Jeffery

I dont think we need immigrants in places like Dayton. The cliche is that "they do work Americans don't want to do". Yeah, if you live "inside the beltway" in DC or Northern VA all the 'Americans' (ie college educated whites and blacks with multiple degrees) are doing the white collar work as engineers, IT, policy analyses, law, etc etc etc, and the immigrants work in the service industry, serving this educated elite meritocracy...they are the ones who work in the kitchens and short-order places and clean the hotels and do the lawn work or act as maids for the busy yuppie elite who work long hours in the office. Well, there is a big enough urban underclass here in Dayton willing to do that work, all that human economic fallout from decades of de-industrialization, so there is no need for immigrants to come here to take those service industry jobs. Go into food places or hotels here and its the locals...the blacks and the urban appalachians doing this work. Sometimes asians with, possibly, Air Force connections (came over after marrying an enlisted man or NCO). There are some Mexicans here but I think they work in grounds keeping...maybe lower level construction work (and we know how THAT business is doing. Hah!) The way I see it if manufacturing gets automated and off-shored away, so what if we have a declining population. Taking the long view here....the die-off of the baby boomers & declining birth-rate combined with this automation/offshoring trend "solves" both the potential labor shortages (which would require more immigration) and technological unemployment problem. So there might finally----long term---be a match between work and population.

The recent "years to recover from the recession" report developed for the league of mayors is generating more coverage. This time from "24/7 Wall Street", with a "list" article Ten Cities That Will Take a Decade to Recover from the Recession....which has some smaller cities for a change. There are some basic stats and blurb for each city on the list. Ohio is well represnted. Cities in rank order in the artilce #5 Toldeo #7 Youngstown #9 Dayton #10 Canton. So 4 out of the 10 in that list are in urban Ohio. Yay.

A parade of 6,000 is pretty impressive, too. Maybe this is a sign that Ohio's great unwashed (this many sigs can't be all public workers or unionists) is still sympathetic to unions and havent swallowed enough of the "I hate unions" kool-aide thats being crammed down our collective throats.

The report at the link has some maps showing this, but no percentages (maybe they are in the appendixes. There's a map for Metros with declining under-15 population 2000-2010 in the suburbs. Ohio has a few: Akron, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown/Warren all show up on the map as suburban areas with declining under--15 populations. @@@ This is fascinating stuff. What it shows that these metros will soon, as we enter "The Great Die-Off", see deaths start exceeding births (in Dayton it will be around 2020 if not earlier), and the metro populations decline even further since there arent enough births to replacing the dying baby-boomer generation. Why? Not just declining birth rates but becuase...right now...there are fewer young adults to have kids and form families because they have left the area. So the lack of people with kids right now is going to cause a lack of a replacement population 25-30-40 years from now. And I think, with those low senior and pre-senior population growth rates in metros might indicate that weak economies have already caused people to leave, so you already have a smaller middle-age population cohort to move into the pre-senior and senior age ranges.

Brookings has a good new study out on the demographic changes & trends that are visible with the new census. Confirms Ohio is sort of declining place. For example, here are the rank orders of center citys that are seeing a DECLINE in the under 45 population...the young adult/new family forming demographic.... Betweeen 2000 and 2010, % decline 1. Cleveland: 25% decline 4. Youngstown: 24% 5. Dayton: 22% 7. Cincy: 15% 9. Akron: 15% 10: Toledo: 14% ...so Urban Ohio is well represented in this top ten list of core cities losing young adults. For suburbs, only two Ohio metros show up in the top 10 losers 1. Youngstown: 14% decline in under 45 in suburbia 5. Cleveland: 10% decline For oldsters the report IDs seniors (65 and up) and "pre-seniors (55-64)...the beginning of the baby boom wave that is heading towards retirement age. Interestingly enough Ohio metro areas rate high as the slowest growing of these populations Fore seniors, the slowest growth (and negative growth) in seniors, rank and % of growth 2000-2010: 5. -2% Youngstown 7. 1% Cleveland 9 3% Toledo For pre-seniors the rank in the slowest growing categor and growth % 4. 36% Dayton 5. 36% Youngstown 9 40% Cleveland. ....so a decline in young adults, but also the growthr rate for seniors and pre-seniors are low, too. Three Ohio metros are in the top ranks for highest % 65 or older: Youngstown: 18%... Dayton: 15%... Cleveland 15% of the metro pop are 65 or older. ..like that old Dave Evans bluegrass song goes.... "Throw out that cane & start walking/Be proud of that gray in your hair" :wink:

Some of you might recall zines. This little self-publishing trend was "big in the 1990s" (and late 1980s) but faded...yet still survives in altered form. Zines tend to be wordy and personal, but there are a very few place-based ones. LIke "Brooklyn" and "Geneva" (both from NY...Brooklyn and Geneva, NY). And theres going to be one...this summer I hope...from Dayton. I plan on reworking some Urban Ohio posts and posts from my old blog, + new material, into a Dayton-oriented zine. Tentatively titled "The Dayton Documentation Project", since the main theme will be to document the vacant/abandoned cityscape before the bulldozers get to it...plus the usual historical/geographical/vernacular architecture hoo-hah y'all come to know and love from my posts here. There will be some "people stuff' too, to give a bit of human interest (just talking about buildings is boring and cold)...mostly music/art things, but also person-on-the-street pix, like they used to have in the old (as in 1980s-era) i-D (which started as a zine, I think). Of course, with stuff like this, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound?". So I have to distribute it somehow. Obviously Id be sending it out to review zines like Xerography Debt, Broken Pencil, Zine World, maybe MaximumRR (since they do zine reveiws beyond just music stuff). But I'd like to do a hard-copy distro to music stores and bookstores here in Ohio (& maybe in Lexington and Louisville and Indy). Interestingly I have no intered in distributing this in Dayton proper since the audience is envisioned to be out-of-town people. The question is HOW and WHERE? Any advice? My first attempt at this was maybe Shake-It Records in Cincy. I talked to the owner or manager there and he said he'd have to look at it before he'd agree to it. We didnt even talk about pricing or how that would work. So I need some advice. How would one do this. How is it usually done....selling self-published (really self-xeoroxed) stuff in record or book stores? Or maybe this doesnt make much sense and I should stick to publicizing via review zines.

Been listening to Deer Tick, The Civil Wars, Gomez, and "Head and the Heart", but keep coming back to Blitzentrappers "Black River Killer" EP....just some sweet retro 70s country/prog/folk-rock going on there.

Heres what I know about a Lexington/Louisville proposal, though the article says the line would extend beyond Lex to Winchester One Mans Train of Thought ...its more a local/commuter type concept, not HSR or express service, that is discussed.

Walking by the storefronts in the Oregon District, a landscape architecture firm has one of these and different site plans are posted for 'MidPark', which looks like it will be that old housing project site. Fairly unispired stuff, from what I can tell. Blocky buidlings and landscaped parking lots. It looks maybe suburban, maybe "Greene" -esque at best. Too bad because that project site is a nice parklike area now. I dont know why they dont just retain it as a big neighborhood park. Something they dont have enough of in Dayton

It would be interested to see how much has been added or subtracted to this map

^ I wonder if this is related to that Franfort econ dev guys effort to restart passenger service between Louisville and Lexington. This guy or office things it would be of benefit to Franffort to get the service running. I think I posted on this elsewhere. Ouch!

Down to 3.25/gal! Time for some road-trips!

Incidentally, that courthouse tower is indentified on modern navigation charts as a landmark for navigation.

Sandusky does have one of the best harbors on Lake Erie, and it tried to make up for losing the canal by proposing the first rail road in the state. Ironically it was prposed to terminate at Dayton, making a connection with the canal up from Cincinnati, so...if completed...it would have been mutually beneficial to both Sandusky and Dayton (as a transhipment point of sorts). Daytonians didnt see it that way because they didnt support the completion of this railroad with a subsidy. So the "Mad River Railroad" terminated at...Springfield, making Springfield an early railroad junction point. Dayton finally relented and stock subscriptions sold and the Mad River Railroad was opened in 1851, I think, being the first railroad to arrive in Dayton. Though it got the railroad first, Sandusky wasnt able to profit too much by it because railroads were also built inland cross-country from competitor cities that had canals...Toledo and Cleveland..... Yet, for its days as a lake port, Sandusky has some great old stuff. I see they remodelled one of those old industrial piers to lofts or offices or something. That was an impressive hulk, from what I remember form my Sandusky trip of many years ago. The city should be the tourist hub for the region and the jumping-off port for "the Islands". It could be cool....an urban destination spot but with water sports and boating and also access to the islands.

Well, well, from back in 2005, predictions of a none-to-bright future....hmm....

Wow.....man...so much for "urban Ohio". Instead folks want to keep the 'city' at bay. @@@ We are pretty close to that. There are a lot of parallels. The "crust" here..in this banana area.... is actually pretty vibrant and suburbia is rather nice. In fact Dayton has some of the nicest suburbs around. The city itself is dying, aside from some historical district restoration areas. A big difference is that urban demolition hasnt really taken off here. The city has taken out A LOT of housing areas since the start of Urban Renewal decades ago...actually even earlier via industrial down-zoning...but this was sort of a planned culling of housing stock via replacement with light industry, institutianal growth, freeway construction, etc. Now, however, one of every four "dwelling unit" (houses and apartments) are vacant in Dayton CIty, but they havnt all been torn down yet. So the Detroit-style little-house-on-the-urban-prairie environment is just starting up here, and we are seeing more the gap-tooth effect...though in some areas there is more open space than houses on blocks. The big urban prairie areas here are due to industrial demolitions, so you see a lot of open space where factories used to be. Dayton has been pretty well de-industrialized, too. I should say all this office development has pretty much emptied out downtown. Maybe around 30% vacancy downtown, and entire buildings are shuttered.

I was being sarcastic and sort of reporting on hearsay when I posted that, but then there was that controversy about RTA extending their WSU service as a loop down Pentagon Blvd and to Fairfield Commons, and I couldnt believe what I posted ended up being actually true! To be honest I wouldnt have believed it if I didnt see it myself ....that people actually DID have these anit-bus attitudes, where I was just being snarky in a worst-case sort of way. I'm still not over this. It left a real bad taste in my mouth in re the Dayton area and the people who live here, whats under that "Midwest Nice" veneer. Thank You! Though I should say I cribbed this concept from some French geographer or economist, who wrote about the "Blue Banana" over in Europe.

Prices in Dayton have dropped to below 3:40/gallon (at one station). Most are still in the low 3:40s. Which is interesting in light of the summer driving season being where we'd expect rises in prices?

^ One wonders if this recent spike was enough to shatter the recovery that was underway. Also interesting to see the highs in delivery either side of the turn of the century...maybe people travelling more and maybe even sprawling sububan development where people were buying further and further out do to the real estate boom? I notice gas prices are down pretty far from what they were earlier in the year...probably subject for another thread

Fascinating. Look at the magnitude of the drop vis a vis earlier recessions.

Wow..its been awhile! Theres a cool new mid-rise hospital up across the street from Pentagon Park in the nothern end of the Banana, and that proposed hospital at Wilmington Pike & I-675 is complete and open. Teradata moved into their new building...and shortly therafter moved OUT to a NEW building at Austin Boulevard, further south....

Maybe it was nice..now it's becoming quite empty! They tore down that housing project in the pix, and its now a fairly extensive lawn with a few trees (part of the project landscaping but saved when they tore out the buildings and pavements). So there is this nice big de-facto park, which could be extended if they tear out the rest of the houses and also take out the streets, and sod and seed the vacant spots. This area could be a big urban park between South Park and US 35.

US Conference of Mayors has a report out on how there wont be a jobs recovery for many years...if ever....for a number of Ohio places. Many Cities Face a Long Wait for Jobs To Return Among the largest metropolitan regions that will have a long road to recovery are manufacturing centers in Ohio and Michigan, where huge waves of layoffs at car plants and other factories affected thousands of workers. “The type of jobs lost are not easily replaced,” said Lucious Plant, work force development manager in Montgomery County, which includes Dayton and surrounding communities. The region was overwhelmed by thousands of job losses at plants operated by General Motors and the parts supplier Delphi Automotive. The report says Dayton metro area may have to wait until after 2020 to return to pre-recession 2000s, "peak"...but has been losing jobs in the 2000s before the recession. From the report: FIGURE 7: LARGE METROS RETURNING TO PEAK IN 2020 OR BEYOND (Thousands of Jobs) Peak Trough Net loss Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor 1,075.4 991.1 84.3 Dayton 404.4 369.0 35.4 Detroit-Warren-Livonia 1,973.7 1,730.7 243.0 Toledo 335.3 294.7 40.6 Youngstown-Warren-Boardman 241.1 218.0 23.1 PDF Source ...an earlier version of this says Dayton will be returning to post recession employment after 2025! Wow.

Seeing that some time has passed I can come back here and take pix of the vacant lots where the houses used to be.

^ sorry, dont recall the reason why they tore it down. In 1970 a lot of this part of downtown was still intact...believe it o not