connecting lake erie to the ohio river, cleveland to pittsburgh

a quick update on the plan to connect downtown Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley to Lake Erie, the Ohio River, potentially Cleveland and Pittsburgh (and thus D.C.) by bike lanes can be found here.


from the article:

"Plans for a bike trail that would connect YSU with Mill Creek MetroPark were discussed at a recent public meeting. The plans for the path stretching about 1.5 miles have officially been in the works for about four months"

"The extended plan for the bike trails in the city would connect with the Great Ohio Lake-to-River Trail, which runs from Ashtabula to East Liverpool, and the Stavich Trail, which runs from Lowellville to New Castle, Pa."

But this project needs your support to become a reality. Pipe up to neighbors and friends and family how you feel about the concept, and rally local leaders to make it happen.

and now, a word from the president . . .

(friday night update: videos below)

44 himself was impressed with the change.


Today, the ol' university in youngstown announced its Western Pennsylvania Advantage, which cuts by $2,500 a year the tuition of students from Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Lawrence, Mercer and Venango counties in PA. More here.

This initiative is breaking down one more barrier along the Cleveburgh Corridor, demonstrating the diminishing significance of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, a dotted line on maps less than 2.5 miles from the Youngstown city limits.

Now students from PA can attend YSU at a tuition rate lower than the in-state rate for Pennsylvanians at some of Pennsylvania's public universities.

but besides the cost savings (currently 650 of the school's 14,000 student are from Western PA), this description of the university caught my eye in the FAQ section of the website:

"Youngstown State University is historically and geographically linked to downtown Youngstown, where students will find a growing culture of restaurants and cafés, in the midst of a lively music, art, and live-theater scene. The new Chevrolet Centre...

A half-mile from downtown is a truly amazing nature preserve, Mill Creek Park, offering miles of running and hiking trails, golf, waterfalls, picnic pavilions, an arboretum, and kayak rentals – 4,400 acres of exceptional green space to enjoy.

Twenty minutes’ drive north or south will take students to two major mall and shopping districts, complete with national retail chains, bookstores, coffee shops, movie theaters, and restaurants, as well as minor-league baseball.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh are only an hour from Youngstown in 
either direction for big‐city sports and entertainment."

as the region is economically integrated, why can't more of its policies be integrated?

what does the Tech Belt Initiative want to be when it grows up?

Chris over at NullSpace comments on the recent real estate news of Howard Hanna (of Pittsburgh) purchasing Reality One (of Cleveland) - giving it a 40% share of the Cleveland market.

This builds on the other bit of recent news in October with PNC (of Pittsburgh) purchasing National City (of Cleveland), the latter being the largest bank in the state of Ohio.

In many ways, the interdependence and the collective consciousness of a combined Northeast Ohio and Southwestern Pennsylvania is strengthening.

And so the website of the [Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown-Pittsburgh] TechBelt Initiative is now up at www.techbelt.org, with a brief 8 page overview of the plan here. Check out the goals, check out the aggregate funding and population levels, and check out the challenges that this mega-region collectively faces.

But after checking out the paper, I keep thinking: What does the Tech Belt Initiative want to be when it grows up?

A membership-based networking organization?

A marketing campaign?

A funding agent?

A lobbying group?

The goals in the brief paper may align the future of the Tech Belt to several of these options.

But if you want to learn more on this project, check out the 2nd Cleveland+Pittsburgh+Youngstown Regional Learning Network meeting to be held this Friday all day at the Youngstown Club. (details on C+P+Y here)

-

BONUS: Time Magazine's video of Youngstown here on the election, featuring a few local bloggers. The Wall Street Journal's month-long blog (talk about embedded) on undecided Youngstown voters concludes here. (ps. Much thanks to the featured Joe Sullivan, a kind soul who taught me how to juggle 14 years ago) and finally, Mayor Williams lays out his argument on who to vote for in the Presidential election in his blog, here.

The top priority of an Obama-Biden administration will be to get our economy moving again, not only on Wall Street but on Market Street, Federal Street, Belmont, Oak Street, and Salt Springs Road, here in Youngstown. Barack Obama knows that the single greatest strength of our nation is our creativity and our determination in the face of adversity.

Sen. Obama promises to invest in the skills and ingenuity of Americans by promoting "innovation clusters" – regional centers of innovation and next-generation industries. This is a concept on which I am working closely with Congressman Tim Ryan. To his great credit, Sen. Obama is building off a policy that has already shown tremendous success in cities across the country.

I have seen that success up-close. The Youngstown Business Incubator has helped turn our city into a national hub for business-to-business software. Companies within the Youngstown Business Incubator have been awarded 16 intellectual property patents, developed 19 new commercial software applications, created over 170 new jobs, recruited customers in 44 foreign countries, translated their products and support materials into 8 languages, and won the prestigious Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award. We are already training entrepreneurs and other young people to get them good jobs in this emerging industry.

I can cite examples of other companies in Youngstown such as FireLine, City Machine Technologies, M-7 Technologies, Brilex, Exal and, Northern States Metals, just to name a few, that have figured out how to excel in a global market place. These are models of “next generation” companies that will help to define the economy of the City of Youngstown, the Mahoning Valley, and even the State of Ohio. These are the type of companies, amongst others, that we will continue to work with to help ensure they benefit from an Obama/Biden economic policy.

pittsburgh all lit up

Pittsburgh has been putting on some good events lately, especially for its 250th anniversary.

At night, they have been illuminating structures in unique ways - and the structures provide inspiration for what other cities can do to light up the night.

It was inspiring enough that I spent the day there, and picked up some great Indian food in Oakland.


The projection equipment above is a sample of what was used to light up the buildings.

Below is a water-and-light-filled walkway under the convention center downtown, descending to banks of the Allegheny River.


This fountain is beautiful. I'd like to propose slightly relocating the Vietnam and Korea war memorials downtown to the same side of the island as the Civil War Memorial, illuminating them all, and then installing a fountain like this in their place.


Here's the gorgeous Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh (or the temple of ignorance as my one CMU friend calls it). More photos of the building here, but check out how the 42 stories of the 1926 structure are bathed in projected light.


Here are two churches downtown:



And the facade of the William Penn hotel:



and to finish with a question:

if the city of Youngstown was yours to illuminate with light, what places would you illuminate or what similar projects could you see taking place?

walking 50 yards from PNC headquarters

Well the whole PNC/National City Cleveburgh bank merger is continuing to be discussed in quality blogs, in the newspapers, magazines, and in congressional inquiries.

So I decided to take a walk around the streets bordering PNC's headquarters in Pittsburgh over the weekend, and found three National City branches within 50 yards of the block at which PNC is centered.

Here's a shot along Liberty Avenue, peering past the National City sign to Three PNC Plaza - a rapidly growing component of the pittsburgh skyline:


Then walking over to Philip Johnson's (Cleveland native) PPG Place, here's another one in Market Square:


Then along Wood Street just smack next to the main PNC entrance:


So while PNC's Chairman Jim Rohr (Cleveland native) claims most National City jobs are safe (20 percent annual attrition? - wow) this branch in downtown Pittsburgh was closed and the building was for sale:

lust felt for our rust belt on 11-11

A good thread is growing on the Rust Belt Bloggers ning site.

While the press release is being worked on, the basic context is this:

In two weeks on November 11th, everyone with a blog in the rust belt region is encouraged to dedicate a post that day to physically describing (with photos or video) your neighborhood or a preferred place in your metro.


Then we all link to each other, even through a central site, to explore each other's favorite places in their community.

people from Buffalo visualizing Butler.
people from Ohio City visualizing Oakland.
people from Milwaukee visualizing Mill Creek Park.

know thyself.

does the PNC purchase help or hinder the image of a Cleveburgh?

attention Youngstown: the signage on one of your downtown's buildings will be changing.

This blog's most recent post concentrated on the necessity and opportunities for the Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh regions to come together - known often as the Cleveburgh region.

So while this space will not go into the economic impact from a fiscal or jobs perspective regarding today's purchase of National City Bank (headquartered in Cleveland - largest bank in Ohio) by PNC (headquartered in Pittsburgh - now 5th largest bank in the US).


So a question for all of you:

Does the news today of the emergence of PNC in Youngstown, with an enlarged footprint now including Northeast Ohio, help or hinder the development of "the Cleveburgh mega-regional concept".

On one end, we are witnessing the creation of entities that will share fiscal and philanthropic resources across the 7.1 people in the Cleveland to Pittsburgh belt.

On the other end, will a mentality of "hey those Pittsburgh dudes are screwing us in Cleveland" prevail?

Judging by the immediate reaction of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, one might say the latter option.

From their lead of the PD's story today:

Climaxing a collapse that began 14 months ago, National City Corp. is being sold.

The Cleveland bank, the largest in Ohio, is being purchased by PNC Financial Services of Pittsburgh for $2.23 per share.

The news is among the worst the local giant, with 8,000 employees in Northeast Ohio, could receive. PNC, just 130 miles and less than three hours from National City's headquarters, will almost certainly slash thousands of local employees.

new ysu-youngstown reading series to begin

new tradition to begin:

The first installment of the YSU-Ytown Reading Series will be held at Monday October 6th starting at 7PM at Cedars Cafe downtown - and will continue on the first Monday of every month.

Featuring authors from the Youngstown/Cleveland/Pittsburgh corridor, as well as the rest of the nation - after each featured reader, the mic will be open for local poets and writers to share their words as well.

Catherynne M. Valente is the first author, creator of the Orphan’s Tales series.

David Giffels will be the featured guest for the next event on November 3rd. He is a columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal and the author of All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-down House.

more info on the authors can be found here.

the best show on television. period.

GPS with Fareed Zakaria.

- - -

from the sept 21st 2008 show on global financial markets:

KARABELL: People will look back at this time and say, this was the period of time when the global capital base literally went outside the United States, much the way the manufacturing base of the world left the United States...

ZAKARIA: The de-Americanization of global finance, Niall?

FERGUSON: I'm not sure it's time to anticipate that yet.

You know, the American financial history is a series of crises, and often household names would evaporate. Who remembers now the Knickerbocker Trust?

Let's not forget that this is part of the American package, that banks fail. It's called "creative destruction." That was a great phrase used by Joseph Schumpeter.

When you look at the other models that are on offer here -- let's say, state monopoly capitalism of the sort they have in Moscow, or some kind of quasi-liberal planned economy of the sort they have in Beijing -- are those faring any better at the moment? Actually, no.

I know which stock market is down most in the world, and it sure isn't the U.S. stock market. Actually, it's the Russian stock market right now.

ZAKARIA: But so is the model...

FERGUSON: Let's not assume there's an alternative model that everybody can embrace, that somehow could proof against crisis.

ZAKARIA: But could the model be more European banks, which are much less leveraged, which have been -- which have not reaped the rewards of the last two decades quite as much, but are not imploding before our eyes?

FERGUSON: The last time I looked at the numbers, they had lost just as much money in the subprime crisis as their American counterparts. And it's only really a somewhat different set of arrangements between governments and finance that are preventing banks in Switzerland and in Britain from going bust.

KARABELL: But the issue, Niall, is not that this represents the failure of the United States long term. The globalization of capital can be immensely beneficial to any of the players within it.

And the manufacturing example is quite germane in that, yes, it's true that a lot of people lost their jobs in the 1970s. Pittsburgh was a disaster zone for 15 or 20 years. But Pittsburgh today is, you know, a high-tech service capital. And you have this transition in that creative destruction way.

It doesn't mean that the United States becomes a substantially poorer or less affluent society. It just means that the base becomes much more disperse. And I think that's what we're beginning to see, not the erosion of the model.

- - -

So, how can Youngstown reorient itself more towards Pittsburgh to come out stronger after this most recent wave of creative destruction?

alaska, the youngstown region, and perspective

Just out of curiosity, I checked the population of the great state of Alaska. According to the U.S. Census Bureau . . .

670,053 people lived in Alaska in 2006.

- - -

Now let's look at what is commonly called the Youngstown region:

251,026 in Mahoning County (OH)
217,362 in Trumbull County (OH)
118,551 in Mercer County (PA)
110,542 in Columbiana County (OH)

which in that same year of 2006 was
697,481 people

add the
91,795 people from Lawrence County (PA) which is less than two miles from the Youngstown city limits can you get a total of

789,276 people in 2006 for the Youngstown region.

Definitely larger than Alaska, and still, one of the top 100 largest metro areas in the United States even without Columbiana and Lawrence counties.

and the Youngstown region is smack in the middle, the central hub if you will, of the 7.5 million Cleveburgh mega-region.

- - -

two things for all you mega-regional people:

Listen here for this week's interview on Lincoln Avenue with Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams - discussing regionalism.

Follow here the upcoming Restoring Our Prosperity Policy Summit to take place in Columbus this Wednesday, September 10th. Breakfast will be served at 8am at the Columbus Convention Center in the Short North.

The summit's agenda can be read here for those who cannot attend.

buckeye innovation zones (biz)

This week, the Ohio Department of Development released its Strategic Plan, full of lots of pretty pictures and some policy recommendations.


One of the report's various proposals is to create at least 12 of what the OhDoD is calling Ohio Hubs of Innovation and Prosperity (or OHIO, chuckle) - with one in downtown Youngstown.

from the 108-page report, which can be found here:

"Our Ohio Hubs of Innovation and Opportunity program will leverage our regional strengths to facilitate and catalyze the creation of at least 12 regionally designated places where knowledge and place-based assets intersect; places where innovation will flourish and places where opportunity will be generated. We will offer targeted resources to renew physical space and foster new business investment in each OHIO Hub."

So what might these OHIO Hubs look like?

Youngstown can look right at our neighbors for some answers, as Pennsylvania offers a similar program, the Keystone Innovation Zones (KIZ), through its Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).

More can be found on the PA KIZ Program here, so while the Ohio version may be different, here are some of its main components:

Each zone is area contiguous to an institution of higher education, linked to other economic development partners/organizations such as private businesses, business support organizations, commercial lending institutions, venture capital companies, angel investor networks or foundations.

Innovation Grants are provided to institutions of higher education to facilitate technology transfer, including patent filings, licensing, intellectual property, royalty agreements and other designated resource needs. Grants may not exceed $250,000 per year and the program is supported for three fiscal years.

Planning Grants provide seed funding to KIZ Partnerships that may not meet the criteria for Zone certification, but would benefit from additional planning and development of their application. Generally awards are $25,000 to support a follow on full KIZ application.

Operations Grants support each Zone's Coordinator for administrative costs incurred in establishing and implementing the keystone innovation zone. Grants will not exceed $250,000 and will be reduced in subsequent years by 25%, 50%, and finally 75%.

Tax Credits can be offered to a KIZ company (as designated) to claim a credit equal to 50% of the increase in the KIZ company’s gross revenues. The credit will not exceed $100,000 annually.

so while according to the report, the OHIO Hubs won't be operational until two to four years from now, what can Youngstown do to prepare?

1 - look across the border to what works and what doesn't for success, since Pennsylvania has 29 of these zones. Check the KIZ zones list here, and contact at least the close ones located in Oil City, two in Pittsburgh, Erie, Beaver Falls, and Johnstown and discuss best practices.

2 - Start pushing and marketing downtown youngstown NOW as the place to be for technology companies to locate in the region. Proximity and density is key.

3 - Similar to the WIRED Nation created by forward thinkers in some of the country's WIRED regions through the Dept. of Labor, a similar site can be constructed to link Ohio's Hubs and share best practices with each other.

While more programs exist in Ohio's most recent Strategic Plan, now is the time to start strategizing as a region about next steps.

- - -

as a side note, an interesting and revealing critique of the Strategic Plan's goals can be found here at NullSpace.

"...one goal is for Ohio to achieve job growth at a rate 25% above any of its neighboring states. Those would include Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and well, you know. In fact the lead measures (see page 6) are all defined by just doing better than those other 4 states and Pennsylvania.

Should those really be the goals for any state? I suppose Ohio could achieve that if things just went to hell in a handbasket in those bordering states, Pennsylvania included. Would that really be success? Not exactly a mega-regional view of economic development in that."

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.