Jeffery

The center entrance makes the look like the double decker commuter cars they use in Chicago. I think this might be a different design, though.

^ You know there is fairly recent ag census out (2007) for Ohio that has a lot of good stat data on Warren and other Ohio counties. You can actually see how many full and part time farm operators are left in the county.

From the article: I'm familiar with this. This was an experiment by HUD to track vacancies outside of the decennial census count. They wanted to get more up-to-date information. It turns out the USPS keeps records of vacancies by address on their courier routes. They also keep record of when addressess "disappear" (ie the house gets torn down or is boarded up or something..not sure which). So HUD worked with USPS to set up a database on this, which is available somewhere on the HUD website (I recall surfing into it once) Anyone can use it. It looks like the AP did actually work with the data to track vacancy. As for OTR, well, they could have done Price Hill instead. It also could be that the renovation action at OTR hasn't overtaken the vacancy rate yet, too.

Hah, I remember those! They had them around Cleveland, too?

Hmm..this is an interesting thread. I think the first "microcomputer" I saw was maybe an Altair or early Apple, as part of some sort of high school engineering contest at UofL. That event was were I saw my first screen monitor (they had some sort of Star Trek game running on it). This would have been 1977. The first time I actually interacted with a comptuer was 1973...i as in jr high but me and a buddy somehow got access to the Honeywell teletype terminal connected to the mainframe at UofL. I think did a simple BASIC program on it. I recall the "storage" was computer tape. I was already familiar with that as my dad was a machinest and worked with "tape machines", (sort of primitive computerized manufacturin?). The Honeywell connected to UofL mainframevia a telephone modem. We used to use the chads from the tapes as confetti during pep ralleys.

KJP and I must be close in age after reading his bit. There was quite a bit of that music around in cities with large black communities. We had WLOU, "the Souuuuul of Louisville". Dont know if I'd call Neil Young Heavy Metal...I can see him having hard rock moments, though. I think for my generation Heavy Metal would be bands like: Deep Purple Mountain Black Sabbath Led Zepplin ..oh,, I dont know, Bad Company and Aerosmith maybe. And I guess Van Halen though VH never did anything for me. I liked Bad Company, though. Didnt find out until a few years ago they were English It's been a long time. There was stuff that was "hard rock" back in the 1960s but I dont think Id call it heavy metal, Like Cream and Hendrix, of course.

A bit of historic trivia: Jackson was part of the Hanging Rock iron district, which was a cluster of small scale blast furnaces that developed before the Civil War. Amazingly enough two furnances continued in operation into modern times: Globe Iron (exploded in 1960 and closed, now the site of a shopping center) JISCO (closed in 1969) Jackson: Furnances of the 20th Century

One of the big differences between Columbus and Indianapolis are the large neighborhood parks. Goodale on the north and Schiller on the south. And maybe Wolfe Park on the east. Indy doesnt have that. They may seem superficially similar but Columbus and Indianapolis have fairly different "feels" to them, at least based on my brief visits to Indy. Hard to quantify it or nail it down, but they are not as similar as they first appear.

I like what they did with that canal. Stuff like that usually never gets beyond the plans and renderings, but they actually executed the plan. Don't know enough about the place to say, but it seems they had a similar thing happen as Louisville, where they lost their close-in neighborhoods, with only Lockerbie Square surviving ...which is I guess also similar to what happened in Columbus. You really start picking up older housing beyond the freeways, though, to the north and east and that Fountain Square area to the SE.

Lockerbie Square is just a tad smaller than the Oregon.

The inflation isnt going to come from wages, based on the Fed report. Probably from gas & oil, which I see is going up again.

Back on topic. The Cleveland Fed's Beige Book from April 15. Dont know if this has been posted. It looks like this will be the "summer of our dicontent" in terms of the recession trough. Beige Book Execerpts for the goods producing sector: Construction The residential construction industry remains very weak; however, builders are less pessimistic than earlier in the year. Contractors believe that low interest rates and tax credits for first-time buyers may contribute to a broader sales uptick in the coming months. Nonetheless, an industry turnaround will not occur until consumer confidence improves significantly and excess inventory is pared down. Two contacts noted that they are waiting for federal stimulus money to begin construction of low-income housing. Little change in list prices of new homes was noted, though some builders are discounting, especially for older spec houses. We continue to see some downward pressure on building material prices, particularly for lumber. General contractors reported that they are now operating with skeleton crews. Reports on commercial and industrial construction activity were mixed. A couple of builders said that their business is down due in part to intense bidding competition. Others characterized business as good and said they are slowly adding to their backlogs. Market segments cited as showing some stability were education, healthcare, and public works. Although obtaining project financing remains a big concern industrywide, most respondents are guardedly optimistic in their outlook for the remainder of 2009. Construction material prices continue to decline, while subcontractors are readily available at very competitive rates. We did not hear any reports of layoffs. Manufacturing Reports from District factories were mixed. Manufacturers of products used in industrial applications said that they continue to see a downward trajectory in orders. In contrast, there was a slight pickup in orders for products oriented toward the consumer market. However, several respondents noted that any increased production could be attributed to seasonal adjustments or the exit of market competitors. On a year-over-year basis, factory output fell by about 24 percent on average. Manufacturers expect demand will remain very soft during the next few months. Almost all steel producers and service centers reported a worse-than-expected slump in shipping volume. The only end markets cited as showing some stability were agricultural equipment and defense-related firms. Most survey respondents believe that the demand for steel will stabilize at current low levels through the second quarter. District auto production showed a significant rise during February on a month-over-month basis. The upturn is attributable to the restart of auto assembly plants after an extended year-end shutdown. On a year-over-year basis, both domestic makers and foreign nameplates experienced a precipitous drop in production, part of which is due to the permanent closing of a plant that produced SUVs (that would be the Moraine plant here in Dayton) Almost all of our contacts reported that their capital budgets are frozen or have been trimmed back significantly. Little change in spending is expected in the upcoming months. Manufacturers participating in credit markets noted that they experienced little or no difficulty in obtaining financing for long-term or short-term uses. (which indicates the credit crunch is more on the RE side)Since our last report, raw material prices and product pricing have remained stable or declined, with metals accounting for most of the decline. Little inflationary pressure is expected during 2009. Almost all of our survey respondents continue to lay off employees or increase the number of nonproduction days. Predictably, wage pressures are contained.

The kicker are the hold-outs. There are always some houses that are still occupied, owner-occupied, where the owner doesnt want to leave, even though the block is mostly vacant. So to make this neighborhood removal thing work youd have to force these people to sell, which could be politically dicey. Maybe there are ways to do this without force, like waiting out the hold out and buying them out when he or she is ready to sell, or clear the neighborhood around them (tearing out streets and utilities) and giving them some sort of tax rebate after the city stops maintaining the street they live on. It's usually not that simple, though as Ive seen some cases every street in a neighborhood has one or two houses still occupied. Maybe Im getting too hung up on the practicalities to do this. There is also a cost issue. To truley remove neighborhoods and return the land to forest or prairie would mean you'd have to remove the streets,curbs,sidewalks and maybe the underground utilities (though I guess they could be left buried but valved-off), which would cost some money.

Southwest Ohio has a solid festival cutlure, so this plays right into that. Good idea:

Though not shown here, the reaches of the Great Miami south of Fairfield are quite scenic, as the river flows through a valley surrounded in most cases by high bluffs, starting south of Fernald. The confluene with the Ohio is, unfortunatly, inaccessible as I think it's on the property of a big powerplant. It's been years since I've been down there so don't recall for sure.

I thought this sign was cool, especially the hack on the Big O logo: A good example of “big government” in the background…RTA hub renovated via Federal grants: Socialism vs the American Dream. Cue Mike Davis: Prisoners of the American Dream Always liked this flag… Some political ground truth for metro Dayton (why this was so well attended…weak support for Obama vis a vis the rest of “urban Ohio”state): And now the briefing: Big Government in the Dayton MSA. All these are metro area numbers (Counties: Darke, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble): Comparing the private sector payroll (including sole proprietorships and farm operator/farm worker income) vs federal spending. This is gross spending, not subtracting tax revenues from the MSA. And two big pie slices. Some “defense” things like veterans benefits and impact aid and a few other things are in the “non defense” slice, but not enough to really change this more than 1 or 2 percentage points Opening up the non-defense category and taking a closer look at “welfare” (in this case more than TANF) And revisiting the entire federal pie, but grouping medical aid as its’ own category. …yeah,the high cost of health care is biting the Feds as much as its biting the rest of us. And, finally, a look at runaway spending in one Federal program: Food Stamps. This was not indexed to inflation until last year, single adults are time limited, and recipients have to be recertified at least annually, so what you are seeing is true program growth. Longer term look, showing how food stamps relates to the business cycle, until recently at least And a guess on what might account for the increased growth even though unemployment had leveled off (bars shaded in a nice blue-collar blue): Fun stuff! (if you are a geek) Sources are: Federal Funds Report (census) County Business Patterns (census) Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2007 Census of Agriculture