Rebuilding Youngstown is a job for whole community

Rebuilding Youngstown is
a job for whole community

EDITOR:

This responds to a Boardman resident's June 5 letter, "Y'town isn't my town," which proposed a boycott of Youngstown to protest its exploration of income tax generation from a Joint Economic Development District. There is a fair debate to be had about the proposal. It should be noted, however, that Youngstown is the reason for the suburbs' existence, and the revitalization of Youngstown is essential to the future of the region as a whole.

Youngstown has only been recently rescued from the claws of corruption and deserves a chance to find its way forward using all of the resources at its disposal. My family and I moved back to the city this year after a decade in the suburbs because of the vitality of its communities and culture. We believe in the growing renaissance that is leveraging the legacy of Youngstown's neighborhoods to realize a new urban identity.

To further this transformation, the region must move beyond urban-suburban conflict towards cooperative cohabitation, where each city promotes the other's health for mutual benefit. By supporting the development of Youngstown, the surrounding communities stand to gain higher quality of life through increased employment opportunities, higher wages, richer real estate values, expanded arts offerings and an elevated regional profile and attendant tourism dollars.

We owe it to ourselves and each other to engage in meaningful debates on these issues and policies. Ad hominem attacks only serve to isolate and insult. There's much rebuilding to be done. And we can only do it together.

TYLER S. CLARK

Youngstown

Brain studies bear out need
to raise the draft age to 21

EDITOR:

I am a 16-year old freshman at Jackson-Milton High School. When my class debated raising the age of the military draft from 18 to 21, I took the position that if a draft would be put in place again, the legal age should be raised to 21. I also think that the legal recruiting age should be set at 21.

If lawmakers make it so that an individual is unable to legally drink alcohol until the age of 21, why should they be given a rifle to kill or be killed to defend our country? It seems to me that it is very contradictory and confusing.

Many researchers' reports on the Internet provide scientific proof that 18- through 20-year-olds are risk takers and poor decision makers.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines prove that the frontal lobes of the human brain are not fully developed until the early 20s. The frontal lobe of the brain is the section that involves socializing with adults, being impulsive and empathetic, and making decisions — especially on taking risks.

According to neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, "Teenagers are known for their lack of empathy, being impulsive, being risk-takers, and not socializing with adults. These behaviors are controlled in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and this area undergoes changes until the early 20s in age." Jay Giedd, neuroscientist and chief of brain imaging at the National Institutes of Health, adds, "A teen's brain is still under construction; MRI images reveal that as teens get older, the gray matter in the brain gets smaller as it's replaced by white matter. Brains don't stop developing significantly until people are in their 20s."

Some people might say that recruiting young people because they are risk-takers might be the main reason that the military targets people under 21, but if it were your own son or daughter, I believe that you would agree with raising the recruiting age. Some people might also say that the MRI brain studies also suggest re-examing legal ages for drivers' licenses, marriage licenses, signing legal contracts, and voting.

I believe that the entire world needs to take a closer look at these age/brain development studies and set their legal age limits appropriately.

MATT HASPODAR

Warren