I follow Jim Russells Pittsburgh Diaspora and he's linking to a buzz about Youngstown..

 

From the WOOF Factor

 

Youngstown, Ohio, in the middle of the Rust Belt, is transforming itself into a technology hub, turning old factories into technology centers. Because the location of a software company isn’t relevant. With its lower cost of living and burgeoning cultural and social life, Youngstown’s transformation is part of a movement referred to as ‘Rust Belt Chic.

 

...and this very postivie & juicy multi-page (6 pages plus accompanying photo-essay with a pix of that Kidd guy) article from Inc:

 

Semper Youngstown

 

..and excerpt, name-checking the Lemon Grove.

 

Today, Clark works in a home office replete with a curving black and crimson art deco bar, and he regards Youngstown as an adventure. "We're urban pioneers," he told me. "We're trying to bring a city back from the dead, and Youngstown needs so much." Clark writes a blog, Youngstown Renaissance, that advocates for a livable Youngstown. ("For God's sake," he writes, "no more surface parking lots.") As a member of the group Resettle Youngstown, he takes care of vacant houses, boarding up the windows and doors to keep vandals out, and every so often, at the Lemon Grove Cafe, he emcees Thinkers and Drinkers, a casual powwow that sees locals sipping pints as they hash over questions like, How can we get Youngstown State students more involved in the community? When I went one night, he began with caution. "Complaining is OK," he said, "but I don't want this to turn into a bitch session."

 

The Lemon Grove is Youngstown's most progressive and outré venue, and among regulars.... At Thinkers and Drinkers, I met Howard Markert, 43, a small-scale green developer who had recently arrived, from the Bay Area, to convert apartments into eco-havens replete with nontoxic paint and energy-efficient furnaces...

 

Deffo a visit to the Mahoning Valley when I'm up there next month.  Youngstown actually sounds more exciting than Dayton (in terms of people doing stuff and moving the dot...)

 

 

Another good sign for me is that Youngstown has its own beer for chrissake!  Rust Belt Beer.  And they are moving into retail sales, too!    That Youngstown can support something like this is pretty cool because attempts at this in Dayton (and there have been more than one) have all failed.

 

 

I am so impressed with what Youngstown is doing these days that I'm considering a move to the city, depending on if some grants come through. They are now doing things the right way -- rebuilding from within bit by bit with homegrown talent rather than trying to find one huge employer lifeboat to come to town and save the day.

 

I know the city well. My grandmother started and ran a travel agency there, and my aunt, uncle and cousins all lived there. So I've been going to Youngstown at least once a year to visit since 1967. But in the past 10 months I've been going there at least once a month on business.

 

Every time I exit I-680 and start across the Market Street bridge to enter downtown, I get a big smile on my face and maybe a little choked up. To me, it's like seeing family again. It's the family member who has been through hell and lived to tell about it, and he's started to get back up on his feet again.

 

Fellow forumer Youngstown resident JRC and I have been tracking Youngstown's remarkable recovery for a while now. Check out some of the threads at:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,8297.0.html

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,23808.0.html

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,6916.0.html

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22242.0.html

 

In addition to the haunting images of the Youngstown I knew as a kid, posted at:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,17134.0.html

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,17136.0.html

 

As much as it hurts to remember what was lost, I still do it. But I spend most of my doing what little I can to help the city recover:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,12576.0.html

 

It will take decades for Youngstown's scars to heal. And few cities in America were as wounded badly as Youngstown (think East St. Louis, Gary, Flint, Lowell, etc). After what Youngstown has been through over the past 33 years, you can't scare Youngstown any more. It's still standing and still fighting. A lesser city would have crumpled up, died and blown away with the wind a long time ago.

I guess I'm a little late to this thread.

 

I love the Semper Youngstown article.  The only thing that struck me as a little strange is the trash talking dodge ball game.  Many of the people named in that article are friends and acquaintances, and I've always found them to be more "professional" on a day to day basis. (I'm not saying I'm totally surprised something like that happened, though.)

 

It's both exciting and frustrating to live here.  It's exciting to see what's going on around me.  It's also exciting to be a small part of it.  But, it's frustrating because there are two other groups that tend to hold things back. (I'm sure just about every other Ohio city has them, too)

 

One group is used to the "old ways" and are stuck trying to work in a system that is broken.  On the north side, the Resettle Youngstown group has taken it upon themselves to secure and take care of vacant properties in the Wick Park Neighborhood that are in limbo, as the Semper Youngstown article says.  But, in my current neighborhood, the Garden District, there is a beautiful house that hasn't had a front door since it went into foreclosure last spring. (the front door, and a couple leaded glass windows were stolen within days of the previous owners moving out)  We tried calling various city departments.  The city contacted the bank, with no results, and the street department didn't board up the windows. (tight budget)  When I offered to donate the materials to secure the house, the other neighborhood officers declined, because they were worried about the legal ramifications. (If the bank doesn't care enough about their property to secure it themselves, why would they care if someone else does it???)

 

The other group, who KJP has said are dead to him ;), are the naysayers who almost seem to root for Youngstown's failures.  The Rosetta Stone restaurant downtown has recently closed.  On Vindy.com, the local newspaper's website, the article has 79 comments - many of which are of the "I told you so" variety, even though it seems poor management was the real reason the restaurant closed.

The "I told you so" losers are not dead to me -- they're dead to themselves.

Can't it be both?

Most of those "I told you so" folks haven't been downtown in years, if ever. Had they done so recently, they would have seen this....

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,23011.0.html