(WKBN) – Local economic experts agree that population decline is one of the most serious economic development issues facing the Mahoning and Chenango Valleys, which is why Plans are being developed to repopulate the area.
The Census Bureau divides the United States into metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Our statistical area is known as the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman MSA. Includes Mahoning and Trumbull counties in Ohio and Mercer County in Pennsylvania. In 2010, 565,000 people lived in her MSA. Last year there were 536,000 people, a decrease of 29,000 people, a decrease of 5%, or about 7 people less every day over 12 years.
Only the Charleston, West Virginia, MSA had a greater rate of population decline.
In an effort to reverse this trend, the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber has a plan. It’s simply called “repopulation.”
“All of us involved in this project find ourselves saying the word ‘repopulation’ often, but until about a year ago, I had never said it in my life. ” said Mike McGiffin, president of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Foundation. Chamber.
“Based on the feedback we received from the business community, this was our biggest need, and it was really a human capital need,” said consultant Emil Ryzniansky.
Mr. Lishnianski was with Envision, a Cleveland consulting group, and was hired by the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments to assist with its repopulation plan. Mr. McGiffin also helped develop the plan.
“We’re trying to increase the population of the community,” McGiffin said.
The plan has three steps. First of all, stay young. Convince the young people who grew up here to stay here.
“There’s something really smart going on here where digital advertising can target people looking for work and explain that the pay may be similar but the cost of living may be lower. You’re actually richer if you do that,” McGiffin said.
The second step is what repopulation plans call the boomerang effect. Convince people who grew up here and moved here to come back.
“They’re more likely to come back than say they should come here from Denver or Texas because the cost of living is lower. That’s a big jump,” Ryznianski said.
One of the temptations that is being used in other cities is to pay people to come back.
“There’s a program in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where you can move for $10,000. If you’re a remote worker, you get a $10,000 bonus over two years,” McGiffin said.
“So the return aspect of this strategy, the boomerang, if you will, is huge,” Ryshniansky said.
The third step in the repopulation program is immigration, taking in refugees from countries like Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela and making sure they’re all here legally.
“It’s countries like this with decent people, good workers, good families that we want to welcome here and diversify our culture in this community. And we’re going to have them do some of the jobs that we’re going to fill because we just don’t have the talent,” McGiffin said.
Lishniansky cited Utica, New York, as an example, a post-industrial town similar to Youngstown that has lost 60% of its population.
“They started accepting refugees in 1980. So as people poured into this country, and this has happened for over 40 years, the population has actually recovered slightly and now the population A quarter of the population is foreign-born,” Ryznianski said.
The population restructuring plan is still in its early stages. The marketing strategy is in development, but the marketing strategy exists. They want to reverse this trend as soon as possible.
“What we recognize is that if we continue at our current pace of expanding in this area and attracting new companies to this area, we will create an even bigger problem of employment imbalance. So we need more people in this field,” McGiffin said.
