The Youngstown 2010 Plan is based on a new vision accepting the reality Youngstown is a smaller city that will stabilize at 80,000 people. The City of Youngstown and Youngstown State University coordinated this planning process with help from nearly 200 volunteers, neighborhood organizations and businesses. Organizers for the plan prodded residents to turn out for a large public meeting to review the initial city plan vision using every marketing tool they could think of: billboards, public service announcements, and window stickers.

The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) spearheaded a collaborative approach to protecting the largest groundwater resource in Southwest Ohio. This effort centered on planning the best way that the economically deprived Village of New Miami could best protect drinking water for itself and its neighbors. OKI had to work through hidden agendas, regulatory tensions, and political turmoil. The Ohio EPA finally endorsed the Drinking Water Protection Plan for the Village of New Miami. The grant partners shortly thereafter came to an agreement on the legislation crafted by the village council that passed a drinking water protection ordinance.