Let your voice be heard on community improvement

Many varied ingredients must go into the making of a tantalizingly vibrant community.

Most would agree that a vibrant community is one that is experiencing strong growth in its population and one that has managed to keep its best and brightest young people close to home.

Most would also agree that a vibrant community is one in which the economy is booming with diversified jobs in plentiful supply and unemployment rates that fall well under state and national averages.

Most also would concur that a vibrant community is one in which a majority of its residents live comfortably with moderately rising wages and one where poverty rates remain low.

Sadly, the Mahoning Valley community and many others in various parts of Ohio lack any of those key building blocks for vibrancy.

That’s why Your Voice Ohio, a collection of about 40 TV and radio stations, daily and weekly newspapers and online news organizations, has launched a statewide initiative aimed at finding strategies to reinvigorate many shrinking and ailing communities throughout the Buckeye State. Your Voice, many will recall, last year explored solutions to the opiate epidemic gripping the state and continues its efforts to work with government and public-health leaders to implement community-constructed strategies whose goal is to lessen the scope of the epidemic’s mass destruction.

As with that campaign, this new initiative begins with a fact-finding mission aimed at members of the community at large. Toward that end, we urge residents throughout the Valley with concrete ideas on community revitalization in ways large and small to attend a brainstorming forum Sunday at Warren G. Harding High School, 860 Elm Road NE, from 1 p.m to 3 p.m. (Registration for the event is available online at www.yourvoiceohio.org)

The meeting in Warren is one of nine being conducted throughout the state in advance of the Nov. 6 election. The focus will fall squarely on the topic that Ohioans in a Your Voice Ohio/University of Akron poll clearly agreed ranks as the most compelling issue statewide – the economy.

Poignant questions

In Warren and at the other meetings, residents will be asked to consider such poignant questions as these: What does a vibrant community look like? What strengths are there in the community that can be applied to achieve vibrancy? How do we get started to add more vibrancy to our community?

This Your Voice Ohio project will explore economic issues that everyday residents suggest it pursues.

Community responses will be compiled and reported to the community as well as local and state leaders as a starting point for change. They will also be forwarded to leading candidates for statewide offices this November.

Clearly, in the Mahoning Valley, a community-centered approach to improving the quality of life around us makes sense. For years, we have relied on institutional organizations to guide us toward greener pastures. While many of them toil diligently and have produced some positive results, Greater Youngstown and other parts of the state could benefit from reasoned input from the community at large. Consider:

Ranked by median household income, Ohio dropped from 19th in the nation in 2000 to 37th in 2016, tying with Missouri and Delaware for the second-biggest drop in ranking in the country. Household income throughout the Valley has tumbled since 2000 with Columbiana and Trumbull counties registering among the biggest losers, with Mahoning County not far behind.

As for jobs, the state is still short 152,000 of them from its peak in the year 2000. And here in the Valley, even though the unemployment rate is falling, it remains well above state and national levels and the size of our workforce continues to shrink dramatically.

When gauging population, Ohio and the Valley also continue to disappoint. Since 2000, the nation’s population has grown 19 percent but Ohio lags far behind with a feeble growth rate of only 3 percent. In the Valley, population declines have been a way of life for more than five decades now. Youngstown today with a population of about 60,000 is a mere shadow of itself at its population height of 170,000 people.

Clearly the challenges toward revitalizing economies and reinvigorating communities in our Valley and in our state will not be conquered easily or rapidly. But idea generation by all stakeholders, meaning all residents, cannot help but begin to chart a workable path toward realistic gains. That’s why we look for robust and thoughtful participation at Sunday’s forum at Harding High.