The Youngstown of 20 years ago: Struggling to deal with a newly disaffected working class, the new realities of a rising crime rate and the glimmer of its former "center of industry for the nation" self. Guess what? That's everywhere else now, too. Those problems didn't go away in Youngstown, but that region has had 40 years to deal with it and adjust and become resilient. Youngstown was a "preview" of what the rest of the US would become: Even down to its own version of Jim Traficant as president.

Is it better than it was? Comparably, it certainly is. Objectively? I think it's gotten better, too. It's not SF and it never will be, but you get a lot of time and space for your money there, comparitively.

I'm keeping my eye on the housing market around the area a little further out into the country.