I know. I know. We said these things were stupid. I’m not going to retract that statement.

However, for the sake of discussion, Portfolio has cataloged the “Top 100 Fun Cities” and there’s a few interesting items.

In their list, Chicago scores second, Minneapolis 10th, Detroit 14th, Syracuse and Rochester 15th and 16th, Cleveland comes in at 23 (just before Portland?!), Milwaukee is 25, Youngstown’s 28 and Buffalo’s 29.

So, as we’ve discussed, these things are all relative and Portfolio doesn’t provide a ton of information about their rating system.

You have to give the folks in Youngstown credit for knowing how to have a good time.
Last weekend a group of young, city activists established a temporary ‘pop-up park’ in a parking spot on the city’s main thoroughfare and had a barbecue.

About 30 people turned out for the impromptu event, with desserts and dishes to share, according to the blog I Will Shout Youngstown.
Check out this spread:

According to my exclusive sources on this topic, all you need to pull this off in your city is a rug, some furniture, a …

Have you ever noticed, Obama likes to give his legislation long, convoluted names?
At the same time, this is an important one.
It might be more appropriately called Aid to Industrial Cities. (But obviously that might be politically sensitive. How does the old double-standard go again: farm aid = good, city aid = bad?) This piece of long-overdue legislation would establish competitive grants for revitalizing older industrial cities through the department of Housing and Urban Development. The Community Regeneration, Sustainability and Innovation Act would mostly help eliminate vacant housing, the profusion of …

Fellow Rust Wire blogger Angie and I had the opportunity to attend a screening of Youngstown: Still Standing last Thursday at the Cleveland International Film Festival. One of my favorite aspects of the CIFF is that it shines the spotlight on local filmmakers who present work on some very interesting topics. Despite initially feeling a little disappointed with the film, Youngstown: Still Standing turned out to be one of my favorite works at this year’s festival. If you’re a regular Rust Wire reader, I recommend it.

I’m going to admit upfront that I was woefully ignorant about Youngstown walking into the theater last Thursday, despite having lived most of my life merely 75 miles away. Angie, on the other hand, lived and worked as a reporter in Youngstown for …

Rust Wire is very excited to share this newly released, original documentary by our own contributor, graduate student and photographer Sean Posey.

The past three decades have erased much of the city of Youngstown that my father and grandfather knew: An area once known as ” the city of homes” became known for widespread arson; a city once indelibly linked with steel and manufacturing became known as the grave yard of the American steel industry. Youngstown, much like Detroit, went from being
a symbol of the American dream to being a worst case example of the “urban crisis” that has engulfed so many of this country’s inner
cities.

Yet, we should not overlook the fact that much has changed for good in the Steel Valley.

Youngstown residents have launched a campaign against the Department of Housing and Urban Development after losing out on grant money to help deal with the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis.
Local activists are circulating a petition protesting the region’s denial of the second round of Neighborhood Stabilization Funds–a program of the Stimulus Bill which provides funding for demolition, rehabilitation and landbanking efforts.
The denial came as a surprise after the Youngstown area was praised by the Brookings Institution for its application, which brought together city and suburban leaders.

-AS
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Between 2000 and 2008, large metropolitan areas saw their suburban poverty rates grow at twice the rate of inner cities, according to a new report by the Brookings Institution.
For example, in 2008, 23 percent more people were living in poverty outside the city of Cleveland’s borders than inside it. That’s a 44 percent jump since 2000, for a total of 9 percent of the suburban population. Meanwhile the number of poor in the city of Cleveland decreased, WCPN Ideastream reports.
Similar trends were reported in Akron and Youngstown.
Also of note:
-Social service …

The road to recovery begins in Youngstown, Ohio.

That was the take, at least, from Reuters reporter Nick Carey in a special report on national economic recovery.

“Today, the city immortalized by Bruce Springsteen’s 1995 Rust-Belt anthem ‘Youngstown’ is moving on,” Carey writes.

“Among other things, it has created an incubator to attract the types of small businesses that are expected to drive future growth. Despite the thousands of vacant homes that serve …

The Washington Post sent Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Michael Williamson and reporter Anne Hull to Youngstown and Warren recently to document how the recession is affecting former steel towns.
The pair found newly shuttered businesses and former industrial workers struggling to stay afloat in lower-paying, more-competitive, service-based economy.
The story begins at Uptown Gems where working class people come to sell their valuables following layoffs or pay reductions.
“At campaign time, they are celebrated as the people who built America,” Hull writes. “Now they just want to know how much they can get for …

I took off on a road trip across the Rust Belt this summer both because I saw it as a potential for some good stories (which you can find here) and because it seemed like a great opportunity to visit a part of the country that I knew solely through reading and conversation. I also veered a bit out of the Rust Belt’s traditional boundaries to do a story for NPR’s Latino USA (scroll down and then listen here) on immigrant urban farmers in Cincinnati.

And it turns out I wasn’t the only person with such ideas. One group of planning students from Department of Urban Planning at the University of Illinois made a similar trip, calling it “Rust Belt Road Trip.” Another group did the same thing as well. It has to be more than the catchy alliteration–there must be something in the air.