2010 census results

Portage County has increased 5-15% in the census. Stark and Summit Counties also received a loss in their census. Lake and Geauga Counties have increased 0-5% in the census.

No new jobs in the Mahoning Valley to speak of. Younger people leaving the area for places like Texas and Florida where the jobs are. Union mentality keeping businesses away. No surprise in this census report at all for the Mahoning Valley. Just keep raising taxes and fees while continuing to support local Democrats and someday Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley will be an even worse Ghost Area in 2020.

This information should cause some reconsideration of how funds are distributed among the political entities in Mahoning County, where Youngstown has been the principal beneficiary of government largesse. Boardman and Austintown, who together comprise more population than Youngstown, are now approaching the size of Youngstown individually.

Are the citizens of the county who do not live in Youngstown receiving a fair share of government funds? Is this population decline further evidence of the waste and futility of urban sustainability efforts being pursued in the name of saving cities like Youngstown under the Obama Administration. A group of liberal activists met just this past week to try to convince US Senators and Congress members to come up with even more money for Youngstown.

These data should come as no surprise, since the City of Youngstown has been losing population at the rate of 14% per decade in the past. What is surprising is that the decline has accelerated.

This information should also serve as an incentive for political and government leaders to reassess the need for such a large bureaucracy in the City of Youngstown, which spends over $100 million per year, as compared to less than $20 million in Boardman and even less in Austintown.

Is it time to reconsider restructuring Youngstown government, because it may not be able to sustain its own weight in the next two decades? Does the City of Youngstown really need all those council members, and all those agencies and administrators? Would the area be ahead of funds that have been going to Youngstown for "economic development" would instead go to suburban areas?

Youngstown is suffering from a natural decline as a result of losing the steel industry and never replacing it with anything new, despite the tens, or maybe even hundreds of millions spent on the downtown area, the brownfields, public building projects including public housing and the takeover of the city central area by the University.

Over half the properties in the City are over 75 years old and another 25% is over 50 years old. For all practical purposes, there has been no privately funded residential construction in years. Major retail outlets are not present in the City. Most of the income tax revenue comes from workers who do not live in the city. The water system serves more residences and businesses outside the city than within its borders.

What happens when the City of Youngstown falls below 50,000 in population? Who pays the property tax commitments to the school system that short sighted activists pushed on the residents of the city, spending $182 million on school buildings that will be empty in another 20 years?

Time for some big time rethinking, not just by the leaders of Youngstown, but the county, state and federal government, too.

thethinker-I agree that Youngstown didn't need all of those schools rebuilt.It should have made one high school.I don't understand the need to build new schools across the entire state at a time of economic hardship.

One could make an argument for some of the buildings across the state that were in seriously poor shape but not all of them.That is just irresponsible.

I don't see why that huge sprawling school was built on 46 either-out in the middle of nowhere .At least it was done as a campus though which makes sense-not so in YTown.If the population of YTown were ever to rise they could have built schools as needed like they used to do.

I'm not sure how much choice the city has in these affairs though.I think that much of the decision making process comes from the Federal level which in turn comes from private groups.If the city says no then the funding they do get would likely dry up.That is the game -wave the carrot.

The truth is the truth - the reality is that Youngstown's population goes down because nobody wants to live in a place where there is no retail to speak of, property values never go up, and old people are shot when they go to church.

Much of what Mr. thethinker says is true. He should remember though that Youngstown houses most of the region's poor people and crime. That's why the city spends so much taxpayer money. Maybe we should try moving all the public housing projects to Boardman and Austintown and see if they can continue to manage on their small budgets.

Another reason the township budgets are small is because they are not required to come up with matching funds for road and sewer projects - those funds are provided by the County - which the taxpayers of Youngstown (those few of us that are left) contribute to.

So those of you who want to cut Youngstown funding and give it to the townships, think of the consequences, if the city fails all of its residents will need to go somewhere. You would be smart to not question any funding that Youngstown receives.

Really? He can't "connect the dots"? As someone who was raised in the Mahoning Valley and no longer lives there, I really wish the mayor would call me because I've got reasons, explanations, causes, etc. I would be happy to clue him in.

The thinker has some very valid points. Youngstown is now a pretty small City but has the administrative infrastructure of the city it once was. Personally, I think the Mayor's comments are shocking, not the decline in population. If he didn't expect it, his head is in the sand further than I would have hoped. One more thing...I continue to believe that YSU can be the City's one saving grace. It has to undergo some serious changes though, including stopping its open enrollment policy and making other comprehensive changes to improveits academic standings.

Criminals walking the streets that should be in jail---thanks to light sentences and too many plea bargains. The worst school system in the state. No good jobs---mostly minimum wage. Elected leaders that seem to look out for a select few. And there are more reasons why the population is in decline. Mayor Williams---you must live in another world if you can't explain the loss of population.

Certainly the size of the population drop in Y-town may be a bit surprizing. But, if Mayor "Mars Attacks" Williams can't find a "rational reason", we are looking at one part of the problem. Rampant crime, drug culture, failing schools, 2.75% income tax! Pick one! Where is the quality of life in Youngstown? As the cancer gets worse, it infects the outlying areas of Boardman, Austintown, and Liberty. WOW!

Wow! The Mayor can't understand it? He blames the count? Why would anyone put a start-up here? We have the worst schools in the state. A police force who spends most of the day sitting under the Market Street Bridge. The leader of the only party in town making threats to the Chamber. Wow.

Our leadership continues to deny the facts, which is an indication of their cluelessness.

The decline of The Valley population and it's increase in unemployment is not singular, it is a compilation of the lack of leadership by State, Federal and local leaders, as well as labor and business leaders.

If we are to emerge from this economic and population debacle, we need our leaders to begin looking at ways to re-build our economic strength. We are in no position to feed and build the rest of the world at our economic expense. This would include protectionism, higher import duties, incentives for locally owned business start-ups and other ideas to encourage home production rather than importing.

Our society cannot survive by living on imports. We must have home production and self-rule to sustain economic growth. I am not one to look to Europe for answers, but I believe some have prepared themselves better for this current economic mess than we have. My concern is we have leaders and political parties who are all talking in circles and no one is getting anything accomplished. We are continuing our decline and that is what is disturbing.

If our government truely wants to solve our mess (that was many years in the making) we need to establish a review panel made up of top economists and stratigists to study alternative solutions and devise a plan for local, state and national growth. This plan should then become recomendations and actually followed by our leaders. It may sound crazy, but what other solutions are we following now?

"Youngstown’s population declined by 18.4 percent between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

Mayor Jay Williams can’t come up with an explanation as to why.

“Wow” was his initial reaction.

“I find it shocking,” Williams said. “That’s a big, big surprise. It’s so hard to accept. I’m trying to find a rational reason why there would be such a decline. At this point, I’m unable to connect the dots to support or explain such a steep decline.

Arrrrgh!! This is impossible to figure out! My money's on alien abduction. No wait! I bet these people are shape shifters, and are now disguised as pigeons and telephone poles. Hey, wait! What's this?! It's an informative article:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politic...

Whoa!! Who could've figured out that people may move away when you tax the #*&@ out of them to states that confiscate less of what they've busted their tails for!!

Since we now know that:

"...growth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England."

And that Ohio is ranked 47th (out of 50, not 57 states) in tax friendliness:

http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/...

Perhaps Ohio may be well advised to do what 9 states are already doing...eliminate the state income tax. Radical, I know, but maybe population and economic growth might be a nice "change."

Meanwhile, can Youngstown stop electing stunningly clueless libs?

Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

"Mayor Jay Williams can’t come up with an explanation as to why."
Really???? He cant be serious. Has he ever actually drove through the city? or looked at the cost of living in this place??

Youngstown’s population declined by 18.4 percent between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

Mayor Jay Williams can’t come up with an explanation as to why.

It easy to see people like me wont live in youngstown city limits i had to relocate to the youngstown area 3 years ago for work and live in liberty so i dont pay city taxes why would i want to live in the slum that is youngstown and pay there taxes when there are other options

Average,

Easy solution. Start buying expensive products, those are the companies paying their people more.

Mayor Williams cannot understand?? Tell him to take one day, four hours driving around Y-town neighborhoods, then cruise up to Warren and do the same. (might be a good idea to bring an armed bodyguard along), then ask what decent individual(s) would want to reside in either inner city. That should explain a lot.

A loss for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and the Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams.

• Summit County lost 1,118 people between 2000 and 2010, or 0.2 percent, to 541,781.

• Cleveland dropped under 400,000 to 396,815. The city lost 81,588 people over the decade, enough to fill Cleveland Browns Stadium.

• Stark County declined 2,512 people, down to 375,586.

• Canton's population dropped to 73,007 residents for a bigger percentage drop than Akron. Despite that decline, Canton moved up a notch to become Ohio's eighth-largest city, surpassing Youngstown, which shrank more than 18 percent in population.

There were some growth areas in the region. Medina County posted a 14 percent gain to 172,332, making it the sixth-fastest growing county in Ohio.

Portage County also grew, by about 6 percent.

Carroll County, just east of Stark County, has the unique distinction of not losing or gaining a soul in the past 10 years. It's official population count of 28,836 is unchanged from 2000.

Mayor Peanut Head is drinking the same Kool Aid Obama has been offering out regarding unemployment lies...errr...figures improving. Somehow within the past three months these numbers prove out that O and his croonies have perpetuated the lie and the unemployment in this outhouse is growing. Crime overall is increasing due to a jackass County Prosecutor and his crew of Dunces plea dealing felons at every turn. Jay needs to take that Auto Czar position O discussed so he can be another puppet in O's regime: those without a clue and the ability to talk out of their a--es about how things are improving while the nation crumbles down around them. How can you act suprised at the numbers? Look around at the dumps boarded up and vacant! Common sense, not political bs shows the truth. We have an indicted County Auditor re-elected! That in it's own proves how ignorant and dumb the residents of this outhouse actually are. Good thing Jay always has that "deer in the headlights" expression...

Will the last one leaving Youngstown turn out the lights?

Tanks!

A lot of good points here to bad we don't run things.I think we have some better ideas than the government folks.

I hear sound logical arguments and rationale not BS excuses.

When is the last time we have heard anything logical coming from the government?

It seems like anyone that either has done some good or has sound ideas is either made to look like an idiot or destroyed by the powers that be.I'm starting to think one must be inept to lead and I mean all the way up.

Did you look at the numbers for Dayton? They lost NCR to Georgia.

Maybe this is one (see below link) small reason why Columbus has an increasing population and the Mahoning Valley a major decline; they're working 24/7 to fill tens of thousands of potholes, and working straight time, too! The roads in these suburbs are like third-world back roads.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/...