If not here, then where?

While talent and capital continue to pile into Miami, New York, and Austin, we are deliberately choosing to stay and build here in Youngstown. The world is moving very fast and the question we ask is: what will happen to the cities left behind?

On September 19, 1977, known as Black Monday by folks in the Mahoning Valley, 5,000 steel workers received pink slips with almost no notice. That single event triggered a cascading collapse of the “Big Steel” era. The city’s population plummeted from 170,000 to around 60,000.

Hear my case: Youngstown represents a faulty but fixable node in America’s economic network.

I see it in the declining school I attended, the one that did not afford me the same educational opportunities I had when living in Washington, DC. I see it every time I drive past empty, dilapidated, decaying manufacturing buildings throughout the city. I see it when I say goodbye to my most talented and ambitious friends, because nearly all of them have moved to Cleveland, Columbus, or out of state since we graduated high school.

Workers lose their jobs and paychecks → spending collapses → businesses close → talented people leave for jobs elsewhere.

Here we must solve them the old-fashioned way: by directly facing contradiction and inventing our way out of it. The universal first step in originating a novel idea is a direct refusal of the framework that precludes its existence.

Youngstown is the environment where such accountability is unavoidable. If you come to Youngstown and build, the skeptics will write articles, talk in news interviews, and publicly criticize your efforts. In any other city, your actions may be drowned out by limitless noise. You’ll most certainly have more fans clamoring for you over there. But here you will have accountability.

The environment’s pervasive skepticism functions as a filter. It weeds out vanity projects and rewards consistent execution under real constraints.

This is the kind of environment where ideas get stress tested immensely and the inadequate ones get tossed aside by the weighing machine that is reality.

The mission to rebuild Youngstown is one of administration and stewardship. The companies built here are not going to be brought up with the power of the city’s ecosystem, they will be the companies that build the ecosystem to bring the city up.

I am a young student of ideas located in Youngstown, Ohio. I wasn’t born here (I am from Norfolk, Massachusetts!) but this city is very important to me. Youngstown has undergone severe decline in the past few decades.

Youngstown is my home and it’s where I want to be.

Take notes everyone. Youngstown is incredibly downtrodden and notoriously empty.

But all we need is a few really cool things to get the ball rolling.

The best part about Youngstown being 10 years behind is that we don’t have to think really hard to recall what went down the drain and what made this country great.

Amatuer boxing in a former steel warehouse turned brewery is peak Youngstown.

I always knew what Youngstown could be if it just had a little bit changed about it. And that’s the type of mindset that, whether you are in Youngstown or not, will carry our civilization forward. Think big to think small, think small to think big. Are there any nodes you are currently walking past that need fixing?

The tabula rasa is available. The work is waiting for the people willing to do it. My last question is: if not here, then where?