ProPublica's president tweeted that this happens to be the 2nd self-chilling-can story/scandal he's lawyered – the first being a 1986 WSJ investigation into a "bogus company" promising a self-freezing can [0]. I've never even heard of such a thing, and as a techie, I immediately think "Scam Kickstarter/As sold on TV junk". But even reading today's story I don't understand how Youngstown (pop. ~65,000) could do better due diligence with today's Internet.

To be fair, a google search for "self chilling can" doesn't bring up stories about the decades old scam. And there's no obvious fraud in the story – I mean, the company apparently have an Irvine headquarters, which the city lawyer visited when he was out there, as well as production prototypes. But the novelty of the idea, and lack of actual market research (since they haven't really mass produced it yet) makes this as crazy as $1M to slick but ephemeral Indiegogo campaign.

And I guess I really have no idea how hard it is for Youngstown – suffering a massive population and jobs downspiral for the past few decades – to attract any big employer to the area, with any amount of incentive. It's not like they can attract the likes of Foxconn (which incidentally, also has failed to live up to promises in Wisconsin) or Amazon, especially with a budget too stretched to offer more than a few million in tax breaks.

[0] https://twitter.com/dicktofel/status/1259788560917581829

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/01/business/sec-cites-stock-...