Igrew up in Schenectady in the 1970s, back when I could walk hand-in-hand with my mother to the A&P Grocery Store, regional farms supplied our tables and State Street bustled with culture and commerce. Yet as I came of age, I witnessed a steep decline.

When General Electric downsized and moved jobs away, Schenectady transformed from the prosperous “Electric City” into a post-industrial town struggling with population and tax base loss, poverty and crime. When I graduated from Union College, I became a “brain-drain” statistic – I was one of the many individuals raised and educated here who had to leave Schenectady to find economic opportunity. When I returned after my mother, Karen Johnson, a former Schenectady mayor, passed away, I came home to a city scarred by hardship but alive with re

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