Reinvigorating Ohio’s competitiveness is initiative’s focus

YOUNGSTOWN — The city is on the path to restoring prosperity, but state policies need to catch up, said the co-director of a non-profit group promoting policy initiatives.

Lavea Brachman, co-director of Greater Ohio Inc. and a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, spoke Tuesday at the annual meeting of Wick Neighbors Inc. at Stambaugh Auditorium.

“The seeds already have been planted,” Brachman said.

Greater Ohio and the Brookings Institution lead the Restoring Prosperity to Ohio Initiative, a non-partisan policy development and organizing initiative. It focuses on revitalizing the state’s core communities and reinvigorating Ohio’s economic competitiveness.

The state has 32 of what Brachman called economic drivers and Youngstown and Warren are among them.

But state policies sometimes work against those metropolitan areas, she said.

“State action or inaction has contributed to problems including sprawl and poor land use,” she said.

There’s an uneven playing field, specifically tax policies, between cities and townships and policy encourages cities to compete rather than cooperate.

Read more in Wednesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com