By ROGER G. SMITH

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown no longer has steel, but it does have other industries.

A college campus sits at its core. Hospitals and medical offices are concentrated here. Courthouses are clustered downtown. So are federal, state, county and city government offices. There are theaters and museums.

That is where local leader see the future.

Figuring out where those assets fit into the larger regional economy and capitalizing on them is second segment of the vision for the future, called Youngstown 2010.

Defining the city’s role in the economy means two things to area leaders, said Anthony Kobak, the city’s chief planner. One is finding the city’s economic niche locally. The other is how to compete with other surrounding metropolitan area such as Cleveland and Akron.

Leaders view YSU, hospitals, government and the arts as the foundation for the city to build on, said Bill D’Avignon, city deputy director of planning.

Those economic assets are a byproduct of Youngstown’s former size, said Jay Williams, director of the city Community Development Agency. Small cities don’t have those sectors of the economy, he said. Fortunately, they remain from when the city was the center of everything, he said.

Government can’t directly affect those industries, Williams said. City leaders can, however, create the right environment for such types of business to thrive, he said.

rgsmith@vindy.com

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