The law of gravity, as any schoolchild knows, asserts that what goes up must come down.

But for the future of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, it’s time to defy that law to ensure what has come down must go up.

Specifically, we’re talking about two keys to unlock growth and prosperity in any community: abundant housing and a robust population. Over the past five decades, both have suffered cataclysmic falls. Youngstown, Warren and the entire Valley have lost tens of thousands of residents and nearly as many homes to blight and abandonment. Continued work to reverse those trends must be a priority.

Thankfully, in recent years, several organizations in concert with local governments have made concrete progress toward rebuilding housing and population. For the future viability of our region, that momentum must continue at a brisk pace. It won’t be a cake walk, but we’re confident that success can be achieved.

Our leaders in such diverse groups as land banks and neighborhood revitalization organizations in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber, the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and others must muster up the will to build upon the strong foundation they already have laid.

To be sure, over the past two decades, they have achieved measurable strides in razing abandoned, blighted and unhealthy and unsightly properties, particularly in Youngstown and Warren. Just this month, Youngstown reached a milestone in its decadeslong cleanup efforts that cost tens of millions of dollars. The final set of approximately 10,000 abandoned homes and structures razed since the turn of the century will come face to face with the wrecking ball, thanks to several city and land bank projects.

Of that smashing success, Michael Durkin, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent, has good reason to take a bow. “By the end of this year, we’ll be pretty much at the end of the line with demos,” Durkin said.

Similar accomplishments have been achieved elsewhere in the Valley. In Warren, for example, the number of vacant houses has dropped from 1,532 in 2013 to 435 this year, and the longstanding eyesore extraordinaire, the St. Joseph Riverside Hospital, finally came tumbling down last year.

Despite such progress, Durkin and dozens of others involved in the cleanup of Youngstown and other communities across the Valley cannot settle to rest on their laurels. Now comes the even harder work.

With thousands of acres of green space and vacant land, an equal amount of energy must be exerted to rebuild quality housing on those parcels. In Youngstown, with an infrastructure built to accommodate a population of about 250,000 people, the latest census reports only about 60,000 residents, 110,000 fewer people than in the urban center’s heyday. Clearly, there’s room to grow.

Toward that end, it’s encouraging to witness solid efforts take root. In Youngstown, City Council has authorized spending $8 million in federal American Rescue Plan grant funds this year on building new houses and rehabilitating existing ones.

Bravo!

But the pressing need for such work not only serves aesthetic purposes. It’s also become necessary to ensure the region’s growing network of major new employers has an adequate supply of workers to fill the demands of a burgeoning and diversifying local economy. New workers are entering the Valley’s workforce at a rapid pace. They include those at Ultium Cells, Foxconn, and the soon-to-settle-in Kimberly Clark paper products company in Warren. And development leaders hint at even more major job-creating projects on the horizon.

Repopulating the Valley therefore must catapult to the top of the agenda of local movers and shakers. The Regional Chamber and the ERCOG already have taken the reins in leading that charge. They are rightly focusing on the 3 R’s of repopulation: retain existing talent, return homegrown talent and receive new residents and refugees. We wish them success.

As a model, those leaders should look northeast at Utica, New York, a medium-sized city that saw its population tumble like the Valley’s as a result of deindustrialization. Over the past 15 years, those efforts, including the establishment of a resettlement center, have succeeded in attracting 17,000 refugees who now contribute to that city’s rebounding population and economic livelihood.

Clearly, building up the region’s housing stock and population is a far greater task than the nearly completed work of tearing down the blighted remnants of the Valley’s past. But if leaders in local government and economic development agencies step on the gas, we’re confident Greater Youngstown can evolve into a larger, more vibrant and more prosperous community on its journey toward the midpoint of this century.

editorial@vindy.com