More on Downtown Revitalization

According to YoungstownPride, the Paramount Theatre may have been purchased by a company in Illinois, who plans to restore and eventually reopen the venue. This is the latest development in the long history of a legendary structure in downtown Youngstown. Rumors have been floating around for a while about the Paramount, with as many hinting at it being demolished as it being restored. This news, if true, is exciting for a number of reasons.

Any development downtown is essentially positive, as it brings people, money, and safety downtown. New development, like the new courthouse and the Chevy Center, brings a sense of new life and new energy. However, the restoration of an old landmark downtown is perhaps even better. Not only does it bring many of the same benefits as new development, but it also establishes a link to the city's past and, in figurative terms, wipes away some of the tarnish on the city's reputation.

Assuming that the Paramount Theatre is used for plays, movies, and concerts, its restoration will add to downtown's growing cultural and artistic vibe. With the Chevy Center, Powers, and the Paramount as venues for performance (along with Cedar's, that perennial haven for artistic souls), downtown Youngstown will finally reclaim an identity for itself beyond that of an apocalyptic nightmare where only late-century Ursuline graduates dare tread.

As always, though, this is Youngstown we are talking about- a city whose motto should read, "Hope for the best- but expect the worst."

City as Suburb

Another entry from YoungstownPride mentions an article on Youngstown's possible future as a "bedroom community" for Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Location, of course, makes this a possibility (although it is a significant distance from either city when it comes to a daily commute). Having not read the article myself, I cannot comment on it directly. However, it would seem to me that a major hole in this argument would be the decline of the entire region in which Youngstown finds itself. Cleveland and Pittsburgh (along with nearby places like Buffalo, Wheeling, and Detroit) are all in an extended decline. The populations continue to shrink- I believe Columbus was the only city in Ohio to actually gain population last year- while jobs and businesses move out of the urban centers. The decay has spread outward from the cities and into once-renowned places such as Shaker Heights, East Cleveland, and, to a lesser extent, Euclid. Therefore, a growing "white-flight"-related migration to Youngstown seems fairly unlikely at this point. One of the main reasons people move to these "bedroom communities" is because they want to stay near the city, but not too close to the city. The problem, though, is that no one wants to really stay near the cities in question anymore. Especially for most young people in this region, it's down south and out west- not an hour from Mom and Dad's. In fact, it seems more likely that this type of thing would happen in a place like Gary, Indiana (as young people- many from the Youngstown area- continue to flock to Chicago) than it does for Youngstown.

Whether or not I'm correct about the paragraph above, one thing to remember is that the future of Youngstown is still inevitably tied to the future of the entire region (and most closely to that of Cleveland and Pittsburgh), a future which looks pretty bleak at this stage. Plus, the absolute disaster that is state government in Ohio only makes things worse for Cleveland and Youngstown. That being said, Youngstown still has the opportunity to carve out a niche as a unique place all its own. Whether or not that opportunity is taken is the question at hand.