Youngstown, Ohio

Youngstown
seal
Location in Ohio
Youngstown
Basic data
Foundation :	1796
State :	United States
State :	Ohio
Counties :	Mahoning County Trumbull County
Coordinates :	41 ° 6 ′  N , 80 ° 39 ′  W Coordinates: 41 ° 6 ′  N , 80 ° 39 ′  W
Time zone :	Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Inhabitants : -  Metropolitan Area :	64,312 (as of 2016) 544,746 (as of 2016)
Population density :	730.8 inhabitants per km 2
Area :	89 km 2  (about 34 mi 2 ) of which 88 km 2  (about 34 mi 2 ) are land
Height :	259 m
Postal code :	45389
Area code :	[phone]
FIPS :	39-88000
GNIS ID :	1058156
Website :	youngstownohio.gov
Mayor :	John A. McNally
Downtown of Youngstown

Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County in the US state of Ohio , the area of ​​which extends partially into Trumbull County . Youngstown has 64,312 inhabitants (as of 2016) on an area of ​​89 square kilometers and is the ninth largest city in Ohio. The city is on the Mahoning River and on Interstate 76 and 80 . Youngstown is 105 kilometers south of Cleveland and about 100 kilometers northwest of Pittsburgh .

The town is named after John Young, an early settler from Whitestown , New York, who built the first saw and flour mill here in the late 18th century. Youngstown is now part of the United States' so-called Rust Belt . The city is a traditional center of the steel industry, in which vehicle and mechanical engineering companies later settled. To 1900 Youngstown had 45,000 inhabitants, in the late 1920s 170,000. When more and more businesses were closed in the 1970s, the city had to reorient itself. As a result of the loss of these jobs, the number of residents in the city has decreased by more than 60 percent. In the song "Youngstown" US rock legend Bruce Springsteen describes life in the city from the perspective of an unemployed steel worker. The song appeared on the album "The Ghost of Tom Joad", which Springsteen released in 1995.

Youngstown is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown . Youngstown State University , founded in 1908, is also located in Youngstown . In autumn 2015, 12,551 students were enrolled at it.

City government

Youngstown is ruled by a mayor who is elected every four years and whose term of office is limited to two terms. Mayors traditionally take office on January 2nd. The city has traditionally elected a member of the Democratic Party as mayor since 1920. This is due to the fact that local unions usually supported democratic candidates. Youngstown's current mayor is John A. McNally, who replaced Charles Sammarone. Sammarone's predecessor, Jay Williams, was the city's first African American mayor and the first non-party since 1922. Williams was one of the mayors who campaigned against illegal gun ownership in a special way. He resigned when Barack Obama appointed him a member of his working group to save the US auto industry in 2009.

In addition to the mayor, the city residents also elect an eight-member council, which consists of seven district representatives and a council president. This council traditionally meets every first and third Wednesday of the month.

economy

Development of the local steel industry

Equipped with extensive coal and iron ore deposits, limestone as well as large hardwood forests to produce charcoal , Youngstown developed into a thriving steel industrial city. The first blast furnace in this region was built east of the city by James and Daniel Heaton in 1803. In 1846 the "Youngstown Rolling Mill Company" was founded. In the mid-19th century, Youngstown had several iron-making industries, including David Tod's Briet Hill Iron & Cola Company . Although the coal and iron ore deposits were increasingly exhausted towards the end of the 19th century, further iron processing industry was built in Youngstown by 1890, because Youngstown was so well connected to the railroad network that coal and iron ore could be obtained from other regions.

Starting at the turn of the 20th century, local companies began to increasingly convert their industrial facilities to steel production. At the same time, a first wave of consolidation began. Shortly after its founding ( 1901 ) US Steel bought Youngstown's most important steel producer, the National Steel Company. A year earlier, a number of industrialists based in the city had taken steps to ensure that local industries continued to be owned by local industrialists. Under the direction of George D. Wick and James A. Campbell, they founded the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, one of the most important regional steel producers in the United States. That company expanded in 1923 by acquiring industrial facilities in south and east Chicago. Towards the end of the 1930s, Youngstown became the focus of public attention when the Steel Workers Organizing Committee tried to enforce contractual recognition of the unions through the so-called Little Steel Strike . Companies on strike included Republic Steel , Bethlehem Steel , Youngstown Sheet and Tube , National Steel and American Rolling Mills . Violence during this strike resulted in two deaths and 42 injured on June 21, 1937. The strike is historically significant because it contributed to regional - and thus ultimately ineffective - workers' organizations merging into national organizations.

Decline

Republic Steel in the 1900s

Between 1920 and 1960, the city was considered an important industrial center, the skyline of which was dominated by the blast furnaces and foundries of companies such as Republic Steel and US Steel . Unlike Chicago, Pittsburgh, Akron, and Cleveland, which up until then had similar industrial histories, Youngstown did not diversify its economic base. Accordingly, the city had few alternatives when changes in the economic structure led to these businesses being closed. The beginning of this development was the merger between the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company and the New Orleans-based Lykes Corporation. The merger resulted in Youngstown Sheet and Tube being heavily in debt. Control of the company was also no longer located in the Youngstown area. On September 19, 1977, management announced that large portions of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in Youngstown would be closed. Without warning, this decision was made the day before at Pittsburgh Airport. The board of directors flew in for that meeting, voted, and then returned to New Orleans or Chicago. 5000 employees lost their jobs as a result of this decision. The day is still referred to as “Black Monday” by many Youngstown residents, as it marked the beginning of the shutdown of the entire steel industry in Youngstown. In the following five years all other important steel producers closed their doors in Youngstown. US Steel closed its plants in the years 1979 and 1980, Republic Steel had in the mid-1980s Insolvency Register. Attempts to revive the steel industry on a smaller basis failed. As a result of these closings, Youngstown lost an estimated 40,000 jobs, 400 steel-related companies, a wage bill of $ 414 million, and between 33 and 75 percent of tax revenues. In 1982 the Mahoning Valley unemployment rate was nearly 22 percent, the highest in the United States. Although a few smaller steel companies still existed around the turn of the century, the city's largest employer was Youngstown State University (YSU).

Development of the city center and residential areas

From the early 20th century until the mid-1970s, Youngstown was the Mahoning Valley shopping mall. The inner city had two large department stores. Retail shops had settled along the main street and there were four cinemas in the inner center. These cinemas were the first to go out of business. In the early 1970s, two shopping centers emerged on the outskirts of Youngstown, which resulted in the closure of more shops in the city center. The collapse of the steel industry in Youngstown accelerated the decline of downtown. All attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to revitalize the city center failed.

With the collapse of the steel industry, the city's resident population began to decline rapidly. An increasing number of houses in the eastern part of the city began to stand empty. A series of house fires began with the vacancies. During the 1980s, one or two houses burned a day. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Youngstown was among the top ten cities in the United States with the highest homicide rate. No other city in the United States has killed more black women under the age of 65. The population continued to decline until 2012; afterwards a partial recovery set in.

Effects of the shale gas boom

In black clays of the Marcellus Shale Formation, there are rich unconventional natural gas deposits in the subsoil of Youngstown and the surrounding area and in neighboring Pennsylvania to the east , which are developed by fracking . Since 2010, 1200 new industrial jobs have been created in this context. In 2014, Vallourec , a French manufacturer of steel pipes for the gas and oil industry, opened a new plant on the Mahoning River with 350 jobs. Unemployment fell below 7 percent in March 2014.

The carcinogenic wastewater from fracking and contaminated with chemicals was injected into sandstones of the Old Paleozoic in the "Northstar 1" plant near Youngstown at a depth of around 2300 to 3000 m , which contaminated the soil and groundwater for centuries . After the plant was commissioned in spring 2011, numerous smaller earthquakes ( magnitude ≥ 2.0) occurred in the otherwise seismically very quiet area. After the waste water injection was clearly identified as the cause of a somewhat stronger tremor (magnitude 2.7) at the end of December 2011, “Northstar 1” had to cease operations. Up until the end of January 2012, further tremors with a magnitude ≥ 2.0 occurred, the strongest of which, with a magnitude of 3.9, was clearly noticeable on December 31. In March 2014, five earthquakes with magnitudes between 2.1 and 3.0 were registered in Poland, around 10 km southeast of Youngstown. These quakes were apparently not due to the injection of wastewater, but directly to fracking activities of the Texan company Hilcorp Energy . In this case, too, the plant had to be stopped.

sons and daughters of the town

• George Wick (1854–1912), industrialist
• Arne Oldberg (1874–1962), composer
• Leon Beaumon (1898–1981), actor
• Edmond Hamilton (1904–1977), science fiction author
• Jane Randolph (1915–2009), actress
• Charles Bateman (1922-2004), jazz pianist
• Sonny Parker (1925–1957), R&B and jazz singer
• Bertram H. Raven (1926-2020), social psychologist
• Donald Erb (1927–2008), composer
• Mary Wells Lawrence (born 1928), entrepreneur
• Arthur B. Laffer (* 1940), economist
• Jay Clayton (* 1941), vocalist between jazz and new music
• Barry Holstein (* 1941), physicist
• James Traficant (1941-2014), politician
• Elizabeth Hartman (1943–1987), actress
• Ed O'Neill (born 1946), actor
• Jim Cummings (born 1952), voice actor
• Bill Kirchner (* 1953), jazz musician and producer
• James Weidman (* 1953), jazz musician
• Henry Kautz (* 1956), computer scientist
• Harry Arroyo (born 1957), boxer
• Jeff Lampkin (* 1977), professional boxer
• Vince Marrow (born 1968), American football player and coach
• Lawrence Brownlee (* 1972), tenor
• Kelly Pavlik (* 1982), professional boxer
• Dana Delorenzo (born 1983), actress
• Danny Trevathan (born 1990), football player
• Terry Rozier (* 1994), basketball player
• Matthew Zhang (* 2002), actor and voice actor

Climate table

Youngstown, Ohio
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.     54   -1 -9     52   1 -8th     79   7th -3     78   14th 3     89   20th 8th     100   25th 13     103   27 15th     84   26th 14th     88   23 11     67   16 5     79   9 1     74   2 -5 Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm Source: National Weather Service, US Dept of Commerce

Monthly average temperatures and rainfall for Youngstown, Ohio Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature ( ° C ) −0.7 1.1 7.4 14.3 20.4 25.2 27.4 26.4 22.6 16.1 9.1 2.2 O 14.4 Min. Temperature (° C) −8.7 −7.8 −2.6 2.7 7.9 12.7 15.1 14.4 10.9 5.3 0.9 −5.1 O 3.9 Precipitation ( mm ) 54.1 51.6 79.0 77.7 89.4 100.1 103.4 84.3 88.4 66.5 79.0 74.4 Σ 947.9 Rainy days ( d ) 9.7 9.3 11.3 10.8 10.4 9.8 8.2 8.3 8.7 9.2 10.9 11.9 Σ 118.5 Source: National Weather Service, US Dept of Commerce

literature

• Frederick J. Blue; William D. Jenkins; William H. Lawson; Joan M. Reedy: Mahoning Memories: A History of Youngstown and Mahoning County. The Donning Company, Virginia Beach (VA) 1995. ISBN 0-89865-944-2 .
• George Packer : The Unwinding . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2013. ISBN 978-0-571-28033-9 .

Web links

Commons : Youngstown (Ohio)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Single receipts

1. ^ Communities along the Mahoning River . Youngstown State University. Archived from the original on June 21, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 26, 2007. 
2. ↑ Blue et al. (1995), p. 113.
3. ^ David Skolnick: Community leaders extol mayoral victory . In: The Vindicator , November 9, 2005. Retrieved February 14, 2007. 
4. ↑ Mayors Against Illegal Guns: Coalition Members . Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Archived from the original on March 6, 2007. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
5. ↑ Blue et al. (1995), p. 20.
6. ↑ Blue et al. (1995), p. 42.
7. ↑ Blue et al. (1995), p. 37.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Blue et al. (1995), p. 94.
9. ↑ Fuechtmann (1989), pp. 41-43.
10. ↑ Packer (2013), p. 49.
11. ↑ ^{a b} Packer (2013), p. 51.
12. ↑ Bruno (1999), p. 149.
13. ↑ Packer (2013), p. 52.
14. ↑ Packer (2013), p. 93.
15. ↑ Jerry Zremski: Youngstown, Ohio, is a city changed by fracking. ( Memento of the original from April 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Buffalo News , May 18, 2014 
16. ^ Won-Young Kim: Induced seismicity associated with fluid injection into a deep well in Youngstown, Ohio. In: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. Vol. 118, 2013, pp. 3506-3518, doi: 10.1002 / jgrb.50247 .
17. ^ Hunter Stuart: Ohio Fracking Operation Halted Following Area Earthquakes. In: Huffington Post , March 12, 2014