No joke. NPR reporter Dan Bobkoff visited Youngstown to do a story about its thriving business incubator, which now employs about 300 in downtown. Here’s what he had to say:
“Youngstown has been down so long it’s become shorthand for the Rust Belt,” he said. “When I heard that a block of Youngstown is starting to look like a tiny Silicon Valley, I drove down there to check it out.”
Software start-ups at this “managed business cluster” get free rent and utilities courtesy of the state — and the investment appears to …

This site is intended to consolidate and develop news and information about post-industrial Great Lakes cities. It was developed by two former newspaper reporters with ties to Cleveland, Toledo and Youngstown, Ohio and Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We’ve noted that there is a lot of good information about Rust Belt issues coming from blogs and the mainstream media. We hope to sort out the good stuff and summarize it for problem solvers and concerned citizens from Buffalo to St. Louis.
We also intend to develop some original stories and photography. Any …