Why AI Could Create More Places Like Youngstown, Ohio

Résumé détaillé

"Youngstown is a symbol for what can happen when America stands idly by as market forces inflict abrupt economic transition on communities," write Todd Jick and Bruce Usher.

The story of Youngstown, Ohio, is often seen as a story about the past. But it’s time to start looking at the Rust Belt city as a warning about the future.

As the artificial intelligence revolution unfolds, debates about its impact on the American economy often hinge on the belief that if the technology creates more jobs than it destroys, it will be a success. But the more important question is often the most overlooked: Who will bear the costs of the AI revolution?

Youngstown is a symbol for what can happen when America stands idly by as market forces inflict abrupt economic transition on communities. And the next Youngstown may already be taking shape. It may not depend on a steel mill, but on concentrations of jobs increasingly vulnerable to AI. From Huntsville, Texas, to State College, Pennsylvania, the industries will be different, but the risk is familiar: jobs transformed or eliminated faster than the community around them can adapt.

For a decade, we have taught a Columbia Business School course called Bridging the American Divides. The class includes a four-day visit to Youngstown, Ohio, to help students understand what national economic statistics often fail to capture: what happens when a booming economy leaves a community behind.

Most Americans know the broad outline of Youngstown’s decades-long story. Once a proud and prosperous center of American steelmaking, its economic foundation collapsed as changes in steel production and foreign competition made much of the city’s industry uncompetitive.

On “Black Monday” in 1977, Youngstown Sheet & Tube announced the closure of its Campbell Works, eliminating thousands of jobs overnight. Tens of thousands more disappeared in the years that followed. Youngstown’s population, which was over 120,000 at that time, has since fallen to fewer than 60,000 today.

While this shift hurt workers in Youngstown, many others benefited. From the perspective of the national economy, technological progress and global competition…

At the…

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