Expert: City’s on track, but state lags

By Denise Dick

Wick Neighbors and the city’s 2010 plan are steps in the right direction, the speaker said.

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

Lavea Brachman, co-director of Greater Ohio Inc. and a nonresident 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 nonpartisan 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.

Ohio’s development patterns, though, are unsustainable. Though it ranks eighth in the U.S. for land conversion, it’s only 22nd in population growth.

“We’re not growing in population, but we are really eating up our land,” Brachman said,

The Restoring Prosperity Initiative’s focus is revitalization of cities and towns that concentrate on prosperity drivers. Brachman listed innovation, work force, quality of place and infrastructure as those drivers.

Through endeavors such as Wick Neighbors and the Youngstown 2010 plan, the city is ahead of many other communities. Wick Neighbors is a nonprofit organization working to develop the city’s Smoky Hollow area.

Among its current ventures is the vacant-property initiative.

“The city of Youngstown is confronted with over 8,000 vacant structures and over 20,000 vacant lots, resulting in one of the highest per-capita vacancy rates in the United States,” said Margaret Murphy, WNI’s executive director.

Last February, individuals met at St. Patrick’s Church and released recommendations for addressing those properties. They suggest roles for both the public and private sectors such as a countywide land bank, countywide real-property information system, legislative changes and public sector funding.

Scott R. Schulick, WNI’s vice chairman, told attendees that despite a lagging economy, the organization’s initiatives remain intact.

“Our project is moving forward,” he said.

denise_dick@vindy.com