Youngstown, Warren, Lordstown, and other communities along Ohio’s Mahoning River flourished as sites for steel and automobile production through much of the twentieth century, forming middle-class communities that prospered for decades. Today, this region is often presented as a poster child for post-industrial decline and all its accompanying challenges. What immediate actions might communities take to ameliorate population loss, superfluous infrastructure, unemployment, and the withdrawal of capital? How can formerly industrial cities reimagine new futures? What can be done to reconnect to nature on sites long defined and scarred by heavy industry?

Join editors Quilian Riano and Kristen Zeiber and report contributors Helen Liggett, Gary Honeywood, and Matt Martin, as they share findings and highlights from their American Roundtable report In the Mahoning Valley. Their informal presentation will be followed by discussion on some of the report’s key ideas and provocations with American Roundtable Project Director Nicholas Anderson and League Executive Director Rosalie Genevro. Read the full In the Mahoning Valley Report.

Learn more about the American Roundtable Initiative.

Quilian Riano is an architectural and urban designer, researcher, writer, and educator, who serves as the associate director of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) at Kent State University. Prior to coming to the CUDC, Riano founded DSGN AGNC, a design studio exploring political engagement through architecture, urbanism and art. Kristen Zeiber is an urban designer and a project manager at CUDC, focusing on neighborhood planning, research, and mapping. Helen Liggett an adjunct professor and photographer teaching in the architectural studies program at Kent State University and the author of Urban Encounters. Matt Martin is the executive director of the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership (TNP), the community development corporation and land bank of Warren, Ohio. Gary Honeywood is a crewmember of Building a Better Warren (BAB), a program of TNP that recognizes the need for resident-driven community revitalization.