Fed Directs $50 Million to Auto Towns

The Federal Government will steer $50 million in assistance to communities with auto plants that have experienced significant layoffs, The Associated Press reports.

The money will come from federal stimulus funds and be used for job training and placement.

Retraining Manufacturing Veterans in Toledo

What does it take to retrain middle-aged factory workers?

NPR takes a look at the process in this story about a Toledo-area couple, both in their 50s, who are back in high school learning algebra and training for their first white-collar jobs.

The effort paid off for Jim Buford, who recently got a job installing solar panels.

Toledoan Crosses Country on Vegetable Oil

Toledo resident Stacy Jurich, 23, traveled 10,000 miles across the United States this winter on a Mercedez Benz powered by vegetable oil.

White-Collar Unemployment

A sad story about Toledo in Sunday’s Washington Post.

The article describes how the downturn in the economy is hitting white-collar workers- hard. (I should know, I’m one of them!)

“In this corner of Ohio, the workforce is contracting at an alarming speed, with unemployment climbing to rates more typical of counties in Appalachia,” the article states. “In March, unemployment in Toledo reached 12.6 percent, an increase of more than 50 percent over March 2008.”

Community Organizing and Development in North Toledo

How do you overcome the perception – and reality- of a central city neighborhood in a Rust Belt city that is losing population? That’s Terry Glazer and United North’s challenge.

Glazer leads the Lagrange Development Corporation, a community development group that works to improve housing, jobs, economic opportunities, and the neighborhood in general in North Toledo.

Songs of the Rust Belt

When I was a little girl my mom used to sing me an old cheer called “We’re Strong for Toledo.” My grandma used to sing me John Denver’s “Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio.” The songs portrayed two very different cities: one a proud metropolis, the other a laughing stock.

I thought it might be interesting to look at the most famous songs devoted to Rust Belt as a way to examine how these cities are portrayed in pop culture, and also how that image has changed over the years.

For example, the song my mother used to sing to me, judging by the slang, was written in the 1950s or sooner, Toledo’s heyday. It goes like this:

Toledo: Less “Job Sprawl” Than Others

A recent Brookings Institution study found less “job sprawl” in Toledo than in many other major metro areas.

Eight of 10 jobs in the metropolitan area are within 10 miles of downtown, the study found, as reported in The Blade.

Toledo’s doing better than many other areas. Consider:

-In metro Detroit, 77 percent of jobs are more than 10 miles from downtown.

- In metro Chicago, the figure is 69 percent.

- And it is better than any of the Ohio cities studied, The Blade reported.

In Cleveland, just 16 percent of jobs were three miles or less from downtown.

In Cincinnati and Youngstown, the figure was 17 percent; in Columbus, 19 percent; in Dayton, 24 percent, and in Akron, 25 percent.

Downtown living

Toledo’s Warehouse District is small – but growing.

Check out the story and multimedia slideshow from The Blade about this beautiful 1887 building that was transformed into a home:

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090329/ART16/903270254

Toledo: Boosting the Economy from Within

By Angie Schmitt

Part of the impetus for Toledo Choose Local came from a University of Toledo study on the economic impact of locally owned bookstore verses a national chain.

Researchers found that money spent at the mom-and-pop bookseller would snowball as it traveled through the local economy, generating an overall economic return of about $5 million for the city. Meanwhile, the chain —with its distant headquarters and suppliers – would add only about $1 million to Toledo’s economic pie.

Twenty-three-year-old Stacy Jurich, a recent graduate of Ohio State University and a native of the Toledo suburbs, was searching for a way to boost Toledo’s appeal to international businesses about one year ago. She began Toledo Choose Local with an inquiry letter to 50 local businesses.

One year later, the organization that developed is a registered nonprofit with a coalition of nearly 100 locally owned businesses. Toledo Choose Local promotes its member businesses through its advertising campaigns about the benefits of choosing local, networking events and an annual local business directory.

“We haven’t conducted any impact studies,” Jurich said. “But based on word of mouth, we can tell we’re having an impact.”

The message is resonating more than ever in these troubled economic times, Stacy said. The organization has lost five businesses in the last year as a result of the downturn.

“We really try to encourage our members to incorporate their localness into their advertising,” Jurich said. “I think that’s really important to consumers as of late.”

“The money that a consumer spends at a locally owned business is going to continue to multiply within the local economy. When you spend at a local businesses, the buck kinda stops there.” 

In the future, Jurich would like to see the mission expanded to implore local institutions — universities, schools and government entities — to choose local suppliers. It’s that kind of targeted investment that could lead to the creation of new local businesses and jobs in Toledo as manufacturing jobs continue to dry up.

She’d also like to see more coordination between member businesses, partnering on advertising campaigns, or to purchase items in bulk — activities that could make member business more profitable.

More than 50 cities across the country have adopted choose local first campaigns. Toledo Choose Local was modeled after one such organization operating in Ann Arbor, Mich.

To read more about buy local first campaigns visit livingeconomies.org or amiba.org.

Stacy, incidentally, is traveling across the country in a 1984 Mercedes-Benz, powered by discarded vegetable oil from fast-food restaurants. (I had to get a plug in.) Read about it at vegipowerseesamerica.com.

 

Welcome To Rust Wire

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 writers, videographers or photographers that are willing to contribute please contact us at rustbeltnews@gmail.com. Also, if there’s any thing we’ve overlooked, or any exciting initiatives that might be worth featuring, please let us know.

Thanks,

 

Angie Schmitt & Kate Giammarise