ITC Steel Pipe Ruling

Breaking good news for Greater Youngstown:

The Commerce Department is likely to issue an order Jan. 14 for U.S. Customs offices to collect duties that would counteract the subsidies, [International Trade Commission spokesman John Greer] said.

Seven U.S. producers of steel piping that is used in oil and natural gas wells, along with the Downtown-based United Steelworkers union, filed a trade complaint in April, claiming the subsidized Chinese products have hurt the industry and resulted in the loss of about 2,400 steelworker jobs.

The Business Journal has some additional information you can find here. Again, I'll point out that this steel product is important to the booming natural gas industry centered in Pennsylvania and New York. The close proximity to the Marcellus Shale Play is likely a key factor in V&M Star's decision about where to expand operations. I would speculate that the imposed duty makes the investment more likely, but doesn't necessarily privilege the Youngstown location.

Youngstown in Buffalo

As a blogger, I often stumble upon curious and unexpected facts. Youngstown is a part of the Buffalo (New York) region. I'm not referring to the great steel city on the Mahoning River. I gather Youngstown is a suburb of Buffalo. When I'm searching for stories about the Youngstown in Ohio, every so often the place in New York pops up.

Yesterday's blog post afforded a similar serendipity. Youngstown Pride chimes in with an anecdote about immigrants improving a Buffalo neighborhood. Then, Defend Youngstown offers up PUSH Buffalo as a relevant neighborhood redevelopment model.

The very act of creating the blog post you are reading now yields the following find:

As a snow plow trudged its way over Delaware Park — designed from 1868 to 1874 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the vision behind Central Park — Mr. Akauola, 53, warmed up in his black Ford Escape. He had walked only two laps — about 3.6 miles — in the park. “Normally, I go three to four rounds, but today it’s hard on your feet,” he explained. “You don’t want to mess up your ankles.”

A native of Tonga, Mr. Akauola, who works in construction, estimated that he is one of a very tiny number of people from the South Pacific living in western New York. (The two climates, of course, could not be more different.)

Mr. Akauola lived in Hawaii, where his two sons and daughter were born, from 1980 to 1985. His wife’s sister, who lived in the Buffalo area, suggested that the family settle here.

“When our first son was born, she gave us the idea,” Mr. Akauola recalled. “Buffalo was an affordable place to put your kids in school.” The three children are grown now. The younger son, who graduated from Rutgers University, lives in New Jersey; the daughter, an alumna of Arizona State University, works for an oil company in Houston.

This unexpected migration to Buffalo could just as easily occur in Youngstown. Missing are the folks who might encourage it. Why not Youngstown?

Youngstown Immigrant Innovation

Update: Youngstown Pride points to a New York Times article about immigrants revitalizing a struggling Buffalo neighborhood.

Richard Herman passed along to me a link to an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the weak investment in the Fund for Our Economic Future. The Cleveland Foundation's hasty retreat is a mystery. Is the Fund not Cleveland-centric enough? One critique of the Fund, found in the op-ed, is a lack of leadership on the immigration front.

The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber should keep that in mind as it campaigns for a renewal of the Ohio Third Frontier program. Anything good can always be better:

Regional groups have told [Richard Herman] ''internationalization was not a top priority,'' he said. ''Immigration is kind of a dirty word here, and organizations don't want to use it.''

For instance, until a year ago, an Ohio Third Frontier-funded program for interns specifically excluded those who weren't citizens from participating.

''That was a bright sign saying, if you're an immigrant, don't come to Ohio,'' Herman said.

One regional mover and shaker who seems to get it is Rob Briggs, president of the Akron-based GAR Foundation, Herman said. He credited Briggs with some of the ideas in the book.

Briggs once convened ''the top believers in the region and asked them to produce an international talent blueprint,'' Herman said. Aspects of that effort are beginning to emerge around the region.

He pointed to the EB-5 Regional Center in Akron and Wooster (which speeds up the visa process for foreign investors of American businesses), an international welcome center being discussed between Cleveland State University and the Jewish Community Federation, and increased activity around international student recruitment and business recruitment (such as Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic's missions to lure foreign companies into launching American operations).

If the Mahoning Valley doesn't have an international talent blueprint, it better craft one ASAP. The Regional Chamber took a strong step in that direction when it hired Eric Planey. The trade trip to China is an impressive undertaking. What about an analogous workforce development strategy?

The "America First" mentality that James Traficant represents is alive and well in Greater Youngstown. Congressman Jason Altmire, TechBelt co-conspirator, has pandered to the anti-immigrant sentiment of his constituency on more than a few occasions.

Being tough on illegal border crossings and putting America's prosperity first don't preclude immigration as an economic development strategy. Too often, we throw that baby out with the bathwater. The debate is polarized as closed borders versus open borders. Or, you are either anti-globalization or anti-American jobs. These are difficult waters for politicians to navigate, but the issue is mission critical for a struggling region.

Spotlight on Warren

All the natives won't move back to the Mahoning Valley, but there is more value in the expatriate community than just numbers. Those who leave have an easier time seeing a bigger region. Where you went to high school is still important, but not to someone born and raised in California. From far away, the fate of Youngstown and Warren are obviously intertwined.

The rapidly evolving story of the Warren advance-energy incubator should interest everyone in the entire TechBelt. Enter Rebecca Bagley, the CEO of NorTech (Cleveland):

Bagley, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-17 Ohio, state Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-32 Hubbard, state Rep. Tom Letson, D-64 Warren, and Mayor Michael O’Brien, outlined their vision Monday of what such an incubator might achieve in the fields of “advanced energy and flexible materials.”

Long on optimism and short on specifics, the four expressed hope the incubator will rejuvenate manufacturing in Mahoning Valley through infant enterprises that one day produce parts for windmills, geothermal, solar and nuclear energy plants and sources of energy other than petroleum, coal and natural gas.

You can find out more about Bagley's vision for Northeast Ohio here. You can also read more about NorTech's plans here. The effort dovetails nicely with the big energy sector push going on right now in Pittsburgh.

Warren could play a key role in the growth of this industry. That's good news for Youngstown and the entire Mahoning Valley. The bad news is the border between Ohio and Pennsylvania. NorTech covers Northeast Ohio, not the entire TechBelt. How Cleveland and Pittsburgh can work together is still a mystery.

Global Green Youngstown

The greening of the Rust Belt is a big part of the vision for this megaregion's future. The primary reorientation is turning to face all the lakes, rivers and streams that used to serve as a dump for all the industrial waste. Green manufacturing is supposed to help along this transition:

Thursday in Copenhagen, U.S. Rep. Timothy J. Ryan announced what he's calling a ''transformational partnership'' between Youngstown and a national environmental group to foster green job creation and development in the rust belt city.

California-based Global Green USA will help speed along planning efforts in the city by building on the Youngstown 2010 plan and putting into place citywide and neighborhood specific greening plans.

The move, Ryan said, could position Youngstown to be a model green city for other Midwestern communities by, simultaneously, reducing its carbon footprint and by doing so, becoming an economic engine in the growing green industry.

''We are leading the green revolution,'' Ryan, D-Niles, said. ''This innovative collaboration will help to elevate Youngstown, northeastern Ohio and the Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh tech belt - opening us up for global investment in cutting edge green energy technology and sustainable development in our district.''

Not to diminish the gratuitous TechBelt reference, the Global Green USA partnership imagines a green city that serves as a redevelopment model. Youngstown is to be a test tube for sustainable urban design. Helping to fund this initiative is a member of the Youngstown Diaspora:

Jack Scott, a former Youngstown resident who runs a technology company in the Salt Lake City area, and the Raymond John Wean Foundation each contributed $25,000 to this program.

Scott's name rang a bell. He was involved in the Sustainable Energy Forum held last summer at Youngstown State University:

Abraham credited YSU alumnus Jack Scott with being the driving force behind the conference.

Scott earned a degree in mechanical engineering and worked his way up to become president and chief operating officer of Parsons Corp., a California-based engineering and construction company that has $3.4 billion in annual revenues.

Scott said he has a passion for sustainable energy, but he wanted to hold the conference in Youngstown because of his love for the Mahoning Valley and its people.

“One of the greatest assets of this area is the work ethic,” he said. “We hire people from all over the world. You can always tell people who were hired from this area.”

Scott said the forum has to produce action to be a success. The goal is to link researchers with innovative ideas to people who can bring those ideas to market, he said.

Discussions are to be held today on how to continue the collaborations, he said. Also, he and other organizers will meet Wednesday to review the effort and talk about the future.

The issue of sustainable energy is critical for the nation, Scott said. The nation needs to rebuild its manufacturing base to remain an economic power, and a new opportunity is to produce parts for wind turbines, solar panels and other new forms of energy, he said.

The nation should not rely on other countries for these forms of power as it has done with oil, he said. The U.S. sends nearly $1 trillion a year to Saudi Arabia and other oil-exporting countries.

“It’s the single biggest transfer of wealth in the history of the world,” he said.

Scott is an archetype for the region's diaspora economy. One needn't reside in the area to benefit the Mahoning Valley. Scott's success and expansive network are assets for his hometown.

Blog Release: Round Two of EfficientGovNow to Offer $330,000 in Grant Awards to Government Collaboration Projects in Northeast Ohio

The Fund for Our Economic Future, a collaboration of philanthropic entities working to strengthen the region's economic competitiveness, introduced EfficientGovNow earlier this year to encourage greater government collaborations and engage the public to advocate for change.

EfficientGovNow is a competitive grant awards program that encourages and accelerates government collaboration and efficiency by providing rounds of funding to government collaboration projects as selected by YOU, the residents of Northeast Ohio.

The first round of the program, held in early to mid 2009, attracted more than 255 local governmental entities to submit ideas for collaborative projects. Collectively, the projects estimated one-time savings of nearly $40 million and anticipated annual savings of more than $22 million – dollars that can be used to grow and/or attract businesses, provide more education and training, or spent in other ways that grow the economy.

Equally exciting, you, along with nearly 13,500 other Northeast Ohioans, voted in support of the ideas. You participated in a way that motivated government officials to continue to seek ways to collaborate and become more efficient.

That is why, earlier this month, the Fund announced a second round of EfficientGovNow – this time offering $330,000 in grant awards.

RIGHT NOW is your chance to help get this round started. Check out 10 easy ways Northeast Ohioans can spur the second round of EfficientGovNow. Getting engaged is as easy as e-mailing a government official, following EfficientGovNow on Twitter or Facebook, or forwarding EfficientGovNow news coverage to a friend.

Your voice is essential to this effort. Help spur greater government collaboration -- help advance the economic revitalization of Northeast Ohio.

Ragnarök Youngstown

Once again, Mahoning Valley misery is national news. You've seen the images a thousand times. If not in Youngstown or Warren, then in Detroit. The new round of photos don't look so fresh. They haven't for 30 years:

In this corner of northeast Ohio, from Warren to Youngstown, where the old steel mills along the Mahoning River stand like rusted-out mastodons in the weeds, the recession was a final cruelty piled on top of three decades of disappearing jobs. ...

... The road from Warren and Youngstown is a graveyard of silent machines behind chain-link fences. Near the Pennsylvania border, this 25-mile stretch along the Mahoning River was the world's fifth-largest producer of steel until the late 1970s, when more than 50,000 jobs vanished in a decade. The General Motors plant in Lordstown, which employed 14,000 in the 1970s, is down to about 2,500 workers.

Every time globalization goes into one of its funks, some journalist is grasping for the final nail in this region's coffin. The angle is the same, as are the images. It is cliché, the latest downturn providing another excuse to dredge the Mahoning River for the body of Industrial America.

The real story, if you can pry your eyes away from the urban blight, are the changes. The "final erasure" is the burial of the glory days, a blank slate. However, a writer can't look at the current pain without relating what happened in the late 1970s. This isn't the flaking gild of the Golden State or dramatic collapse of Motor City. Thus, everyone overlooks the transformation in order to provide another glimpse of a crumbling steel mill. It's supposed to be a sign of the times.

These aren't the last days of disco.