O'neill, MOIRA, MA AUGUST 2019 GEOGRAPHY EVOLUTION and COOPERATION in the YOUNGSTOWN AREA (175 Pp.)
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O’NEILL, MOIRA, M.A. AUGUST 2019 GEOGRAPHY EVOLUTION AND COOPERATION IN THE YOUNGSTOWN AREA (175 pp.) Thesis Advisor: David H. Kaplan The ongoing populist backlash against the liberal-democratic world order has strong geographical dimensions and demands a reckoning with growing spatial inequality. Until now, economic geography has largely viewed the divergent trajectories of local and regional economies as a either a process of evolutionary selection or the byproduct of localized institutional structures. However, this thesis proposes a new framework to synthesize the two, conceptualizing geographical inequality as the result of agent-driven equilibrium selection within an evolving complex system. Using a post-industrial community in eastern Ohio as a case, three studies demonstrate the usefulness of this approach. First, an historical survey traces the rise, stagnation, and decline of the Youngstown area’s economy as the result of changing competitive landscapes and the (in)ability of local institutions to coordinate a response. Second, a quantitative analysis relates initial community characteristics to outcomes following the Great Recession. Here, neighborhood economic norms and membership effects offered the most compelling explanation for why some communities were resilient in the face of the shock while others fared poorly. Third, a mixed-methods approach combines qualitative fieldwork with non- cooperative game theory and illustrates how institutional coordination failure has trapped much of the Mahoning Valley in a sub-optimal state of development. The overwhelming evidence from these studies leads to the conclusion that for place economies, evolutionary fitness should be considered synonymous with institutional fitness. That is, norms around cooperation and economic activity are the driving forces behind local development outcomes amidst macroeconomic change. Evolution and Cooperation in the Youngstown Area A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts By Moira Patricia O’Neill August 2019 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials. Thesis written by Moira Patricia O’Neill B.A., William Smith College, 2009 M.A., Kent State University, 2019 Approved by DAVID H. KAPLAN , Advisor SCOTT C. SHERIDAN , Chair, Department of Geography JAMES L. BLANK , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………....v LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………...vii LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………………...viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………………….ix CHAPTER ONE: THE NATURE OF CHANGE …………………………………….......................1 CHAPTER TWO: RECONCILING EVOLUTIONARY AND INSTITUTIONALIST PERSPECTIVES THROUGH MULTIPLE EQUILIBRIA………….……………………………..11 CHAPTER THREE: COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN THE MAHONING VALLEY…………………………………………………………………..35 CHAPTER FOUR: RESILIENT NEIGHBORHOODS…………………………………………..61 CHAPTER FIVE: INTUITING SPATIAL DISPARITIES THROUGH NON-COOPERATIVE GAME THEORY……………………………….................106 CHAPTER SIX: SPATIAL DARWINISM……………………………………………………….139 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………….148 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1. Equilibria and Threshold Values………………………………………………….…18 Figure 2.2. Multiple Equilibria from Expected Decisions (i.e. Investment Decisions)…...….….25 Figure 3.1. Mahoning Valley Municipal Boundaries (as of 2016……………………………….38 Figure 4.1. Poverty Rates by Census Tract, Mahoning Valley, 2000……………………………65 Figure 4.2. Poverty Rates by Census Tract, Mahoning Valley, 2016……………………………65 Figure 4.3. Change in Poverty Rates by Census Tract, Mahoning Valley, 2000-2016………….65 Figure 4.4. Institutional Asset Locations, Mahoning Valley…………………………………….67 Figure 4.5. OLS Regression Analysis Residuals Map: 2000 and 2016 Poverty Rates…………..73 Figure 4.6. OLS Regression Analysis Residuals Map: Change in Poverty Rates vs. Initial Poverty……………………………………………………………………………….…………..73 Figure 4.7. OLS Regression Analysis: Summary Model Residuals……………………………..77 Figure 4.8. OLS Residuals, Median Home Value…………………..…………………………...79 Figure 4.9. GWR, Median Home Value…………………..……………………………………..79 Figure 4.10. Youngstown Census Tracts, Hospitals, Higher Ed………………………………...83 Figure 4.11. OLS Residuals, Educational Attainment…………………..……………………….86 Figure 4.12. GWR, Educational Attainment…………………..…………………………………86 Figure 4.13. OLS Residuals, Median Age…………………..…………………………………...88 Figure 4.14. GWR, Median Age…………………..……………………………………………..88 Figure 4.15. OLS Residuals, Disability Rate…………………..………………………………...90 Figure 4.16. GWR, Disability Rate…………………...………………………………………….90 vi Figure 4.17. Education, Health, Social Services Employment in the Mahoning Valley, Census 2000………………………………………………………………………………………………94 Figure 4.18. Manufacturing Employment in the Mahoning Valley, Census 2000………………94 Figure 4.19. Hotspot Analysis: Locations of Healthcare Jobs, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Survey 2002…………………………………………………………………………..97 Figure 4.20. Hotspot Analysis: Where Healthcare Employees Lived, Longitudinal Employer- Household Dynamics Survey 2002………………………………………………………………97 Figure 4.21. Hotspot Analysis: Increasing Poverty, 2000-2016…………………………………97 Figure 4.22. OLS Residuals, Percent Black, Mahoning Valley………………………………...101 Figure 5.1. The Stag Hunt…………………………………………………………………...….112 Figure 5.2. BUILD Grant Infrastructure Plan…………………………………………………..135 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1. Results Summary……………………………………………………………………..76 Table 4.2. Post-shock Poverty and Initial Sectoral Employment……………………………......93 Table 5.1. Interviews Summary………………………………………………………………..109 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been incredibly rewarding, and there are many people I would like to recognize for helping me see it through. I owe the greatest thanks to my advisor, David Kaplan, for his thoughtful support and unassailable good humor, even in the face of some fairly experimental first drafts. Thanks to my committee members, Jennifer Mapes and Nadia Greenhalgh-Stanley, for generously sharing their time and expertise. The final product is better because of the questions they raised and suggestions they offered, and I am grateful. I must acknowledge my professors across the College of Arts and Sciences and fellow graduate students in the Geography Department, notably Michaela Gawrys, who read early chapter drafts and provided insightful comments along the way. The Department of Geography kindly offered material support in pursuing and presenting this research. A constellation of people helped me personally over the past few years. For their constant cheerleading: Bill, Janet, and B.J. Steiner; Michael, Eileen, and Tommy O’Neill; Ana Maria Thomas; Trevor Martin. For the example they set: my parents, Jim and Keelin O’Neill. Special thanks to Michael and Jeanette Garvey, as well as Moira Garvey, who all took an interest in this effort and directed countless Warren Tribune Chronicle and Youngstown Vindicator articles my way. Last, but the opposite of least, my husband Mike Steiner. Without Mike’s unwavering support, this project, and those in the future, would not be possible. ix CHAPTER ONE The Nature of Change Traveling along 422 into Warren, Ohio is a tour in rust belt clichés. Idled factories and shuttered storefronts dot the landscape on the way into the city. An expansive parking lot in front of the once-bustling strip mall called Trumbull Plaza lies mostly empty; The Dollar Tree and Metro PCS are two of the last remaining stores. Further into town, it seems…quiet. In some neighborhoods there are now more buildings than people. The main roads, many of which are in disrepair and need repaving, are not well-traveled, so people ignore the crosswalks. Drivers proceed with caution to avoid the jaywalkers and the potholes. On the city’s west side, the beige brick exterior of the former St. Joseph’s Riverside Hospital – an impressive structure in its day - has become a canvas for graffiti and a home to squatters since it closed in 1996. Twenty-three years later, there are still no plans or money to raze the building and redevelop the site. Southwest of Warren, worry is growing that another facility with an uncertain future might meet a similar fate. The General Motors Lordstown plant, a hulking, 6.2 million-square foot automobile manufacturing facility just off the Ohio Turnpike closed in March of 2019, swallowing 1,500 salaried and hourly jobs in the process. As of this writing, community attempts to reallocate the space have not born out. Continuing along the turnpike, turning onto 680 and once more into downtown Youngstown, turn-of-the-century architecture offers stately, though mostly vacant, offices for 1 banks and development agencies in the city’s central business district. A few blocks north, groomed lawns delineate the campus of Youngstown State University. Students shuffle in and out of restored spaces, a mix of classic and modern designs and an island of stability and purpose in an otherwise deeply distressed region. At the university’s borders, decline abruptly returns. To the east, once-grand homes along Wick Avenue are left in varying states of disrepair, as fraternities and other groups have taken up residence in the former mansions of some of the twentieth century’s wealthiest industrialists. Further east, in the town of Campbell, nature is taking back the working-class row houses and company-run hospital that once served the second-largest steel producing community in the country. Save for a few anchor institutions,