Youngstown native Ian Beniston is Assistant Director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC).
A professional in urban planning and neighborhood development and member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, Mr. Beniston most recently served as Director of Policy for the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative where he played an integral role in the creation of the YNDC. He also spent several years working for the nationally recognized urban planning consulting firm ACP Visioning+Planning. Mr. Beniston began his career as an intern in the City of Youngstown’s Planning Department during the early stages of the Youngstown 2010 planning process.
Along with a Master of City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Youngstown State University, Mr. Beniston studied the European approach to reinventing older industrial cities while at the Technical University of Dresden in eastern Germany.