Shutdown at Youngstown


Book Description

In spite of the gravity of the problem of mass unemployment and its periodic recurrence in industrial societies, few scientific studies have been undertaken which serve to define the impact of plant closings on workers, families, and the community; to evaluate individual group, or community responses to closings; and to offer suggestions for the future. Shutdown at Youngstown meets this need. It presents the findings of a multidisciplinary, scientific study of the closing of the steel mills in Youngstown in 1977 which put 5,000 persons out of work. Research reported in the text is based on personal interviews, social indicator data, and data from health and human service agencies. The authors conclude by developing a public policy for dealing with plant closings and the crisis of mass unemployment.







The Fight Against Shutdowns


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Shutdown


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City in Transition


Book Description

In a climate of scarce financial resources, where federal and state fiscal assistance to cities has dwindled quantitatively, all civic leaders must somehow find a way to provide long-term vision, a good business climate, and diverse economic development planning strategies to grow their cities' economies. Such plans should be strategically flexible and adaptable to change, yet strong enough to withstand the whirlwinds and vicissitudes of the constantly changing national and global economies. Youngstown, Ohio, achieved its success through the visionary leadership of its city mayors, who partnered with local University leadership, tapping into their invaluable assets of knowledge capital and technology transfer capacities, while at the same time mobilizing public support from labor, businesses, foundations, and other entrepreneurial stakeholders to provide assistance with the city's economic recovery. City in Transition is a landmark testimonial assessment of tried and true economic development strategies of Youngstown mayors' visionary leaderships to revive and grow the city's declining economy following its steel mill closings in the late 1970s. Economic development strategies together with city-size reclassification into a smaller post-industrial city, created a classic leadership story of foresight that transcended the city's economic regeneration per se, to garner both national recognition and international attention.




Closing Chapters


Book Description

Closing Chapters attempts to explain the disintegration of urban parochial schools in Youngstown, Ohio, a onetime industrial center that lost all but one of its eighteen Catholic parochial elementary schools between 1960 and 2006. Through this examination of Youngstown, Welsh sheds light on a significant national phenomenon: the fragmentation of American Catholic identity.




The City After Abandonment


Book Description

A number of U.S. cities, former manufacturing centers of the Northeast and Midwest, have suffered such dramatic losses in population and employment that urban experts have put them in a class by themselves, calling them "rustbelt cities," "shrinking cities," and more recently "legacy cities." This decline has led to property disinvestment, extensive demolition, and abandonment. While much policy and planning have focused on growth and redevelopment, little research has investigated the conditions of disinvested places and why some improvement efforts have greater impact than others. The City After Abandonment brings together essays from top urban planning experts to focus on policy and planning issues related to three questions. What are cities becoming after abandonment? The rise of community gardens and artists' installations in Detroit and St. Louis reveal numerous unexamined impacts of population decline on the development of these cities. Why these outcomes? By analyzing post-hurricane policy in New Orleans, the acceptance of becoming a smaller city in Youngstown, Ohio, and targeted assistance to small areas of Baltimore, Cleveland, and Detroit, this book assesses how varied institutions and policies affect the process of change in cities where demand for property is very weak. What should abandoned areas of cities become? Assuming growth is not a choice, this book assesses widely cited formulas for addressing vacancy; analyzes the sustainability plans of Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; suggests an urban design scheme for shrinking cities; and lays out ways policymakers and planners can approach the future through processes and ideas that differ from those in growing cities.