the pitch

The CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator in Youngstown, Ohio, Cossler wants one distinctly non-gritty thing for his city: software companies. “We don’t want to take any other company,” he says, because software firms are cheap to start up, their location is irrelevant, and they either succeed or fail quickly.

Sexy, it ain’t. But the approach is simple and efficient: YBI uses LinkedIn to find young people who grew up in Youngstown but then moved away and now work in the computing field. “Then we make this pitch to them,” says Cossler. “We pitch them the fantastic software industry growing here in Youngstown, and the prospect of moving back to where their parents and grandparents are, and oh, by the way, have you seen our real estate prices?” So far they’re communicating with 1,800 of what he calls the “Youngstown diaspora,” and 187 of those — who now work everywhere from Austin to Tokyo to Tel Aviv — have asked to meet with him.

via Rust Belt chic: Declining Midwest cities make a comeback - Salon.com.