BigDipper 80

I figured I'd break away this discussion from the Gerrymandering thread so that there'd be a place to discuss the quirks, benefits, and shortcomings of how Ohio's various forms of local governments are laid out, as well as a place for discussing the functions of these different governmental units and how they interact with one another. I've been trying to figure out townships for a while, and I'll start by carrying over a few thoughts from the other thread: The reason suburban Ohioans like to live in townships is because townships can't have an income tax like cities can. I think this is absurd. Once you have a certain level of population, the local government needs to provide basic services to them, and should incorporate as a city, or be annexed by an adjacent city. Michigan takes it a step further in the wrong direction. They allow townships to incorporate as a "charter township" which prevents them from being annexed by nearby cities. Continuing on and paraphrasing myself, when townships have essentially developed into fully-fledged cities and/or have beneficial population or commercial resources, what's stopping other nearby cities from annexing them? Wouldn't Hamilton want parts of West Chester and Liberty Township, or are the legal/other barriers too high to start grabbing up that land?

^Sorry for continuing to take this off topic, but as a follow-up, why don't any of the surrounding cities try and annex parts of West Chester? I know the threat of annexation by Dayton is why Kettering, Riverside and Trotwood all ended up incorporating, but no one seems to "want" West Chester, unless townships have some legal method of staving off annexation that I'm unaware of, or Fairfield or Hamilton just don't have the means to take on parts of the township.

I was actually doing a thought experiment re: townships the other day with a friend. Are their any practical benefits to monster townships like West Chester remaining unincorporated beyond the township taxation structure? Not that it would ever get signed into law and there's probably all sorts of other legal issues with this idea, but would there be any good reason to force incorporation of a township if it reaches a certain population or population density?

That Xenia/Keowee/35/Wayne intersection is an absolute disaster. I don't know why anyone thought that was a good idea when they laid it out. Bike lanes and bumpouts would help out Wayne for sure. It's not a pleasant experience in its current form.

Why's everyone moving to Midland? Lots of new oil jobs?

^Going along with both this and what jonoh81 said upthread, Columbus has easily the most open-arms policy of any Ohio city with respect to welcoming newbies. I think it's much easier to get scared away by the insane political/cultural crap that happens in Cleveland and particularly in Cincinnati (as outlined in a recent Aaron Renn post about a guy who briefly moved to somewhere in Ohio from the Pacific Northwest but couldn't handle the hostility) than it is in Columbus, where you don't have a John Cranley running around blocking developments or a Jimmy Dimora using taxpayer money to buy hookers. I'm still not sure that Columbus has enough "branding capital" to become a Nashville or an Austin (unless some flagship SXSW-type event pops up that gets nationally popular), but I can very easily see Columbus becoming a northern Charlotte; a sort of "second city" to Chicago the way Charlotte is to Atlanta. Not as many skyscrapers, not quite as culturally interesting, but a strong city in its own right that's very liveable. Which by many measures and in my humble opinion, it already is.

The more stuff that gets added to Wayne, the happier I am. That street is going to be very different in the next 3-5 years between Third and Wyoming.

Do Floridians not understand what trains are?

Way back when they did an open house/tour of the buildings, they said that they hoped to get their Mexican restaurant concept up and running by October. As far as I can tell, they haven't even made any progress whatsoever on that space (the corner of 3rd and Jefferson, north of Century). The only tenants they've gotten so far is that tattoo parlor and the funk museum, but overall there has been very little visible work on any of the buildings. And their social media all seems to be fairly dead. That said, I did bump into one of the guys at Century Bar a month or so back, so they haven't totally fled town to leave the buildings' fate up in the air, I guess.

Oh god, I can already picture a huge "CLIMAX" marquee flashing brightly over downtown Cleveland.

It’s not like Hyde Park doesn’t already have even bigger apartment complexes already, there’s that 19 story tower behind Withrow. Maybe that building is less scary because it’s surrounded by some nice friendly (useless) “green space”?

Downtown Dayton to get new restaurant The owners of the Olive Mediterranean Grill at 6129 N. Dixie Drive in Dayton have signed a lease for about 5,000 square feet of space located on the ground floor of the building at the southeastern corner of West Third and Ludlow streets. More below: https://www.dayton.com/news/breaking-news/downtown-dayton-get-new-restaurant/8GJ9Jfq7sBJNE12hq0YkjK/ Glad to see more places starting to open west of Main. The western half of downtown is still really lagging behind Webster Station and Ballpark Village/Water Street.

Art Institute, Arcade, Funk Museum, Boonshoft projects win state funds Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a two-year capital budget plan on Friday. The $2.6 billion budget included money for major local projects including the downtown Arcade, Dayton Art Institute, Boonshoft Museum and the new Funk Museum. “The General Assembly and the governor stayed true to their word and efficiently passed a strong capital budget that invests in vital economic development and community priorities in the Dayton region. The Dayton area business community, Dayton area legislators and the administration were well-coordinated in a joint effort to ensure these important investments come to fruition,” said Phil Parker, president and CEO of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. More below: https://www.dayton.com/news/local-govt--politics/art-institute-arcade-funk-museum-boonshoft-projects-win-state-funds/jtLtfmkWAtwhqlyFdGSpIK/

Great news - it’ll be nice that Dayton will have essentially a new fleet within the next few years.

Yeah, Cleveland only built about 5 skyscrapers in the 80s, and really only 3 of them are noteworthy: the National City tower (1980), One Cleveland Center (1983), and 200 Public Square (1985). You could probably argue that Key Tower was an "80s tower" despite opening in 1991. It's still amazing to me that Cleveland managed to get such a huge skyscraper. It still dwarves most towers in the midwest outside of Chicago.

Eh, I have a love-hate with Denver. They're definitely doing a lot "right" from an urbanism perspective, but the infill is next-level ugly for the most part and if you want to go somewhere other than the mountains, much less another city, you're S.O.L. It is on the "Kansas side" of Colorado after all! :P But I do understand why it appeals to a lot of people - in fact my uncle just bought a house near City Park, which is a wonderful resource, and some of the older neighborhoods like Curtis Park compare nicely to the Victorian working class neighborhoods that dot Midwestern cities.

I guess I mean "undervalued" in the sense that, for a good chunk of urban professional Millennials, there really aren't huge quality-of-life differences between many American cities. From percentage standpoint, I personally feel like I get better bang-for-my-buck here in Ohio than I would in San Francisco or Denver. My dollar goes farther and I don't necessarily feel like I'm missing out on all the "cool stuff" these other highly expensive towns offer. Of course, other peoples' mileage (obviously) varies, but I think there are a lot of people who simply don't realize that there actually are things to do in the Midwest. That's what I meant by "undervalued".

^It's been shown before that one of the best ways to combat poverty and the other societal ills that come along with it is to "dilute" the concentration of it, so SWOH isn't really off-base here. If you want to get people off welfare or out of the influence of drugs and crime, put them somewhere where they can get those resources. I for one am happy to share the relative sanctuary of my neighborhood in west Dayton with those less fortunate. We're a good mix of income and race and as a result it's a relative oasis compared to the severe concentrations of poverty across much of the rest of West Dayton.

What are all these people going to do when they reach middle age and realize, "oh crap, I've spent everything I make on housing and have next to nothing in retirement savings"? I always hear from people online that "yeah housing is cheap in the Midwest but you also have to take a paycut", but I'd argue that housing is actually incredibly undervalued and that while you probably would have to take a pay cut, you'd still be paying a much smaller percentage of your income as housing costs than you would if you were making more money elsewhere.

This is both a long-shot and probably not the most perfect place to ask this question, but I'm trying to track down a quote I read somewhere, but I have no idea where it possibly came from. It was something along the lines of "If Cincinnati is the Paris of the West, then Dayton is the Vienna" referring to the industry and innovation of the Miami Valley, but I can't find it on the internet anywhere. It might have come from a book, but I don't remember. Does it sound familiar to any of our handful of Dayton historians?

Is there any reason that, way in the past, a canal was never dug across any of the Cuyahoga peninsulas? Obviously there's the cut at the mouth of Lake Erie, but it seems strange that no one ever did bother to cut across to skip Collision Bend. Maybe ship weren't really big enough at the time to warrant it?

I'd be interested in learning more about the post-highway situations where the "downtown" did effectively still manage to move. I'm mostly thinking about Atlanta, with how Midtown and Bucktown are arguably bigger and healthier than the actual "downtown" portion of Atlanta. I guess you could ask the same thing of Los Angeles, but L.A. is really its own beast as far as development patterns go.

Literally right behind Good Sam, parallel to Clifton and runs between Dixmyth and Ludlow.

I used to cut down Nixon Street to pick up a coworker when I lived in Clifton, and it's a miracle I never hopped the curb at Bishop and drove into the Burnet Woods pond during the wintertime. When I lived on Whitfield, right where it comes down the hill and then climbs back up to meet Dixmyth, we'd sit out on the porch in the winter and just watch the imbeciles get trapped at the bottom of the hill and smash into each other. We called the police to ask if they'd put up a warning sign or something and they told us they didn't have the ability to block off the street because of dangerous conditions. More entertainment for us, I guess.

If it does survive, someone should commission Artworks to paint a giant Kool-Aid man mural on the side in homage.