land for five years. Another example, the GI Bill, provided mortgage reduction policies for those who served in the U.S. Military.

Halstead calls for new policies to target the ownership of financial assets, as he claims the gap between the poor and the rich in the country is widening.

He proposes one such policy, that of giving to every newborn in America $6,000 at birth as a down payment on a productive life. With compounded interest, that amount could grow to $20,000 by the time the child reaches 18 years of age, which can then be used towards college tuition, a down payment for a home, seed money for a legitimate business, or retirement savings. In a single year for all children born in America, he estimates the cost to be $24 billion dollars, a much lower amount than what is spent on farm subsidies, foreign wars, or other ballooning government-funded programs.

But what really caught my eye is his article was this statement:

This program “could also offer inner-city kids a new social contract: If they play by the rules and graduate from high school, then a pot of money will allow them to invest in their own futures. Paired with financial-literacy education in schools, such a policy can turn a culture of poverty and dependency into one of hope and opportunity.”

- - -

Let’s investigate this idea for our own city:

This gap between the rich and the poor, for both individuals and political jurisdictions, is indeed growing in the Mahoning Valley. In the latest figures from the U.S. Census’ 2005 American Community Survey, the percentage of individuals living below the poverty line in the city of Youngstown has grown to 24.3%.

This same statistical source states there are approximately 4,700 children living in the city of Youngstown less than 5 years of age. So I’m going to estimate there are about 900 children born every year that will be moving into the city limits of Youngstown. A $1,000 investment towards each child for a project like this would cost then annually about $900,000. A $2,000 investment per newborn, would cost about $1.8 million, and so forth.

Under this concept, each child in the city of Youngstown would have a corresponding account attached to their name, which they could watch increase in value as they get older. Other additional components that can be incorporated into this program include:

- The money would only be given to the student if they successfully graduate from a high school within the city limits of Youngstown by the age of nineteen. If the student does not graduate in time, the money reverts back into the system to be distributed to future newborns.

- Only one-fifth of the money in each student’s account will go directly into their pocket, for whatever purpose they choose. The rest of the money can only be used to pay for the student's tuition in universities, community colleges, and technical schools in the Mahoning Valley.

- Financial institutions, such as banks and credit unions with their headquarters in the city of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley will be given the first opportunity to be a partner with this program.

- Students will learn about the existence of these accounts at an early age, and will be educated on the value of investing and compounding interest at various points during their schooling. If desired, students can open additional accounts with the financial institutions that administer their account, which they can have complete control over.

Of course, the details on all this are subject to change (maybe this blog for wandering thoughts will stir some additional calculations), but the central message is clear:

We need to reward students who successfully complete school, we need to support local financial institutions, we need to push students to continue their education beyond high school, and we need some programs to make Youngstown a city where families with children feel welcome to thrive.

are there seats at the table for younger people?

The City Club of Cleveland has been posting podcasts of their past presentations over the past few weeks, and one was downloaded into my iTunes yesterday which particularly caught my attention. It was by Rebecca Ryan, who is the founder of Next Generation consulting. She did some consulting work for many midwestern cities, including Akron. The entire presentation can be listened to by clicking on this link.

One of her central talking points is the necessity for a community to accept younger people on their civic orgnization's boards of trustees. She cited how Akron recently added four seats on board of their Chamber of Commerce, in the attempt to engage younger people and entrepreneurs in the area. A recent posting on this blog reviewed academic research that theorized one reason for the stuggles of Youngstown is that the leadership of the civic organizations throughout the years have been a fairly homogeneous bunch.

Should the boards of Youngstown-based organizations take this idea to heart?

My question is this: what number of the board of trustees of the following organizations are held by people younger than 50 years old?

- The Butler Institute of American Art
- The United Way of Mahoning Valley
- The Youngstown Symphony Society
- The Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber
- Wick Neighbors Inc.
- The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County

The reason I chose these institutions is that they will be important drivers for the future of Youngstown. I have no clue who comprises their executive boards and leadership and I am not critizing them, but it may be an interesting exercise for these organizations to analyze their own leadership. maybe the best leaders are those who have been in the Valley for a while and with the most connections and experience. But maybe their future success will depend on the engagement of younger generations and where they receive their ideas for the future.

free college tuition for youngstown city students

The school district in the city of Kalamazoo (MI) has attacted a lot of press with their "Kalamazoo Promise" - an effort to send all of their public school students to college in Michigan for free. A few recent articles have shown the possible impact that this announcement has had in the community.

With its commitment to the Promise, Kalamazoo is upsetting the traditional economic-development model. In the past, blighted cities across the nation signed onto various types of revitalization plans. Mainly, they focused on physical improvements -- including new public spaces, office parks and other civic amenities -- in hopes of spurring economic and social progress.

Words such as "education-minded" and "investment in the right places" have been used to describe this project. Housing constuction is up in the city, and 277 youngsters are registered to start kindergarten next September -- up from 193 last year.

wow.

I propose a similar project to be implemented by the Youngstown City Schools, perhaps based on the Kalamazoo model, to guarantee full college tuition at Youngstown State University to any city school graduate. Other stipulations such as high school g.p.a. requirements, YSU g.p.a. requirements can be added to the program to provide extra incentives for students to work hard. Other components such as required community service hours and internship opportunities can also be tied to the proposal.

But it is just a proposal. We need to take it to the next level and perform an analysis on the costs and scope of the concept. Tuition at YSU for an in-state student per academic year is around $6500. I'm going to estimate 500 students graduate from the Youngstown City public high school in a given year. (Data is not easily accessible at the school district's website plus with all the open enrollment issues, this number is just an approximation). With students choosing other universities and participation in Youngstown Early College tweaking this number, the maximum amount of money needed per year for this type of program is 3 million dollars.

3 million dollars is just a back of the envelope calculation, but this seems to not be an enormous figure - especially considering the potential impact of the program.

What I like about the Kalamazoo Promise is its boldness. When I heard about it for the first time I thought "sweet jesus, that is a big commitment". But the truth is, we need a statement in Youngstown that we too are committed to the youth of the city. A program like this may help rise the depressingly low dropout rates in the public schools, as well as raising an individual student's desire to work hard.

And it sends a message to the rest of the country, if not the world, that the city of Youngstown is serious about education.