Mahoning, Trumbull saw big population drops in 2007
‘It is all employment related,’ said Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel.
STAFF/wire REPORTs
Mahoning and Trumbull counties were among 34 counties in the nation with the biggest population declines from 2006 to 2007.
Ohio led the nation with seven of the 34 counties, while the state had just two of the 100 fastest-growing counties, the Census Bureau reported today.
Mahoning lost 3,192 and Trumbull 1,975, according to the Census Bureau.
The biggest population loser among Ohio counties, and the third largest population loss in the nation, 13,304, was Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland.
Ohio’s other big population losers were Hamilton (Cincinnati), Montgomery (Dayton), Lucas (Toledo), and Summit (Akron) counties.
“It is all employment related,” Trumbull County Commissioner Paul Heltzel said of the population drops.
There has been a trend since the 1980s, when Trumbull County hit its peak population of about 240,000, just four years after Black Monday when Youngstown Sheet and Tube closed, Heltzel said. “It has been been downhill ever since. The last figures I heard were 218,000-220,000.”
In recent years, there was more bad news, which Heltzel called a kind of mini-Black Monday: The loss of thousands of good paying jobs at Delphi Packard Electric and General Motors Lordstown, and the support businesses built up around them.
The only thing to turn the population loss trend around is to work at attracting employers and the jobs they bring with them, the commissioner said. “It’s not like we are a vacation destination,” he noted.
Heltzel said the Regional Chamber is always working to interest companies and employers in locating here — and some of the negatives have, in a way, turned into positives. The price of industrial property is pretty cheap, he said.
Mahoning County Commissioner John McNally said there are a number of reasons the population is dwindling, and agreed with Heltzel that most are employment-related.
“We’re seeing people who retire or take buyouts and then move out of the area. We lose the college kids who don’t come back because the employment picture is not good. Not only do we lose them, we lose their spouses and the children they eventually produce that would replace the population,” he said.
Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties are trying to retain jobs as they try to attract new employers. But, McNally said, except for tax abatement, not a lot of economic development tools are available to counties.
“There is no magic pill that is going to bring in 5,000 jobs. We have to retain and encourage new small businesses,” he said.
However, Heltzel said there is some encouraging news.
Ohio was picked as the top state for the most new or expanded capital projects by Site Selection magazine. Heltzel said the state is more attractive to business because of changes in the tax structure and the phasing out of personal property tax.
Locally, he said Trumbull County is trying to do more with economic development through its port authority, and plans to spend $40 million to $50 million on sewer lines over the next five years.
“I like to be optimistic, but its a dogfight. Any company is going to check all its options before investing anywhere,” he said.
Ohio, whose population edged up to 11.4 million last year from 11.3 million in 2000, had just two counties among the 100 biggest gainers: Delaware, north of Columbus, and Warren, located between Cincinnati and Dayton.