Business Facilities Magazine Highlights Valley
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Business Facilities, a magazine targeted at corporate site selectors, highlighted the Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area in its 2014 Metro Rankings Report.
The magazine ranked the area first in its Exports Growth Leaders Top 10, fifth in Export Recovery Leaders and ninth in the Lowest Cost of Living. The publication also cited Youngstown and Pittsburgh as among four National Manufacturing Innovation Leaders regions in the nation for the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, now known as America Makes, in Youngstown.
The Aug. 7 lead article announcing its Metro and Global rankings heralded the area with the headline, “Youngstown OH; Exports Engine.”
The article noted, “While the appearance of exports behemoths like New Orleans and Houston in the top 10 is not surprising, some may raise their eyebrows when they see Youngstown, Ohio, at the top of the chart and Toledo, Ohio, in the top 10. Well, all of the economic obituaries written about the Rust Belt during the Great Recession were totally off base: manufactured goods produced in the Youngstown metropolitan area are being shipped around the globe.”
The magazine cited the Brookings Institution study that ranked Youngstown No. 1 in the nation for export growth from 2009 to 2012 and sixth in the “export intensity” of its economy. In the Lowest Cost of Living rankings, Youngstown-Warren was the only Midwest metro area to make the list.
Rankings such as in Business Facilities “further solidify the fact that there are great things going on in the Valley,” remarked Sarah Boyarko, vice president for economic development with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
“As a region, we continue to be recognized for all of the hard work that's being done collectively to ensure our economic recovery,” she continued. Additionally, “the Regional Chamber works hard to share these ranking throughout the nation and beyond, so companies and private investors know who we are and what we do and that they should be here, too," she said.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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