2024 01 03

Downtown Steubenville, Ohio. November, 2023. ©Clayton Hauck

Steubenville, Ohio topped out around 38,000 people in the 1940s. Today, roughly 18,000 people live here — a loss of over half the population from its peak almost a century ago.

I have no magic takeaway from these stats but a desire to see America’s Rust Belt re-filled with people. Trends, however, are tough to fight against. To succeed in business you have to go to where the people are. To run a city you have to maintain your infrastructure. With a shrinking tax base, this math becomes impossible to manage very quickly. Its hard to blame people for moving to new southern cities, where budgets are flush and the crafty and connected are able to more easily fill their coffers.

Cheap home prices help, but there needs to be an additional catalyst to get enough people motivated to move back to these rusty towns and refill their full potential.

If elected mayor, I pledge to Make Refurbishments Exciting Again. A ribbon cutting for every alley repaved. A fish fry for every sewer line replaced.

Enjoy.

-Clayton