I was raised in Youngstown. Left at 26 in ‘75. Recently, I’ve watched drone videos on RU-vid of the Youngstown area. Some show downtown, others the beauty of Mill Creek Park, various neighborhoods, etc. Not to downplay the economic devastation caused by the closing of the mills, but I noticed quite a nice a side benefit to the area. The air quality is so clean. Nothing like the soot filled, often orange hazed skies I grew up with. One video was of a guy kayaking in the Mahoning River near downtown. The river was clean-ish and the trip quiet and peaceful. That’s a benefit.
The river isn't clean by any stretch no sir. They have plans to clean it up but the entire river from warren to Youngstown is nasty as heck. They want to dredge it and make it so we can tube down it which will be nice but as of this video to current day, no its nasty. It may have looked clean in the video but it's no where near that.
I was 7 when this place closed. My dad worked there and neighbors. I wish they would really report on a lot of facts and not highlights. Not only did it put a dent in the area it was like dominos falling. Then as time went on. A lot of bad mistakes with other parts of y-town. Then judges. Cops. Etc getting arrested for being crooked. Mismanagement of money. So corrupt. No names. But at a bar one night. Owner started telling everyone get rid of drugs if ya have them. I was like huh?? Next thing I knew cops came in searching people. After me I went outside to car and seen a payoff. Never went back to bar. So sad
We left when I was seven also. Transferred my Dad and an Uncle to the Jindal work here in Houston Texas. Was sad. We lived over on Parkway and when Mom passed two years ago it was her wish for her ashes to be spread out in Yellow creek, which we went back and did. Still have family that lives there, we get back when we can. Was sad to see my family spread out all over the country after the shutdown.
@@MrCate1999 you go where there's work. i was a junior tire builder at goodyear in east akron on black monday. my dad didn't want his family growing up in the youngstown area so he and my mom moved to cuyahoga falls. we used to go to hillsville, hubbard, and youngstown every two weeks or so to visit my relatives. after akron turned into a ghost town we moved to southern california where i am now retired in san diego county and loving it. mountains and snow a half-hour's drive to the east and beaches a half-hour's drive to the west and i live in a great, small town (alpine).
it would have shut down anyway- none of those places could exist beyond 1977. when you say 'sheet & tube' shut down they shut down the casting plant in hubbard in the early 60's and the rolling operation went forward for many more years. most of the workers were placed in jobs at brier hill when they quit the casting operations at hubbard and masury.
I wrote a book about my 43 years spent in both Youngstown Sheet and Tube as well as RG Steel. It’s called, “Steeltown Down,” and it’s available at Amazon Books and it has a 4.6 star rating. If you pick up a copy I think you’ll come away with a much better understanding of what a steelworkers’ day was like told by a person who experienced it all as well as what it was like to be one of the last three men to leave Sheet and Tube on its’ very last day of operations in 1987..
Braven X We already know about Detroit and doesn’t warrant repeating. Let’s focus on the lesser known smaller and mid sized cities of less than 200,000 population.
Luckily you have The Falls, and Buffalo-Niagara Metro. We are stuck between CLE and Pitt apart from both, with only Lanterman’s Mill Falls here. God help us?
Refire the God dam Mills and get the Cole and ore outta the hills and build America again and the family unit and backbone of this country! Financial stability and work will keep communities strong...........
@Zak Anderson I didn't say we don't need to use it, yes, of course we still need it, I'm saying that we don't need to put as much workforce into mining it as we did in the 20th century.
@@mattmarzula It's more than that. It's just the perfect storm of things being obsolete and not looking to the future. The open hearths that were used in these mills literally had circles ran around them by basic oxygen process furnaces. What took 8 to 10 hours in a hearth took 45 minutes in a BOF. You can't beat that efficiency gain. Then you have continuous casting, which means you don't need blooming mills nearly as much, if at all anymore...because you're not casting ingots. So very many efficiency gains which equals huge loss of jobs.
@@jondoes7836 look into the history of steel mills, "And along came the wolf" book. Look into the history of the auto industry. The paper mill where my step father worked was Union and closed down. And there is the illustrious USPS, they have lost over $70 BILLION so far. Specific enough for you?
@@jondoes7836 They protect bad employees and they demand higher pay which the company has to offset by making higher prices for their products, that in turn, creates competition issues with other companies that are non union. Also, read the book I mentioned earlier.
Because they demand higher pay? Really? Have you ever asked your employer for a raise? They protect bad employees? Really? I work at one of the most modern steel mills in the country and those that are fired basically fire themselves. I made $149k last year at the mill I work at…. but I suppose you think that is too much right? As for the paper mill where your stepdad worked; I’ll bet the dumping of Chinese paper products into this country doomed that mill. USPS is run by the government. Did you really expect the USPS to run efficiently???
TimothyBowman. Hate to bring you the terrible news, but they can't be held liable for any residual pollution environmental damage that they left behind. Particularly due to the fact that the EPA restrictions we have now as Pierre Klee mentioned, probably didn't exist yet back at that time. So technically, these factories weren't breaking any environmental rules in that case, when they where still operating in Youngstown.
We can thank gubment trade policy and energy policy for this. Now, with Joe Biden inn office, we will see a repeat of this in steel and other basic industries. But that is OK because we can all wait for our monthly welfare check
Covid just proved that people will sit home and collect. The enemy is a free-thinking man. This is engineered to produce wards of the state that will assimilate and do the states bidding.
I recall seeing a billboard along I-80 a year ago that was advertising for new employees at one of the huge steel mills in northwest Indiana. Joe Biden was president back then.
